Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson

Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts on December 10,1830, to a prominent family of academics, lawyers, and statesmen. Following her education at Amherst Academy and Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, Dickinson embarked on her impassioned journey as a poet. Composing first in a fairly conventional style, the poetess soon began to experiment with her writing; her frequent use of dashes, sporadic capitalization of nouns, broken meter, and idiosyncratic metaphors made her work unparalleled for its time.

Dickinson's poetry dealt not only with issues of death, faith, and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power of language to transfer emotions into written text. An obsessively private writer, only ten of her some 1,700 poems were published during her lifetime. Dickinson withdrew from social contact at the age of 23 and devoted herself to writing in secret. It wasn't until her death in 1866 that the scope of Dickinson's work was realized, when her sister Lavinia found her prolific collection in a dresser drawer.

Since this time, Emily Dickinson's writing has had significant influences on modern American poetry; her complex use of language and form has contributed to her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of the 19th century. This collection of some of her finest works illustrates not only Dickinson's talent as a writer but her profound love of language, nature, and life.

In the series Classic Thoughts and Thinkers, explore some of the most influential texts of our time along with the inner workings of its greatest thinkers. With works from great American figures such as Theodore Roosevelt and Emily Dickinson and seminal documents including the Constitution of the Unites States, this series focuses on the most reflective and thought-provoking writings of the last two centuries. These beautiful hardcovers are the perfect historical perspective for meeting the challenges of the modern world.
​
Other titles in this series include: As a Man Thinketh, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Collected Poems of Robert Frost, Common Sense, Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence, Helen Keller, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and Theodore Roosevelt's Words of Wit and Wisdom.

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830, Dickinson began life as an energetic, outgoing young woman who excelled as a student. However, in her mid-twenties she began to grow reclusive, and eventually she rarely descended from her room in her father's house. She spent most of her time working on her poetry, largely without encouragement or real interest from her family and peers, and died at age fifty-five. Only a handful of her 1,775 poems had been published during her lifetime. When her poems finally appeared after her death, readers immediately recognized an artist whose immense depth and stylistic complexities would one day make her the most widely recognized female poet to write in the English language. Dickinson's poetry is remarkable for its tightly controlled emotional and intellectual energy. The longest poem covers less than two pages. Yet in theme and tone her writing reaches for the sublime as it charts the landscape of the human soul. A true innovator, Dickinson experimented freely with conventional rhythm and meter, and often used dashes, off rhymes, and unusual metaphors--techniques that strongly influenced modern poetry. Dickinson's idiosyncratic style, along with her deep resonance of thought and her observations about life and death, love and nature, and solitude and society, have firmly established her as one of America's true poetic geniuses.

Rachel Wetzsteon is Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University. She has published two books of poems, The Other Stars and Home and Away.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780894718595
ISBN 10	0894718592
Title	Selected Poems
Author	Emily Dickinson
Series	Miniature Editions
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Running Press
Year published	1990-10-01
Number of pages	128
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.