Emily Dickinson: Beyond the Myth

Emily Dickinson Beyond the Myth has 37 ratings and 8 reviews. Andre Jute said: I 've been reading a novel of the life of Emily Dickinson by Patricia Sierr.
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11 Poetic Facts about Emily Dickinson

Dickinson's terse, frequently imagistic style is even more modern and innovative than Whitman' s. She never uses two words when one will do, and combines concrete things with abstract ideas in an almost proverbial, compressed style. Her best poems have no fat; many mock current sentimentality, and some are even heretical. She sometimes shows a terrifying existential awareness.

Like Poe , she explores the dark and hidden part of the mind, dramatizing death and the grave. Yet she also celebrated simple objects -- a flower, a bee. Her poetry exhibits great intelligence and often evokes the agonizing paradox of the limits of the human consciousness trapped in time. She had an excellent sense of humor, and her range of subjects and treatment is amazingly wide.

Her poems are generally known by the numbers assigned them in Thomas H. Johnson's standard edition of They bristle with odd capitalizations and dashes.

Entitled Opinions - A Conversation on Emily Dickinson

A nonconformist, like Thoreau she often reversed meanings of words and phrases and used paradox to great effect. Much Madness is divinest sense -- To a discerning Eye -- Much Sense -- the starkest Madness -- 'Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail -- Assent -- and you are sane -- Demur -- you're straightway dangerous And handled with a chain -- Her wit shines in the following poem , which ridicules ambition and public life: Are you -- Nobody -- Too? Then there's a pair of us? They had an open marriage.

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She knew about his philandering, and he knew about her affair with Austin Dickinson soon after it started. Two years into their marriage, the couple moved to Amherst, Mass. Austin Dickinson was 53 years old when he and Mabel confessed their love for each other. He was a leading citizen of the town, a lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College.

Mabel Loomis Todd, the Adulteress Who Made Emily Dickinson Famous - New England Historical Society

He and his wife and children lived next door to his invalid mother and reclusive sisters, Lavinia and Emily, who Mabel called 'the climax of all the family oddity. Emily listened to Mabel from the shadows of the hall, but she never appeared. Her mother listened from upstairs. When Mabel stopped singing, Emily sent in a glass of sherry and a poem she wrote during the concert. Mabel then described Emily as a 'genius' in many respects.


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Emily frequently sent her flowers and poems, wrote Mabel, and, 'we have a very pleasant friendship in that way. The next night, Austin and Mabel paused on their way to a whist party and confessed their love for each other. Pretty soon everyone in town knew about the affair. She liked sex and described it in her diary: Bliss unutterable" and, "A little Heaven just after dinner.

After Emily died in , Lavinia destroyed her letters and asked Austin's wife to make sure Emily's poems were published.

Emily Dickinson

Within two years, 11 editions were printed. Austin died of overwork in He had bequeathed a piece of land to Mabel and David Todd, who had remained a friend despite his affair with his wife. Lavinia challenged the bequest in court and won. As a result of the falling out, the Todd and Dickinson families split Emily's manuscripts.

With thanks to Austin and Mabel: Thank you very much for this overview on all things Dickinson-Todd-Amherst. Intriguing to say the least, the dynamic between the families, the affair, the complexities in social-cultural norms in that time period. As a regional historian in Cincinnati, Ohio I appreciate the revealing, candid and illuminating overview of the cast of real characters in this human drama in Amherst.