Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in Amherst,Massachusetts on December 10, 1830, to her parents, Emily Norcross and Edward Dickinson. She grew up in a large brick house built by her grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson. Emily had an older brother, William Austin, and a younger sister, Lavinia Norcross.
“Around 1850 Dickinson started to write poems, first in fairly conventional style, but after ten years of practice she began to give room for experiments.” (Online Literature 2000) In 1858 Dickinson began to arrange her works into fascicles, which are packets or bundles of separately published collections or installments of a book. She bound these collections together with a needle and thread.
Dickinson's emotional life remains mysterious, despite much speculation about a possible disappointed love affair. Two candidates have been presented: Reverend Charles Wadsworth, with whom she corresponded, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, to whom she addressed many poems. (Online Literature 2000). This could be one of the main reasons for her poetry. She was able to write about love from her first hand experience.
Dickinson used her talents in poetry, during the Romantic movement, to change and influence American literature and culture. Without meaning to do go, Emily Dickinson impacted American Romanticism greatly. She was so imaginative, wise, and was able to ask questions without making it seem so. “Her frequent use of dashes, sporadic capitalization of nouns, off-rhymes, broken metre, unconventional metaphors have contributed her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of 19th-century American literature.” (Online Literature 2000). She wrote about many topics such as, nature, religion, faith, and love. She even wrote some comical poems. She had a mature voice for someone of her age.
In one of her poems, Because I could not stop for Death, the ideas of Romanticism are quite evident. The first stanza reads, “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.” The subject of human mortality is present in Dickinson’s poem, and the question of what lies beyond death is discussed. This relates directly to the subjects of romanticism; it is clear that in her poem, Dickinson has a desire for knowledge and wisdom, especially for what the future – and eternity – holds.
