Emily Dickinson's Birthday
Known for: inventive
poetry, mostly published after her death
Occupation: poet
Dates: December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886
Also known as: Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, E.D.
Occupation: poet
Dates: December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886
Also known as: Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, E.D.
Family
- Father: Edward Dickinson (treasurer of Amherst College, state legislator, U.S. Congressman)
- Mother: Emily Norcross
- Two siblings: William Austin 1829-1895, Lavinia 1833-1899
Education
- Amherst Academy (seven years)
- Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (one year)
Emily Dickinson, whose odd and inventive poems helped to initiate modern
poetry, is an enigma, a mystery, a paradox.
Only ten of her poems were published in her lifetime. We know of her work
only because her sister and two of her long-time friends brought them to public
attention.
Most of the poems we have were written in just six years, between 1858 and
1864. She bound them into small volumes she called fascicles, and forty of
these were found in her room at her death.
She also shared poems with friends in letters. From the few drafts of
letters that were not destroyed, at her instruction, when she died, it's
apparent that she worked on each letter as a piece of artwork in itself, often
picking phrases that she'd used years before. Sometimes she changed little, sometimes she changed a
lot.
It's hard to even tell for
sure what "a poem" by Dickinson really "is," because she
changed and edited and reworked so many, writing them differently to different
correspondents
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ReplyDeletenteresting facts about Emily Dickinson
ReplyDeleteEmily left an all-female seminary, which is now Mount Holyoke College, after a year. Homesickness and poor health are speculated reasons, but another popular one is fear of punishment after refusing to publicly profess her faith to the Congregational church.
She was engaged to Rev. George Gould, a student at Amherst College, but her wealthy father broke it off because he was just a poor student.
Most likely the oft-cited affair she had with a married minister in Philadelphia was in fact her young love from Amherst, Rev. George Gould. It's believed that her disappointment upon returning home triggered her initial withdrawal from society.
The last time she left Amherst, MA, was a trip to Boston 12 years before her death. There an eye doctor forbade her to read and write.
She struck up a correspondence with Atlantic Monthly editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and they became lifelong friends. Their relationship is examined in White Heat, a December must read.
Only seven poems were published during her lifetime, and most were anonymous and against her will. She was confident of posthumous success.
Late in life (though she died in middle age at 56), she had a relationship with a Judge Otis Lord, a widower and friend of her father. He even proposed marriage to her, but she turned him down, saying: "Don't you know that you are happiest while I withhold and not confer?"
Though we now know she was no spinster, it's believed that her decision to seclude herself was to secure the independence to write.
After her death, her sister found over 1,000 poems in Emily's bureau. She had them edited and published in three series, but all of her 1,800 poems were not published until 1955.
Emily was referred to as the "Myth of Amherst" throughout her life and, when she took to wearing only white and not leaving her property, the "Nun of Amherst." After her death and subsequent fame, she became the "Belle of Amherst."
George MacDonald (10 December 1824 – 18 September 1905) was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.
ReplyDeleteKnown particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master": "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one day at a train-station bookstall, I began to read. A few hours later," said Lewis, "I knew that I had crossed a great frontier." G. K. Chesterton cited The Princess and the Goblin as a book that had "made a difference to my whole existence."
My favourite poem by E.Dickinson
ReplyDeleteSuccess is Counted Sweetest
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory
As he defeated--dying--
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
I've also found some brief information about one of the foremost English language authors of the 20th century. Margaret Rumer Godden (10 December 1907 – 8 November 1998) was an English author of over 60 fiction and nonfiction books written under the name of Rumer Godden.
ReplyDeleteNine of her books have been made into films. Rumer Godden wrote some 60 works during her life, drawing on her experiences of life in India and Britain.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815 – 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognized as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Because of this, she is often considered the world's first computer programmer.
ReplyDeleteA little Dog that wags his tail
ReplyDeleteAnd knows no other joy
Of such a little Dog am I
Reminded by a Boy
Who gambols all the living Day
Without an earthly cause
Because he is a little Boy
I honestly suppose —
The Cat that in the Corner dwells
Her martial Day forgot
The Mouse but a Tradition now
Of her desireless Lot
Another class remind me
Who neither please nor play
But not to make a "bit of noise"
Beseech each little Boy —
Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe, CBE, known professionally as Barry Cunliffe (born 10 December 1939) is a former Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, a position held from 1972 to 2007. He is now Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to note that despite Dickinson's prolific writing, fewer than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime. After her younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly eighteen hundred poems, Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death. Until the 1955 publication of Dickinson's Complete Poems by Thomas H. Johnson, her poems were considerably edited and altered from their manuscript versions. Since 1890 Dickinson has remained continuously in print.
ReplyDelete