Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Emily Dickinson (1830–86) was a deceptively quiet nineteenth-century American woman who wrote with the fire, innovation, and skill of a twentieth-century master. Long before the Modernist and feminist movements, Dickinson wrote astonishingly prescient poetry that embodied principles of fragmentation, isolation, independence, and self-reliance. The “half-cracked poetess” and “Belle of Amherst” was misunderstood and mythologized in life and in death, leaving a trail of editors, readers, and scholars perplexed by her idiosyncratic use of meter, rhyme, capitalization, and punctuation.
Dickinson dared to live according to her own rules rather than by conventional social codes and carved a space for herself in a period that allowed women very little room. Often misunderstood as a victim of Victorian culture, Dickinson deliberately worked within cultural constraints, often assuming an ironic and playful stance toward conventional values while finding American individualism, self, and voice through her poetry and letters.
This book is an introduction to the woman behind the myth, to the life, letters, and poetry of one of America's most cherished artists. It is divided into four main chapters: Life, Context, Works, and Reception.
The first chapter of the book provides a portrait of Dickinson's life, from her childhood in Amherst to her momentous decision to retreat from the world and focus on the art of poetry. As a precocious girl, Dickinson loved books, nature, friends, and school. She grew up in a narrow, provincial town where anyone who did not follow the status quo was vilified.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Introduction to Emily Dickinson , pp. vii - ixPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007