Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American poet whose highly compressed language, unconventional punctuation, slant rhyme, and sustained engagement with death, nature, consciousness, faith, and identity made her one of the defining figures of American poetry. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent local family, she studied at Amherst Academy and attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for approximately one year before returning to Amherst. Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems, most of which remained unpublished during her lifetime, although she shared many poems and letters with friends, relatives, and correspondents including Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Her poetry was heavily influenced by the literary and religious culture of nineteenth-century New England as well as writers such as William Shakespeare, the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, and John Keats. After her death in 1886, her sister Lavinia discovered the extensive body of manuscripts, leading to the publication of selected poems in 1890, but early editors altered Dickinson’s punctuation, capitalization, wording, and syntax. More faithful editions gradually restored her original manuscripts, particularly through Thomas H. Johnson’s 1955 edition and later scholarly editions. Dickinson’s work is now regarded as central to the American poetic canon, particularly for its radical compression, ambiguous syntax, formal experimentation, and unusually intimate treatment of psychological and existential experience.