Connections between Dickinson’s Life and Themes Essay -- Biography

Many people in the world today misunderstand and judge other people. This represents people throughout time. In the mid to late 1800s, people judged Emily Dickinson and never really knew who she was. Her life was a mystery to most people because all they knew was her reclusive self. She wrote at the end of the Romantic Period but is also referred to as a writer from the Realist era due to her focusing on negative aspects of life. Writing over 1,770 poems, Dickinson published only seven throughout her lifetime (Dommermuth-Costa 105). People never realized her talent until after she was dead and her sister, Lavinia, took her poems to be published (104). Without intending to do so, Dickinson affected American Romanticism through her writings and her knowledge (104). She wrote unconventional, but her poems were unique by lacking a title and using different punctuation (104). People can learn about Emily Dickinson without just reading her biography. Her poetry reveals many aspects of her life such as solitude, pain, religion, love, and death. Emily Dickinson’s life greatly influenced her poetry. Dickinson’s poetry possesses the idea of solitude just as her life did. â€Å"There is a Solitude of Space† says that a person can find anonymity in the privacy of her home (Dommermuth-Costa 56). In addition, â€Å"The Soul Selects Her Own Society† contains a description of a soul that freely chooses to close itself off from the world to pursue solitude in order to help with her creativity and self-discovery, which is what Dickinson decided to do with her life (â€Å"The Soul Select†). In the first stanza of â€Å"The Soul Selects Her Own Society,† the speaker describes the soul shutting a door, an image of an individual deliberately closing herself away (â€Å"The So... ...(â€Å"Because I Could†). Dickinson spent most of her time in bed from November 1885 because she was suffering from Bright’s disease, a very serious disease of the liver (Dommermuth-Costa 101). She went into a coma on May 13, 1886 and never regained consciousness (101). Dickinson’s fascination with death reflects the theme of death in her poetry. In conclusion, Emily Dickinson’s life inspired her poetry’s themes. Her experience with her solitude and religious ideals added to the truth behind some of her poems. Additionally, her pain experienced from deaths and her fascination with death portrayed an individual’s true feelings toward death. Her love life greatly influenced her poetry because many people did not know about her having any kind of relationships with people. Overall, reading Emily Dickinson's poetry helps a person discover the many experiences of her life.