WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Great Men Back Then: Emily Dickinson

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

Emily Dickinson, although one of America's most influential poets, only published about 10 poems while living. The other roughly 1,800 poems were discovered after she died. Listen to learn more of her life and influence. 

You are listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Lauren Scott, and this is Great Men Back Then, the show where we talk about, great people in American history. Most poets that we study throughout American history were at least a little bit famous or well-known while they were alive. However, this is not the case for the poet that we will be talking about today. Although Emily Dickinson wrote about 1,800 poems throughout her life, only about 10 of them were published while she was alive, and even those 10 were heavily edited and censored at the time. Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, to a wealthy family. She grew up at her family's homestead, which was in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although this was a time where not many women had the opportunity to be educated

because of Dickinson's family and their prominence in the community of Amherst, she was able to spend seven years studying at Amherst Academy. While she was studying, she took classes in English and classical literature, as well as Latin, botany, geology, and history. It was from a very young age that Dickinson started to think about very grave matters of life. In the year of 1844, whenever Dickinson was only 14 years old, her cousin and also a close friend, she grew ill, and then she died. And this pretty much traumatized Dickinson as a young girl. Many of her poems focused on the topic of death.

And so we're not sure if this traumatic experience was later talked about in any of her poems since she was not alive whenever most of her poems were discovered. However, it is likely that some of her poems about death reflected this instance. Whenever Dickinson finished her time studying at the academy, she moved on to study at a female seminary. However, she was not there for very long, and it is debated why. Some people suggest that there is evidence that her father missed her and wanted her to return home. Others argue that she was simply just homesick. No matter what the reason is that she left, there is one thing that is clear. She did not keep in touch with any of the girls that were there, and her time there did not amount to any long-lasting friendships.

She returned home and continued her writing that few knew about. She was very much influenced by the writings of William Wordsworth, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson's first book of collected poems. There is also a lot of evidence that suggests that even though she was close to her family in proximity, she spent much of her life, in isolation. Something interesting about her poetry, and I will read some in one moment, is that many of her poems do not have titles. So we simply refer to them as the first line of poetry. I will now read a poem by Dickinson called A bird came down the walk. A bird came down the walk. He did not know I saw. He bit an angle worm in halves and ate the fellow raw. And then he drank ado from a convenience, and then hopped sideways to the wall to let a beetle pass. He glanced with rapid eyes that

hurried all abroad. They looked like frightened beads, I thought. He stirred his velvet head. Like one in danger cautious, I offered him a crumb, and he unrolled his feathers and rode him softer home. Then oars divide the ocean to silver for a seam, or butterflies off banks of noon, leap flashless as they swim. You might have seen in that poem, its title comes from the very first line. This is how most of her poems were because they were not published while she was alive, but rather after she died, so she did not have a chance to give them any titles. Although Dickinson was not famous while she was alive, and she might have been viewed as a little bit different because she spent so much time in isolation. she is regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.

And for this reason, I argue she was great. Thank you for listening to Great Men Back Then. I'm Lauren Scott on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.