Introduction to Emily Dickinson | The Poetry of Emily Dickinson | Dr. Abigail Rawleigh

Welcome to The Poetry of Emily Dickinson! In this lecture, we'll get to know the basics of Emily Dickinson's life and work. We'll also begin to develop an understanding of close reading and literary analysis that we'll apply to our reading of Dickinson moving forward.
Guiding question(s): Who was Emily Dickinson? How should we approach reading her poetry?
Today's readings:
288 “I’m Nobody”
657 “I dwell in Possibility-”
1129 “Tell all the truth but tell it slant-”
1263 “There is no frigate like a book”
1287 “In this short life”
(Numbering from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson)
Read ahead for next week: abigailrawleig...

[@Khatoon170]

Emily Dickinson poetry is filled with moments of ambiguous meanings because, she focuses on topics that do not have definitives , interpretation such as lighting , truth , infinite. Nevertheless she explores subjects not for purpose of seeking answer but for sake of exploring them . Main themes of her poems are literary themes common to her era love , death , sentiments, war , religion . She did differently from her contemporaries. Her famous poem hope with features . She used dashes to create pauses indicate emphasis’, create sense of rhymes. Tone of her poems pessimistic, depressing, very dark , gloomy. Symbols of her poems she used child , field of grain , sunset . She is inspired, have heavily influenced by seventeenth century poets especially metaphysical poets . Iam so sorry to be little long but reading and writing both are great ways to improve our English as non native speakers.