Unknown and unpublished in her lifetime, Emily Dickinson’s reputation steadily grew in the twentieth century until she is now considered a major American poet. Her poetry has been translated into many world languages and has influenced generations of poets and artists, with up to two thousand musical settings of her poems currently in existence. Characterized by irregular rhythms, unorthodox syntax, and association of images that literary editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson called “poetry torn up by the roots, with rain and dew and earth still clinging to them”, her poems are difficult and challenging, but richly rewarding.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in the family Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts on Decem

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First published 11 January 2005

Citation: Freeman, Margaret. "Emily Dickinson". The Literary Encyclopedia. 11 January 2005.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1259, accessed 20 November 2009.]