Emily Dickinson's This Is My Letter To The World

“This is my letter to the world,-/ That never wrote to me,” (Dickinson) begins a famous poem of Emily Dickinson, one of the most innovative, mysterious, and formidable American poets of the nineteenth century. Her letter to the world- the brilliant body of poetry she left behind- reflects her enriched, yet troubled life. Dickinson’s “This is My Letter to the World” flows from her life’s experience, reveals some of her commonly used techniques, and gives insight into how she may have viewed her own writing. Born in 1830 in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, to the son of one of the community’s leading educators, Dickinson “lived a life as simple, compact, and powerful as any of her poems” (Longworth ii) and grew to become one of the most respected poets in American literature. Her upbringing in Calvinistic Amherst, Massachusetts influenced her prolific body of poetry, as did some traumatic events and special relationships in her life. Dickinson spent her girlhood years with her beloved siblings Austin and Lavinia under the watchful eyes of a devoted, if intellectually nondescript, mother and a stern, ambitious, but loving father. Of her mother, she once said, “She does not care for thought,” and she felt that her father often stared at her “in a curious sort of bewilderment.” (qtd. in …show more content…
Holyoke, a seminary for young women. Upon one occasion, her headmistress requested a formal statement from her students regarding their faith in Jesus Christ; Emily refused to comply. She stayed only one year at Mr. Holyoke, then returned home. Scholars remain uncertain as to the reason of her early departure; some speculate that she suffered from homesickness or that she felt she could not survive in the religious atmosphere of Mt. Holyoke. For the remainder of her twenties, she participated in the marriages of her friends and family members and the births of their children, but she remained single (Longworth