Dickenson2

Emily Dickenson was one of America's most famous, and prominent female poets during the mid-1800's. Born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, she truly lived an American life. Her prominent family thrived and basically created Amherst College. At the age of eighteen, youthful Dickinson dated a young attorney who introduced her to the writings of William Wordsworth and to poetry. She noted him in her later poems as her mentor.
 * __Emily Dickenson__**

Known as an eccentric, odd recluse by the rest of the world, Dickinson kept friendships through letters and spent her life writing, as opposed to socializing. Dickinson died in 1886. In the last few years of her life, beginning in 1867 with the death of her dog Carlo and the abandonment of her maid, Dickinson became the subject of much gossip around town, known notoriously as 'The Woman In White'. Very rarely did anyone outside her home get a glimpse of her, and when they did, she was always wearing white. She wouldn't to speak face-to-face with visitors, talking through the door and never letting them in, sometimes refusing even to leave her room. Her only remaining article of clothing is a white dress. During her lifetime, she was known primarily for her gardening, and less than a dozen of her almost 1,800 poems were published, that too under heavy editing to fit the poetry rules of the time period. Hidden for all of her life, her poems were finally introduced to the public in 1890 by her sister, Lavinia, who had found them in Dickinson's possessions. After burning all of Dickinson's letters per her direction, Lavinia was befuddled as to what was to happen to the notebooks she found. After reading them, she realized the worth in her sister's writing, and began trying to get them published. Dickinson's work was mostly ignored or scoffed at during the 19th and 20th centuries. Her style of writing was unconventional and didn't fit with standard rules of poetry, and most critics expressed disdain at her unusual poems. However, today she is recognized as being ahead of her time in her works and style, and greatly admired.

Emily Dickenson's writing style very much leaves her legacy as a hero. She is remembered as an "innovative, pre-modernist poet" that introduced a new wave and style of literature into American history.