17 pages • 34 minutes read
Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Emily Dickinson first sent Poem 683 as a letter to a friend in Springfield. That context surrounds the poem with mystery. With the possible exception of Edgar Allan Poe, no writer in the American literary canon has provoked as much speculation about their private life and its impact on their work as Emily Dickinson. Although she pioneered the genre of the confessional poem, with its assumption that the emotional lacerations and giddy joys of the poet make for poetry, Dickinson left no diary, nothing to clarify what has remained otherwise a tantalizingly mysterious private life. Few of her poems were ever sent out for publication—early on, her eccentric poems found little interest. Dickinson sent Poem 683 to Samuel Bowles (1826-1878), a prominent newspaper editor and influential journalist living in Springfield (about 20 miles west of Amherst. Bowles would ultimately receive more than 40 of her poems, some submitted for publication, others in letters. That correspondence invites speculation about the nature of the relationship and what Dickinson may have been saying to him in these gnomic poems).
Bowles, a frequent visitor to Amherst, was a close friend of the Dickinson family.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
After great pain, a formal feeling comes
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson