Over the years there have been and continue to be many influential authors in American Literature. If there were not the exceptional authors that we have than poems and stories would not have reached the great potential that we see today. One of these exceptional authors would have to be Emily Dickinson. Without Dickinson’s poems American literature would be set back for many years.
For many reasons, Emily Dickinson was a great asset to American literature. Dickinson paved the road for many of the great poets that we see today. During Emily’s life there seemed to be a lack of poetry writers. Emily wrote different from other poets, she not only wrote about all of the different problems in society but she also wrote about he own beliefs in family, love, nature and also about death. With Emily’s poetry surfaced other poets took noticed and expanded on their own writtings.
"No one has persuasively traced the precise stages of Dickinson's artistic growth from the supposedly "somber Girl" to the young woman who, within a few years of her return from Mount Holyoke, began writing a new kind of poetry, with its distinctive voice, style, and transformation of the traditional form" (Baym, 2008, p. 1118).
Dickinson's riddled approach to nature and life shone through in her metaphoric poetry.
Dickinson's riddled approach to nature and life shone through in her metaphoric poetry.
A lady red upon the hill
Her annual secret keeps;
A lady white within the field
In placid lily sleeps!
The tidy breezes with their brooms
Sweep vale, and hill, and tree!
Prithee, my pretty housewives!
Who may expected be?
The neighbors do not yet suspect!
The woods exchange a smile--
Orchard, and buttercup, and bird--
In such a little while!
And yet how still the landscape stands,
How nonchalant the wood,
As if the resurrection
Were nothing very odd!
Her annual secret keeps;
A lady white within the field
In placid lily sleeps!
The tidy breezes with their brooms
Sweep vale, and hill, and tree!
Prithee, my pretty housewives!
Who may expected be?
The neighbors do not yet suspect!
The woods exchange a smile--
Orchard, and buttercup, and bird--
In such a little while!
And yet how still the landscape stands,
How nonchalant the wood,
As if the resurrection
Were nothing very odd!
This poem shows her amazing ability to capture something simple, like the changing of the seasons, with the mirth and ingenuity that is hard to find, even today.
As a woman before her time, Dickinson also captured her words in a way that was then uncommon:
Today poetry is one of the most popular forms for writing. This was not always true. During the mid 1800’s, there were many events going on in the world. Some of these events are the Civil War and The First World War . Since there were so many important events taking place in the world, there was no time for poetry. Many people strictly read and wrote events about the two wars. Even though this time period was very hard for poets, Dickinson found ways to get through to readers. She always addressed her three main themes of poetry death, love, and nature. These themes gained popularity the more they were published. Readers of all genres took notice of how thoughts can be transformed beautifully into a poem. This caused the demand for poetry to increase, and from that year on poetry has gained more and more popularity (Emily Dickinson-QSV, nd).
References:
Emily Dickinson-QSV, (n.d), Emily Dickinson’s Significance in American Literature, retrieved October 30, 2011, http://sites.google.com/site/emilydickinsonqsv/significance-in-american-literature
Baym, N. (Ed.), (2008), The Norton anthology of American literature (Shorter 7th ed., Vol. 1). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
