Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson is known as America's most famous and misunderstood poet. More then a hundred years ago, Dickinson wrote well over 2,000 poems about her thoughts on God, death, religious beliefs and various other subjects that she dealt with everyday of her life. Only ten of her poems were published during her lifetime while hundreds of thousands of others were not found until after her death. Many believe that her life reflected on her writings, which explains how more then 200 of her poems were written about her point of view of God in nature and her sexual experiences with a fellow family member.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 to Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson. Emily and her two siblings, William Austin and Lavinia, were raised in Amherst, Massachusetts in a self-contained family. Her father, a very harsh man, was active in the community and in the affairs of the Amherst College, which his father had helped found in 1821.

Emily's mother focused her interest entirely on her husband and family. After six years of attending as a student at the Amherst Academy, she spent a year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Her experience there was stressful due to the fact that she did not live up to her expectations. When the next school year came around, she stayed home; her formal education was officially over.

For the next few years, Emily made rare visits to relatives and traveled with her father and sister to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Except for a couple of lengthy day in Boston (for medical reasons), Emily never left her home- town again. By her mid-thirties, Emily moved into her parents' home and withdrew herself from all society. "Dickinson-who legend says always wore a white dress "“ sat at her...