Relationships in Emily Dickinson...focusing on the relationships that she failed to have outside of her attic room and the relationships that she put into her poetry.

Essay by callypsoUniversity, Bachelor's April 2002

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"Like a magician she caught the shadowy apparitions of her brain and tossed them in startling picturesqueness to her friends, who charmed with their simplicity and homeliness as well as profundity, fretted that she so easily made palpable the tantalizing fancies forever eluding their bungling, fretted grasp. " (Obituary)

Emily Dickinson was contemporary to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman. With her honest indulgence into the souls of every man and also herself, she unlocked a poetic safe filled with wit and speech that became her communication; however, it could be seen also as her ex-communication. Her retreat into solitary reclusiveness was her muse. Before she could write about the world, she first had to step back and contemplate it from a distance. (Smith)

Amherst is a college student's town. Its New England appeal and history allow for constant exchange between the past and present. Such landmarks as The Amherst History Museum, The Stone House and The Evergreens are just a few sites that make Amherst the town that it is.

Amherst currently lodges four major Massachusetts colleges/universities, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, Hampshire College and Mount Holyoke College. Dickinson graduated Mount Holyoke in 1849.

Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke, an institution of higher education for women, blazing trails for her ancestors; she built a legacy as well as a college. Such supporters as Catharine Beecher, Zilpah Grant and Reverend Joseph Emerson were well known throughout New England as pioneering educators. When its doors opened in November 8, 1837, Mount Holyoke embodied two major innovations in women's education. It instituted rigorous academic entrance requirements and a demanding curriculum conspicuously free of instruction of domestic life.

On December 10, 1830, the world heard the first gasp of breath escape the lips of Emily Dickinson, born to Emily...