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Emily Dickinson was a New England poet/hermit with a fascination with death and immortality. She wrote over 1000 poems in her lifetime, most of the...
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Emily Dickinson was a New England poet/hermit with a fascination with death and immortality. She wrote over 1000 poems in her lifetime, most of them dark and soul-searching. Why were her poems so dark?
Transcript
- 00:04
Emily Dickinson a la Shmoop: The Belle of Amherst Strikes Again.
- 00:11
Emily Dickinson was an eccentric New England spinster who rarely left her house.
- 00:15
Amazing what you can get done when you don't go anywhere or do anything.
- 00:15
Emily managed to crank out over 1,700 poems in her relatively short lifetime.
- 00:21
These weren't some sappy, sing-song poems about some guy that got away. . .
Full Transcript
- 00:24
. . .these were soul-searching ditties about stuff like death and immortality.
- 00:29
So, why was this prim and proper recluse. . .
- 00:32
. . .so obsessed with the Grim Reaper? It might have had something to do with how
- 00:36
often someone she cared about bit the dust.
- 00:39
She lost two close friends. . .
- 00:41
. . .and a cousin before she turned 21. . .
- 00:43
. . .and many more people who were very close to her...
- 00:47
Surrounded by so much death, it's no wonder why it was her main source of inspiration.
- 00:53
Or maybe it was more about shaking things up.
- 00:57
Since Emily was living in the 19th Century in stuffy New England...
- 01:00
...maybe she wanted to rattle some cages. . .
- 01:02
. . . and show people that women weren't just fragile creatures. . .
- 01:05
. . .who could only write about hearts and flowers.
- 01:08
Her poems sure didn't look like anyone else's. . .
- 01:10
. . .with all that random capitalization and funky punctuation. . .
- 01:13
. . .so maybe her subject matter. . .
- 01:15
. . .was just another way to keep people on their toes.
- 01:19
Or maybe she was simply depressed. Being a hermit who shied away from social
- 01:23
situations. . .
- 01:24
. . .we said hermit. . .
- 01:26
. . .could be a major reason Emily caved in to her dark thoughts.
- 01:30
And if you add in the fact that she was taking care of her nasty, sick mother. . .
- 01:34
. . .well, you do the math.
- 01:39
So why was death so prominent in Emily Dickenson's work?
- 01:43
Was it a response to all the deaths in her life....
- 01:46
Or a desire to shock people...
- 01:48
Or could it have been a case of severe depression? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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