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Sources

 Works cited on this website:




Farr, Judith, and Louise Carter. The Gardens of Emily Dickinson. Harvard University Press,
2004.

Dickinson, Emily. The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1998.

Dickinson, Emily. Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson. Edited by Martha Nell Smith, and Ellen Louise Hart. Paris Press, 1998.

Habegger, Alfred. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: the Life of Emily Dickinson. Modern Library, 2002.

Wineapple, Brenda. White Heat: the Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Anchor Books, 2009. 

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Dickinson's Flowers

Dickinson had a deep love for flowers which is clearly indicated in her poetry, her pressed flower book, and her flower garden. Because she repeatedly uses flowers to represent and interpret such a vast number of subjects, this post will only focus on a few of the ways she uses them. In many cases, Dickinson uses flowers to simply represent joy and beauty .  For instance, in "It will be summer – eventually" (F374), the concept of joy is introduced to the reader with scenes of Lilacs that “[represent] the beginning of lasting love in the nineteenth-century floral books” (Farr 204). They are described as being heavy with their “purple load” (Dickinson, line 10), indicating that these flowers are in full bloom. Meanwhile, the Wild Roses, which are traditionally associated with passion, romance, and love, are bringing vibrant color to “redden” (Dickinson, line 13) the Bog, where one would not expect to find beauty. Both of these plants, which bloom in late spring through early s...

Dickinson's Letters

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Emily Dickinson wrote over 1,700 poems during her lifetime, which are all recognized for their content and their unique formatting and stylistic choices.  Content-wise , Dickinson's poetry covers a wide range of subjects. She writes about everything from love to loneliness, nature to religion, and even death. She frequently utilized some of the same symbols within her poetry as well; flowers are regulars in her work, as well as bees. In addition to this, many of her poems often approach difficult subjects that many people tend to feel uncomfortable discussing, such as death and loneliness. Her life experiences likely had something to do with this, but it is important to note that Dickinson never intended for her poetry to be read as one would a memoir (Wineapple 42); poetry can be affected by the poet's life and experiences, but we must be careful to remember that the implied 'I' in poetry should be read as a persona unless otherwise stated by the author. Regardless of ...