Emily Dickinson

Plot

Drawing on letters and poems, this book examines the life and major work of Emily Dickinson with special emphasis on the poet's fascination with language, gender, the limit states of sexuality and death, as well as her celebration of earthly life. The book is structured around Dickinson's major themes and preoccupations. Dickinson's philosophical stance is examined in the context of the poet's familiarity with the western philosophical tradition through her textbooks at Amherst Academy and Mt Holyoke Seminary. Her curiously modern sense of language is examined and the major poems are analyzed from a feminist perspective informed by contemporary feminist psychoanalytic theory.