1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:02,000 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I 2 00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:11,800 Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, 3 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:15,480 Speaker 1: a show for those interested in the loud and quiet 4 00:00:15,920 --> 00:00:20,880 Speaker 1: moments of history. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're looking 5 00:00:20,880 --> 00:00:23,720 Speaker 1: at the life of one of the most enigmatic poets 6 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:34,120 Speaker 1: in literary history, the incomparable Emily Dickinson. The day was 7 00:00:34,159 --> 00:00:40,280 Speaker 1: December tenth, eighteen thirty. American poet Emily Dickinson was born 8 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:45,720 Speaker 1: in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although largely unrecognized in her own time, 9 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:48,600 Speaker 1: she is now considered one of the most dynamic and 10 00:00:48,720 --> 00:00:52,040 Speaker 1: innovative poets of the nineteenth century and a pillar of 11 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:56,480 Speaker 1: the American literary canon. Only a handful of her poems 12 00:00:56,480 --> 00:01:00,880 Speaker 1: were published during her lifetime, but she wrote prolifically, penning 13 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:06,480 Speaker 1: nearly eighteen hundred poems on themes such as faith, death, nature, 14 00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:12,240 Speaker 1: truth and loss. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born into a 15 00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:17,720 Speaker 1: prominent New England family. Her paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, was 16 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:22,720 Speaker 1: a founder of the esteemed Amherst Academy now Amherst College. 17 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:27,720 Speaker 1: Her father, Edward Dickinson, was a trustee at Amherst, as 18 00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:31,680 Speaker 1: well as a lawyer and a state legislator. In eighteen 19 00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:35,920 Speaker 1: twenty eight, Edward married Emily Norcross, and the couple had 20 00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:41,560 Speaker 1: three children together, the eldest William Austin, the middle child Emily, 21 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:47,680 Speaker 1: and the youngest Lavinia. Given the family's background, Dickinson's father 22 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:52,360 Speaker 1: was adamant that his children received a quality education. When 23 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:56,400 Speaker 1: she was ten, Emily and her sister were enrolled in Amherst, 24 00:01:56,680 --> 00:02:00,480 Speaker 1: a rigorous school that had only started accepting female students 25 00:02:00,680 --> 00:02:05,440 Speaker 1: two years earlier. By all accounts, Dickinson was an exceptional 26 00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:09,040 Speaker 1: student and had no problem with a challenging curriculum that 27 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:16,040 Speaker 1: included classical literature, history, sciences, and philosophy. After seven years 28 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:20,799 Speaker 1: at Amherst, Dickinson enrolled at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary 29 00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:26,640 Speaker 1: in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The school followed a similar classical curriculum, 30 00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:32,880 Speaker 1: but also included teachings on evangelical Christianity. Dickinson spent less 31 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,640 Speaker 1: than a year at the boarding school and left for 32 00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:39,800 Speaker 1: unknown reasons. Some historians think her father wanted her to 33 00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:44,160 Speaker 1: return home, while others believe she disliked the school's oppressive 34 00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:49,680 Speaker 1: religious atmosphere and teaching style. Whatever the reason, Dickinson returned 35 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:53,360 Speaker 1: to her family estate at age eighteen and remained there, 36 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:58,840 Speaker 1: growing gradually more reclusive throughout her twenties and thirties. Although 37 00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:04,359 Speaker 1: she increasingly avoided in person social interactions, she maintained frequent 38 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:08,680 Speaker 1: correspondence with a wide circle of friends, at least ninety 39 00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:12,320 Speaker 1: people that we know of. She had begun writing poetry 40 00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:15,920 Speaker 1: as a teenager, and often enclosed poems in her letters. 41 00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:19,840 Speaker 1: Much of her work was influenced by her upbringing in 42 00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:24,600 Speaker 1: Puritan New England during a time of sweeping religious reform. 43 00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:29,040 Speaker 1: Although she attended church routinely until her thirties, Dickinson went 44 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:32,800 Speaker 1: against religious norms of her era and refused to conform 45 00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:37,840 Speaker 1: to an orthodox view of Christianity. In private, she wrestled 46 00:03:37,880 --> 00:03:41,360 Speaker 1: with the notions of belief and unbelief throughout her life, 47 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:45,840 Speaker 1: often grappling with the inevitability of death and the possibility 48 00:03:46,040 --> 00:03:51,160 Speaker 1: of an afterlife. Dickinson's early thirties were the most creatively 49 00:03:51,240 --> 00:03:55,000 Speaker 1: productive years of her life. It's believed she wrote more 50 00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:59,000 Speaker 1: than seven hundred poems in the five year span between 51 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:04,640 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one and eighteen sixty five. This tremendous output 52 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:09,400 Speaker 1: corresponds with her gradual withdrawal from society. The less time 53 00:04:09,480 --> 00:04:13,200 Speaker 1: she spent in the restrictive outside world, the more time 54 00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:17,440 Speaker 1: she had to explore her inner world through writing. One 55 00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:21,520 Speaker 1: of her poems from eighteen sixty two suggests that her 56 00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:26,520 Speaker 1: withdrawal was deliberate, and that every person does something similar 57 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:30,560 Speaker 1: when choosing which friends and relatives to share their life with. 58 00:04:31,279 --> 00:04:34,800 Speaker 1: Like all of her works, the poem is officially untitled 59 00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:39,200 Speaker 1: and is typically referenced by its first line. It reads 60 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:45,640 Speaker 1: as follows. The soul selects her own society, then shuts 61 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:52,080 Speaker 1: the door to her divine majority present no more unmoved. 62 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:58,400 Speaker 1: She notes the chariots pausing at her low gate, unmoved. 63 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:03,400 Speaker 1: An emperor benea ling upon her matt, I've known her 64 00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:09,720 Speaker 1: from an ample nation. Choose one, then close the valves 65 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:15,440 Speaker 1: of her attention like stone. It was during this isolated 66 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:20,640 Speaker 1: period of experimentation that Dickinson developed her unique style of writing, 67 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:26,280 Speaker 1: including the unusual punctuation, syntax, and line breaks that make 68 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:32,680 Speaker 1: her work so distinctive as well as open to multiple interpretations. Today, 69 00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:37,120 Speaker 1: Dickinson is widely known for her fascination with death, grief, 70 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:41,919 Speaker 1: and loss, as expressed in famous poems such as because 71 00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:44,960 Speaker 1: I could not stop for death, and I heard a 72 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:50,880 Speaker 1: fly buzz when I died. This preoccupation with mortality came 73 00:05:50,920 --> 00:05:54,000 Speaker 1: to the forefront in the eighteen sixties, but it was 74 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:58,880 Speaker 1: present even in her earliest work. At age fourteen, Dickinson 75 00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:02,680 Speaker 1: endured her for major loss when her friend and cousin 76 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:07,320 Speaker 1: died of typhus. During her late teens. In early twenties, 77 00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:11,680 Speaker 1: Dickinson suffered the deaths of several more friends and family members. 78 00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:16,720 Speaker 1: This string of tragedies underlined what would become a lifelong 79 00:06:16,839 --> 00:06:20,799 Speaker 1: exploration of what it means to die and of how 80 00:06:20,839 --> 00:06:25,040 Speaker 1: to live with the deaths of those you love. That said, 81 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:30,400 Speaker 1: Dickinson didn't dwell exclusively on death. Her poetry is often 82 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:34,839 Speaker 1: playful and funny, using satire and irony to dress down 83 00:06:34,960 --> 00:06:40,040 Speaker 1: accepted customs and institutions. She also studied botany and kept 84 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:44,320 Speaker 1: a vast garden of herbs and plants. Because of this passion, 85 00:06:44,760 --> 00:06:48,200 Speaker 1: her poems feature a lot of floral and garden imagery, 86 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:52,360 Speaker 1: and frequently extol the beauty and mystery of the natural world. 87 00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:57,799 Speaker 1: Dickinson never married nor had children, although she had many 88 00:06:57,880 --> 00:07:01,760 Speaker 1: male admirers. It's widely believe that she carried a torch 89 00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:05,960 Speaker 1: for Susan Gilbert her lifelong friend turned sister in law 90 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:10,320 Speaker 1: and next door neighbor. By the time Dickinson was forty, 91 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:14,960 Speaker 1: she rarely left the family homestead. Her seclusion has led 92 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:19,880 Speaker 1: to rampant speculation from both scholars and readers alike. Some 93 00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:23,120 Speaker 1: have suggested that she suffered from a gorea phobia, the 94 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,760 Speaker 1: fear of crowds in public places, while others point to 95 00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:30,960 Speaker 1: her family responsibilities, including the care of her ailing mother 96 00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:36,240 Speaker 1: and younger sister. Of course, it's also possible that Dickinson 97 00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:40,360 Speaker 1: lived with severe anxiety, perhaps brought on by the sense 98 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:44,200 Speaker 1: of difference she felt between herself and the world outside 99 00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:47,960 Speaker 1: her door. In any event, the poet remained at her 100 00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:53,000 Speaker 1: family home until her death on May eight six, at 101 00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:57,080 Speaker 1: the age of fifty five. Although she had regularly sent 102 00:07:57,160 --> 00:08:00,360 Speaker 1: poems and closed in letters to friends, fewer than a 103 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:03,720 Speaker 1: dozen had been professionally published at the time of her death. 104 00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:07,480 Speaker 1: The handful that had made it to print were edited 105 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:12,240 Speaker 1: and altered to quote unquote correct the poet's unusual form 106 00:08:12,320 --> 00:08:18,600 Speaker 1: in syntax. Following her death, Dickinson's family discovered forty hand 107 00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:24,520 Speaker 1: bound volumes containing one thousand, seven hundred and seventy five poems. 108 00:08:25,240 --> 00:08:29,880 Speaker 1: The poet had assembled these booklets, known as fascicles, by 109 00:08:29,960 --> 00:08:33,480 Speaker 1: folding and sewing together a few sheets of stationary at 110 00:08:33,480 --> 00:08:37,640 Speaker 1: a time. The handwritten pages contained what appeared to be 111 00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:43,520 Speaker 1: final versions of her poems, complete with her intended punctuation, spelling, 112 00:08:43,920 --> 00:08:48,400 Speaker 1: line breaks, and syntax. The first collection of her work 113 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:53,599 Speaker 1: was published posthumously in eight and sadly it removed the 114 00:08:53,679 --> 00:08:57,120 Speaker 1: majority of her esthetic choices in favor of those of 115 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:02,280 Speaker 1: the editor. Since that first public Patian Dickinson's poetry has 116 00:09:02,400 --> 00:09:05,760 Speaker 1: never gone out of print, though a complete collection of 117 00:09:05,800 --> 00:09:09,800 Speaker 1: her poems in their intended form wasn't released until the 118 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:14,800 Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. The strength of her talent, coupled with her 119 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:18,920 Speaker 1: unique voice and eccentric life, have made Emily Dickinson a 120 00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:22,920 Speaker 1: compelling and influential author for well over a century and 121 00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:27,520 Speaker 1: counting that may not be something she actually would have wanted. 122 00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:31,880 Speaker 1: In fact, the reserved Dickinson asked that her poems be 123 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:37,640 Speaker 1: destroyed after her death, a request that clearly when ignored. However, 124 00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:42,200 Speaker 1: Emily Dickinson may have considered that possibility and even made 125 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:46,160 Speaker 1: peace with it. In another poem from eighteen sixty two, 126 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:51,720 Speaker 1: she seemingly addresses her potential future readers writing, this is 127 00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:54,600 Speaker 1: my letter to the world that never wrote to me 128 00:09:55,520 --> 00:10:00,640 Speaker 1: the simple news that nature told with tender majesty. Her 129 00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:05,480 Speaker 1: message is committed to hands I cannot see. For love 130 00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:12,920 Speaker 1: of her. Sweet countrymen, judge tenderly of me. I'm Gabe 131 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:16,680 Speaker 1: Louisier and hopefully you now know a little more about 132 00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:21,280 Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If you enjoyed the show, 133 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:25,520 Speaker 1: consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t 134 00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:28,880 Speaker 1: d i h C Show, and if you have any 135 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:32,160 Speaker 1: comments or suggestions, you can send them my way at 136 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:36,000 Speaker 1: this Day at I heeart media dot com. Thanks to 137 00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:39,439 Speaker 1: Chandler May's for producing the show, and thank you for listening. 138 00:10:39,840 --> 00:10:42,600 Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another Day 139 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:55,280 Speaker 1: in History class. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, 140 00:10:55,440 --> 00:10:57,920 Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever 141 00:10:57,960 --> 00:10:59,200 Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.