Emily Dickinson: Sad Spinster

"If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me." Emily Dickinson feared not only fame, but almost everything: sex, scrutiny, people in general. Fame and death go hand-in-hand concerning Emily's history.

She was born in Amherst, Massachusetts (in December, 1830) to a very strict father, who was a prominent lawyer in town, and treasurer of Amherst College. Precocious, young Emily spent her early adulthood being educated, very bright, from a respectable family, and writing avidly.

Every young poet will know what it's like to contemplate publishing, and Emily turned to Thomas Wentworth Higginson for feedback on her poems, since he was already an established poetic voice. He, in turn, wrote a review for Atlantic Monthly, describing Emily as "original poetic genius." How wonderfully encouraging is that? It certainly must have been flattering, at least one would think! One would think she’d have published at least ONE chapbook in her life, though she didn’t.

Instead, Emily later referred to Higginson's criticism of her poems as "surgery" (insinuating great pain). She really only found the nerve to publish meagerly in life, hiding away most of her thoughts to the shelf, so to speak. I, personally, would've leapt for the chance to promote my work, much like Whitman, the shameless self promoter.

At one point, through correspondence, she was asked her thoughts on Whitman, and reacted by calling him "disgraceful" (even though she hadn't read him). I find this disturbing, as a woman of words who prefers to make educated decisions on authors, but not surprising, considering Emily’s concise style is vastly different than Whitman's flowing verse. Likewise, she differs from Whitman in theology also, if slightly (he believes God is present in the natural cycles and she feels God controls the ways of nature). Though both personify both God and Nature, at times, Emily is much more apt to capitalize those words than Whitman.

Emily's father, a Puritan, tyrant type of man, left Emily with a strange sense of love, like most spinsters (e.g.. Plath). She hid her sexuality in symbolism in "I dreaded that first robin so." She wrote of first moments on several occasions, this one being a first sexual interlude, which she feared.

"A narrow fellow in the grass" can also be interpreted for its phallic symbolism (by any Freudian): the snake. Emily seems to fear the sexual act itself, intensely plotting her sexual language, while keeping within consensus in her religious time, that sex was something to be ashamed of (only done in the dark and by married couples; considered shameful or dirty).

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