American poet Emily Dickinson: biography, creativity

About her work, you can write much more than about the biography. The fact is that her fate was not at all full of bright events, stormy novels or at least some kind of vicissitudes. And mostly because this was her life choice. A female poet in American society of the mid-19th century could be very popular, but Emily Dickinson fame, fame and fuss of secular life preferred quiet retreat in her hometown. Why? Part of the answer to this question is her poetry. So, what do we know about Emily Dickinson, whose poems are classics of American literature?

Origin

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in 1830 in the small provincial town of Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. There it ended in 1886.

She was the average of three children in the family of a lawyer and congressman Edward Dickinson. Education she received a Puritan, this, perhaps, later affected her way of life. She grew up a low-key and pious girl. The family was religious enough, and Emily also instilled faith in God.

Education

After the end of the primary school, the future poetess continued at the Academy of her hometown of Amherst from 1840 to 1847. There she studied such disciplines as Latin, arithmetic, psychology, English and literature. Later there was an attempt to study in a women's seminary, but Emily spent there only six months and returned home. Since then, the native city has become its permanent habitat, it almost never left its limits for the rest of its life. An exception was a trip to Washington, accompanied by his father, who was supposed to take part in the US Congress.

Formation of the personality of the poetess

Of course, the very education in the spirit of asceticism played its role in the unwillingness to be open to the public. And as a result, during the life of the poetess the world saw only a dozen of her poems. Surprisingly, against the fact that her work was printed, acted herself Emily Dickinson, books with lyrics which appeared after her death.

At the age of 14 she lost her friend - her cousin Sophia, after which she became depressed and even needed rehabilitation. This is the first death of a loved one with whom Emily was confronted, which undoubtedly gave impetus to the further development of the theme of leaving from life, which was one of the most important in the work of Dickinson. Although after this event Emily began to actively attend the church, but apparently not finding real comfort there, she stopped doing it, and she put all her thoughts about searching for the meaning of life and transience of being in verse lines.

Also Dickinson was familiar with the prose and poetry of the time, in particular with the transcendentalism of Ralph Emerson and the romanticism of William Wordsworth, and shared many of their views. This testified to her striving for all progressive ideas. With the thinker Emerson, she even kept correspondence, hence the philosophical motives of her lyrics.

Personal life

There are many assumptions about the reasons for her voluntary seclusion, and lovers of trivial explanations immediately offer unhappy love, they say, but how else? Among her unfortunate lovers, they are also credited with the friend of their family, Ben Newton, and the student Henry Emmons, and the priest Charles Wadsworth, but there is no evidence, except for pure water of assumptions, that biographers do not have.

It's true that Emily Dickinson, whose biography is not full of love intrigues, never married, although she was not bad herself.

Yes, it's pretty strange. But perhaps it was her conscious choice, dictated by the world view: the rich inner world of Emily Dickinson made her self-sufficient person and without marriage or motherhood. Whatever it was, love lyrics and hearty things do not so often appear in her poetry, and even if there are romantic motifs, they sound in the context of something more global, for example, the relationship of man and nature, man and the Creator.

The main themes of creativity

She did not waste time on trifles, but wanted to get to the bottom of it, so she touched on the great in her poetry. If you outline the main motifs of her works, then one can single out such topics as aesthetic perception of the world by a poet, nature, inner feelings of a person, confrontation of life and death.

About Emily Dickinson said: "She died in every poem." Yes, the poet, like playing with death in cat and mouse, often imagined herself dead. But the realization that in one moment everything can disappear does not attract, but horrifies and deeply afflicts the lyrical heroine Dickinson. And the bright moments of life - the same love, joy, - just a prologue to complete anabiosis.

She mourns that death destroys harmony, bears chaos, and therefore seeks to unravel the mystery of immortality, often disappointed in these searches and realizing that the destiny of man is loneliness.

But the poetess is not inclined to absolute nihilism, rather, she finds affection in simple things, stating the fact that everything amazing is very close, it's as if "an angel on each street rents a neighboring house." But, on the other hand, Emily Dickinson, quotes from her poems express her thoughts, understands that a person will never overtake everything, especially with regard to nature: "After all, we are further from it, the closer we come," and therefore " That will never be given into the hands. "

Publications of poems

The fact that Emily writes poetry, knew many, and her relatives in particular. But only after death they were able to realize the scale of her creativity when her sister found drafts.

The first edition of the works saw the world in 1890. But it has undergone many revisions. Only in 1955, thanks to Thomas Johnson, there was a complete collection of her poetry in 3 volumes.

Emily Dickinson: translations

Due to religious motives, little is known about it in the post-Soviet space, because earlier its work was simply ignored.

Of course, nothing will replace the original, but to deliver the words of the great American poetess to Russian-speaking people, a lot has been done recently. For example, L. Sitnik, A. Gavrilov, A. Grishin, J. Berger and others took this work. But still not every one of Emily Dickinson's 1800 poems has been translated into Russian. Also, I do not want to assess the gender suitability for professionalism, but there is an opinion that Dickinson's poetry can be fully understood and conveyed to the listener by a female translator, so it's worth recalling the works of T. Stamova and V. Markova.

Still, I want to sincerely believe that soon this brilliant poet, who is considered one of the classics of American literature, will become even more readable in Russian.