After years of studying piano as a young woman in her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson curated her music book, a common practice at the time. Now part of the Dickinson Collection in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, this bound volume of 107 pieces of published sheet music includes the poet?s favorite instrumental piano music and vocal music, ranging from theme and variation sets to vernacular music, which was also enjoyed by the family?s servants. Offering a fresh historical perspective on a poetic voice that has become canonical in American literature, this original study brings this artefact to life, documenting Dickinson?s early years of musical study through the time her music was bound in the early 1850s, which tellingly coincided with the writing of her first poems. Using Dickinson?s letters and poems alongside newspapers and other archival sources, George Boziwick explores the various composers, music sellers, and publishers behind this music and Dickinson?s attendance at performances, presenting new insights into the multiple layers of meaning that music held for her.

Music is a vital element in the poems and prose of Emily Dickinson but, despite its importance, the function of music as a literary technique in her work has not yet been fully explored; what information exists is scarce and scattered. The significance of the musical terminology and imagery in Dickinson's poetry and prose are thoroughly explored in this book. It considers the music of Dickinson's life and times and how it influenced her writing, how she combined music and poetry to create her own style, several important nineteenth century reviews for what they reveal about the musical quality of her work, and her use of Protestant hymns as a model for her poetry. It also provides insights into musical interpretations of her poetry as related to the author by some fifty modern-day composers and arrangers, and discusses musical reflections of her poems and letters.

After years of studying piano as a young woman in her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson curated her music book, a common practice at the time. Now part of the Dickinson Collection in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, this bound volume of 107 pieces of published sheet music includes the poet?s favorite instrumental piano music and vocal music, ranging from theme and variation sets to vernacular music, which was also enjoyed by the family?s servants. Offering a fresh historical perspective on a poetic voice that has become canonical in American literature, this original study brings this artefact to life, documenting Dickinson?s early years of musical study through the time her music was bound in the early 1850s, which tellingly coincided with the writing of her first poems. Using Dickinson?s letters and poems alongside newspapers and other archival sources, George Boziwick explores the various composers, music sellers, and publishers behind this music and Dickinson?s attendance at performances, presenting new insights into the multiple layers of meaning that music held for her.

American poet Emily Dickinson is revered around the world, and influenced many feminist artists and writers. Her work is some of the best known and most quoted or adapted: 'Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all' Emily Dickinson Dickinson received a very good education, but chose to return home to Amherst, Massachusetts, where she spent the rest of her life, writing more than a poem a day until her death. Her refusal to compromise her highly condensed expression meant that only a tiny fraction of her work was published in her lifetime. Even today, her work feels startlingly modern: 'Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell' Emily Dickinson 'The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul - BOOKS' This is a superb collection from a truly iconic poet.

“This is my letter to the world . . .” — Emily Dickinson The Poetry of Emily Dickinson is a collection of pieces by 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson, who insisted that her life of isolation gave her an introspective and deep connection with the world. As a result, her work parallels her life—misunderstood in its time, but full of depth and imagination, and covering such universal themes as nature, art, friendship, love, society, mortality, and more. During Dickinson’s lifetime, only seven of her poems were published, but after her death, her prolific writings were discovered and shared. With this volume, readers can dive into the now widely respected poetry of Emily Dickinson.

During Emily's life only seven of her 1775 poems were published. This collection of her work shows her breadth of vision and a passionate intensity and awe for life, love, nature, time and eternity. Once branded an eccentric Dickinson is now regarded as a major American poet.

Taking readers through the various stages of criticism of Emily Dickinson's poetry, this guide identifies both the essential critical texts and the key debates within them. The texts chosen for discussion represent the canonical readings which have typically shaped the area of Dickinson studies throughout the twentieth- and twenty-first century and provide a lens through which to view current critical trends. Chapters focus on style and meaning, gender and sexuality, history and race, religion and hymn culture, and performance and popular culture. In all, this guide serves as a user-friendly reference tool to the vast body of criticism on Dickinson to date by suggesting formative starting points and underlining essential critical highlights. It provides students and scholars of Dickinson with a sense of where these critical texts can be placed in relation to one another, as well as an understanding of pivotal moments within the history of reception of Dickinson from late nineteenth-century reviews up to some of the definitive critical interventions of the twenty-first century.