Fact Finder - Arts and Literature

Fact
The Mystery of Emily Dickinson's White Dress
Category
Arts and Literature
Subcategory
Writers Painters and Poets
Country
USA
Description
Emily Dickinson is one of America's most enigmatic and influential poets. Despite writing nearly 1,800 poems, fewer than a dozen were published during her lifetime, and those that were often had their punctuation and syntax heavily edited to fit the standards of the day. Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was famously known for almost always wearing white. After her death in 1886, her sister Lavinia discovered hundreds of poems tucked away in hand-bound booklets called 'fascicles.' Her work is characterized by its unique use of dashes, unorthodox capitalization, and short lines. Dickinson’s poetry explores profound themes of death, immortality, nature, and the self, and she is now regarded as a pioneer of American modernism whose voice was decades ahead of its time.