MORE FAMOUS POETS!

MORE FAMOUS POETS!

BLOG SESSION

December 12th, 2017

Good Afternoon Poets and Poetry Lovers ~ We're back for another great Blog Session about Famous Poets.

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Journal Notes

MORE FAMOUS POETS!

Emily Dickinson

Born December 10th, 1830

Death May 15th, 1886

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts.  She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but only for one year. Throughout her life, she seldom left her home and she had few visitors.  The people with whom she did come in contact with, however, had an enormous impact on her poetry.  She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she first met on a trip to Philadelphia.  He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and some critics believe his departure gave rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed.  While it is certain that he was an important figure in her life, it is not clear whether or not their relationship was romantic or not.  Dickinson called him “my closest earthly friend.”  Other possibilities for the unrequited love that was the subject of many of Dickinson’s poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.

By the 1860s, Dickinson lived in almost complete isolation from the outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely.  She spent a great deal of this time with her family.  Her father, Edward Dickinson, was actively involved in state and national politics, serving in Congress for one term.  Her brother, Austin, who attended law school and became an attorney, lived next door with his wife, Susan Gilbert.  Dickinson's younger sister, Lavinia, also lived at home for her entire life in similar isolation.  Lavinia and Austin were not only family, but intellectual companions for Dickinson during her lifetime.

Dickinson’s poetry was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town, which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity.

Although Dickinson's acquaintances were most likely aware of her writing, it was not until after her death in 1886 -- when her sister Lavinia discovered her cache of poems -- that the breadth of her work became apparent to the public.  Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis todd, though both heavily edited the content.  A complete, and mostly unaltered, collection of her poetry became available for the first time when scholar Thomas H. Johnson published The Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1955. 

Upon her death, Dickinson’s family discovered forty (40) handbound volumes of nearly 1,800 poems, or “fascicles” as they are sometimes called.  Dickinson assembled these booklets by folding and sewing five or six sheets of stationery paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems.

The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (2 Volume Set) is contained for the first time as Emily Dickinson herself "published" her poetry in the privacy of her upstairs room in the Amherst house she lived in as a beautiful bound set.  The elegant edition presents all of Emily Dickinson's manuscript books and unsewn fascicle sheets -- 1,148 poems on 1,250 pages -- restored insofar as possible to their original order, as they were when her sister found them after her death.

Emily Dickinson died of Bright's disease (a common denomination for a kidney ailment).  Recent research into her symptoms and medication indicates that she may actually have suffered from severe primary hypertension (high blood pressure), which could have led to heart failure or brain hemorrhage.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Born March 6th, 1806

Death June 29th, 1861

Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning is perhaps best known for her 'Sonnets From the Portuguese' and 'Aurora Leigh' as well as the love story between her and fellow poet Robert Browning.

Born in 1806, Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning published her first major collection, The Seraphim and Other Poems, in 1838.  Her collection Poems (1844) caught the attention of fellow poet Robert Browning, whose admiring letter to her led to a lifelong romance and marriage.  The couple moved to Italy, where Elizabeth became interested in Italian politics and released her monumental work, Sonnets From the Portuguese in 1850.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806, at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England. She was the oldest of 12 children, and her family made their fortune from Jamaican sugar plantations. Educated at home, Barrett was a precocious reader and writer. Having delved into classics such as the works of John Milton and William Shakespeare before her teen years, she also wrote her first book of poetry by age 12.  Deeply religious, Barrett’s writing often explored Christian themes, a trait that would remain throughout her life’s works.

At age 14, Barrett developed a lung illness that required her to take morphine for the rest of her life, and the following year, she suffered a spinal injury that would serve as another setback.  Despite her health issues, Barrett lived the literary life to the fullest, teaching herself Hebrew, studying Greek culture and publishing her first book in 1820, The Battle of Marathon, which her father bound and released privately.

In 1826, Barrett (anonymously) published the collection An Essay on Mind and Other Poems, which became a touchstone in her writing career.  Unfortunately, fate would throw more obstacles her way soon after its release.  Barrett’s mother died two years later and her father’s business foundered, forcing him to sell their estate.  The family eventually settled in London, but the interruption never gave Barrett pause.  Soon after the estate was sold, she published her translation of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound (1833), and in 1838, she published The Seraphim and Other Poems.

BACKGROUND NOTES:  Barrett’s poor health forced her to live with her brother Edward near the Sea of Torquay for a period, but tragedy would strike again when he drowned, and she returned to London, emotionally and physically shattered.  Whether it was despite or because of her continued struggles, Barrett continued writing, and in 1844 her collection titled Poems was published.  Besides catching the eye of the reading public, it also drew the attention of established English poet Robert Browning.  Browning wrote Barrett a letter, and the pair exchanged nearly 600 letters over the following 20 months, which culminated in their elopement in 1846. Barrett’s father was very much against the marriage, and he never spoke with his daughter again.

In 1849, the Brownings' only child, Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, was born in Florence, Italy, the couple’s newly adopted country.  A year later, Barrett Browning released Sonnets From the Portuguese, a collection of 44 love sonnets that would become one of her seminal works and one of the greatest sequences of sonnets in history.  The collection was dedicated to Browning and written in secret during their courtship. "Sonnet 43" begins with “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” a line that itself would have sealed Barrett Browning’s place in the literary canon if all else had somehow failed to do so.

Life in Florence was good to the poet Barrett’s creative process, as was the roiling political and social atmosphere in Italy.  She published the politically charged poem "Casa Guidi Windows" in 1851.  Barrett Browning followed it up in 1856 with Aurora Leigh (a blank-verse novel/poem), which is her longest work, and then Poems Before Congress in 1860. Included in the Poems Before Congress collection is “A Curse for a Nation,” which criticized slavery in America (although she doesn't specifically mention the country's name).  The Boston abolitionist publication, The Independent, first published the poem in 1856.

She could never overcome her generally weak constitution though, and Barrett Browning died in Florence on June 29, 1861 at the age of 55 as one of the most beloved poets of the Romantic Movement.

OUR NEXT BLOG SESSION:

MORE FAMOUS FEMALE POETS

When we come back,

get ready to learn more

inspirational information

for the Poet in you!

Peace, Love & Light

By René Allen

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