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II．Emily Dickinson and Her Works
2.1Emily Dickinson’s Life Experience
Emily Dickinson(1830-1886) was one of the most influential poetesses in the nineteenth century who made a great impact on American literature. She was outstanding among the contemporary poets for her unique writing style, creative images and profound ideology. Therefore she was praised as” the most topping poetess in west since Sapphic.”
She was born in one of the leading Amherst’s families on December10, 1830. Her family was full of the patriarchal atmosphere. Samuel Fouler Dickinson, her grandfather was a very successful lawyer, and he was very active in politics. Her father, the eldest son of Samuel Fouler Dickinson, was a Christian, a prominent lawyer and politician. Though America itself was reeling in the chaos of the Civil War(1861-1865), the turmoil of Reconstruction and the tragedy of Lincoln assassination (14th April, 1865), American people were still under the remaining influence of Puritanism in thoughts. Up to the age of about 25, Dickinson lived a relatively peaceful life in her father’s house in Amherst. Her world was bound by the house and its surrounding countryside. She maintained contact with the outer world mainly through the letters. Emily Dickinson preferred the small world around her house to greet guests; she was an eccentric girl in other people’s eyes ,who was always wearing white clothing. She led a reclusive life and avoided social activities except for a short visit to the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. and some summer months in Cambridge for treatment of an eye ailment. Once back in Amherst she never traveled again and she never left the boundaries of the family’s property after the late 1860s.
As a devotee of nature, Emily Dickinson was an important female poet in the nineteenth century. She was eager to be an independent female human in her spirituality and protested the western tradition under the remaining influences of Puritanism. There are many ideology of eco-feminism emerging in analysis of her queer life style and poetic creation.
In short, in Emily Dickinson’s lifetime, she witnessed the double predicament of nature and women. As a conscientious writer, she would inevitably express her own opinion about the environmental and woman problem. Therefore, her experience is another origin of her eco-feminist awareness.