LITR 4232: American Renaissance
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Sample Student Research Project

Sara Sills
Professor White

LITR 4232

15 April 2003

Writing Techniques of Emily Dickinson

          Emily Dickinson is one of the most interesting female poets of the nineteenth century.  Every author has unique characteristics about him/her that make one poet different from another, but what cause Emily Dickinson to be so unique are not only the words she writes, but how she writes them.  Her style of writing is in a category of its own.  To understand how and why she writes the way she does, her background has to be brought into perspective.  Every poet has inspiration, negative or positive, that contributes not only to the content of the writing itself, but the actual form of writing the author uses to express his/her personal talents.  Emily Dickinson is no different.  Her childhood and adult experiences and culture form her into the poet she becomes.

          Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts.  Her father was a well-known lawyer in the New England town (Sage 190).  Her father had also retained a job as a treasurer at Amherst College.  He, being the well learned man he was, was able to raise Emily to be educated.  She also ran her father’s library, enabling her to read and learn for her pleasure (McQuade 1255).  Besides providing her the avenue to learn to read and write, which many women were not able to do at the time, Dickinson does not attribute much more of her success to her parents’ help.  She claims they never understood her or her writings fully, therefore not aiding her in many regards (Lauter 2970).  In reality, though, critics believe her parents’ lifestyle help most Dickinson into the writer she becomes.  Her family’s “quiet style of living, their secure economic class, and perhaps even their emotional remoteness allowed the privacy in which to develop her writing” (Lauter 2970).  Dickinson is brought up conventional Protestantism, and though never abandoning her belief system, she is able to make her own conclusions that often differ from people around her.

          The controversy surrounding Emily Dickinson is her odd lifestyle and her tendencies to be somewhat of a recluse.  She is sometimes considered abnormal because she does things differently from most others.  She spends much of her life dressed in white and withdrawn from much of society.  Of course, her peers take this negatively, but what they do not understand is that her being so private is more of a meditation to her, instead of a hiding.  She just wants to escape the pressures she feels are normally required of women.  She does not want to be a servant to sick and elderly.  She feels she has more potential for her mind to grow, and those obligations would just be hindrances to her writing (McQuade 1255).  Her childhood and her staying out of society as an adult, along with many other aspects known and not known, influence her poems and the style in which she goes about writing the works.  Her techniques of writing are completely different from any other writer, whether prose or poetry.  Dickinson composes her phrases by marking them off with a dash, placing a space before and after.  This small maneuver places more emphasis on her “impress of the mind in its analysis of experience” (McQuade 1256).  Her slant thymes and unique form of expression produces more of an oddness to the audience.

          One of Emily Dickinson’s unique forms of writing is her excessive use of capitalization.  Instead of capitalizing only proper nouns, she repetitively capitalizes nouns, along with many modifiers and verbs normally left alone.  In reading her manuscripts, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish exactly all letters intended to be capitalized, but critics agree capital letters always appear at the beginning of the lines, not just beginning of sentences.  Some critics even believe they see capitalization in letters of single words written by Dickinson.  Editors and critics have analyzed why she does this so frequently.  Critics debate that Dickinson’s capitalization pattern is actually no pattern at all.  They believe it is more accidental and random, along with spontaneous, more than it is planned.  This consensus seems substantial, considering her poems do not follow a capitalization pattern, even between themselves.  Critics seem to agree this technique could also be simply a habit of hers, considering she uses this irregular capitalizing form in letters, notes, and even recipes.  Much of what had to do with it was Emily’s want and need to be different from other writers so she can establish a writing unique to herself, which she certainly accomplishes.  To deny that it gives emphasis to those words, though, is not felt by many.  Anything done differently draws our attention, even today (Eberwein 40).

          Another writing symbol favored by Dickinson is the dash mark.  It is believed she chooses this mark as a common form of punctuation because it does not require pauses and stops like commas, semi-colons, and periods.  To use dashes for division of sentences and thoughts allow the reader to pause, but continue to read with less strain.  The reader can determine on his/her own basis when a pause should occur, bringing the meaning more personal to the reader.  Such an impact of this style is demonstrated in “This is my letter to the World” (Dickinson P441).  The short poem is only eight quick lines, yet it is filled with seven dashes and not one other type of punctuation.  This allows the readers to flow gracefully through the poem, placing pauses where they feel necessary.  The reader feels more connected to the poem and can interpret it with his/her own meaning. (Eberwein 63-64).

          Emily Dickinson uses repetition and parallelism in her poetry to instill an image in a reader’s mind.  Many authors practice this technique, and Dickinson does the same in many of her writings.  Repetition is a tool important to Dickinson’s style of writing.  Most forms in her poetry include repeating whole words and phrases, instead of just certain sounds.  In “Wild Nights, Wild Nights” (Dickinson P249), her use of repetition is obvious and it serves its purpose.  The entire poem only has about forty words, so she has to make use of each one.  She accomplishes that, largely due to her literary techniques again, not just her content.  She uses repetition of the “w” and “d” sound, plus adds parallelism by repeating intense words to grab the readers’ attention such as “wild nights” being used three times and the phrase “done with the” twice. This allows the audience to read it for how she intends the poem to be meant, because of the stress of such words.

          Though repetition and parallelism is common in her poetry, Emily Dickinson also uses renunciation as a form of her writing.  Her use of renunciation is in correlation with her lifestyle.  Deferment is a common theme in her works, and in her private life.  By taking away from much of the meaning of her personal encounters publicly, she can instead control it in what she writes.  It is her way of escaping from the pressures of her peers.  She can better express herself in written words.  Her form is so concise, though, that some critics feel it takes away from some of the meaning.  She probably does this consciously, though, as she feels it helps her to grow as a writer.    

          Rhyme in Dickinson’s poetry is one of her most talked about features.  Most of her poems rhyme and follow the rhyme patterns of many poets.  She is one of the first to slant her rhymes, using words that sound relatively the same but do not rhyme exactly.  Early editors even correct her rhymes, trying to make them flow more, in their minds.  But in reality, Dickinson just invented a technique borrowed by many poets to come.    Many of her poems do fit an exact rhyme scheme, and even ones that do not have ending words that sound close enough to not deter the reader’s attention from the content and meaning of the poem.  Many find the spontaneity of her rhymes pleasurable to read, as they are different from most metered rhyming poems that can sound monotonic. (Eberwein 250)

          Dickinson uses different forms of syntax in her writing, using “paratactic juxtaposition of short sentences without connective explanation”, exercising exploration of complex sentences, and the “use of contrast to link short statements through repeated negation or the use of conjunctions” (Eberwein 277).  It is believed she uses rhymes depending on what her inspiration is at the time she is writing.

          Webster’s Dictionary defines parataxis as “the placing of clauses or phrases one after another without coordinating or subordinating connectives” (Merriam).  This is a common theme in Dickinson’s literature.  She links ideas together that are not usually coordinated.  While parataxis can sometimes be thought of as a childlike form of writing, Dickinson’s use of it raises her poems to a more emotional level.  Another form of parataxis that Emily frequently refers to is the deletion of transition words that provide a connection of lines or stanzas.  She sometimes excludes modifiers some fess are necessary to clarify the meanings of other words.  The readers are left to the function of filling in these seemingly deletions.

          What strikes many people odd about Dickinson’s poems are the way she titles them.  Numbers have been assigned to her poetry, so that is either how they are titled, or just by the reading of the first line, itself.  Only twenty-four poems are titled by Emily Dickinson before she dies.  That compares to the nearly 2000 poems found of hers (Eberwein 288).   Of the poems titled by her, most are the ones written for a specific person or specific occasion.  The fact that the majority of her poems are unnamed implies she does not feel this aspect of the poem to be beneficial to the quality.

          Oxymorons are another common theme throughout Dickinson’s poetry.  An oxymoron is a “combination of contradicting or incongruous words” (Merriam).  Just for an example (Dickinson has many oxymorons in her poems) are the two words “uncertain certainty” (Dickinson P1411).  The readers can now draw their own conclusions of what these oxymorons mean.  The ambiguity and confusion between what her exact meanings are, are Dickinson’s intent, it seems, as it has become beneficial to her poetry.  Dickinson loves incorporating oxymorons into her poetry to use them to question stereotypes having to do with gender roles and religion.  By connecting opposite meanings to each other, not just single words, she could show both sides of thinking and show how every person thinks differently.  She seems to use this technique to show both sides of a meaning so both sides can be interpreted, instead of being partial.  

Dickinson is a lover of words.  She studies the Bible thoroughly and its syntax, formulating many of her usage from the studies of the book.  That love of words helps her in her writing.  Growing up in New England while Transcendentalists are challenging the origin of words and their meanings, especially in Bible (Eberwein 310), Emily is introduced to many forms of language and speaking.  She personifies many words, leaving meanings not to be overlooked, and again, allowing readers to draw some conclusions of their own on what her meaning is.

Emily Dickinson’s lifestyle and beliefs definitely help in the forming of her writings.  She refuses to conform to the standards of writing accepted in the mid- nineteenth century.  Refusing to enter the literary world in the way many artists do, Dickinson chooses to write to show her feelings and persuade readers to feel the way she does, instead of writing for the intention of pleasing the masses.  Even with her extensive education, she writes on inspiration and the way she feels at the time, discarding many of the conventional standards educated writers of her time invest in. 

Instead of focusing on the actual content of her poems (which is worth the analyzation), her writing techniques is worth learning on their own.  Her pen not only writes songs on the pages, but becomes a type of music itself.  The physical task of writing seems to bring inspiration to her just as the content of poems do.

Works Cited

Sage, Lorna.  The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

McQuade, Donald.  The Harper Single Volume:  American Literature.  New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., 1999.

Lauter, Paul.  The Heath Anthology of American Literature.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.

Eberwein, Jane Donahue.  An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia.  London:  Greenwood Press, 1998.

Dickinson, Emily.  “This is my letter to the World.” Poem 441.  “Wild Nights, Wild Nights.” Poem 249.  P1411.

Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary.  Merriam Webster, Inc., 2003.     

          <<http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary