She might have learned the latter in part at school: capitalizing nouns was a feature of the German she studied. But it also serves to suggest that a word is being deployed in a figurative or symbolic way or in ways that may include an everyday meaning but that gesture simultaneously in other directions (Mitchell, Domhnall). Some scholars feel that because Dickinson did not publish she did not have to be careful about her punctuation; others argue that Dickinson refused publication on the grounds that her use of the dash—a free and improvisational form of phrasing—would be compromised by inflexible standards in the publishing industry. (Mitchell, Domhnall) P764, "My Life had stood – a loaded Gun"; P479, "Because I could not stop for Death"; and P591, "I heard a Fly buzz – when I died" are among the best known. (The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson) As her poems and letters were discovered and made public, the inner life of the reclusive poet has become the subject of a great deal of speculation. A number of books and articles have appeared, resulting in many, often opposing, views of what the great poet was really like.Dickinson 's sympathies would lie more with science than religion, and though it is possible to find poems and letters that support this …show more content…
Her voice and verbal artistry are unique, and her themes are both ageless and universal. More than a hundred years after her death, Dickinson 's ever-surprising phrasing and poignant observations seem startlingly "modern." No anthology of American poetry would be complete without the inclusion of her work, which continues to be read and enjoyed (Dickinson, Emily). Dickinson 's work, however, almost didn 't survive her death. During her own lifetime, only a few of her poems were published, most of those without her consent. Had the poet 's sister Lavinia followed Dickinson 's request to have her documents burned, the bundles of papers found in a locked bureau drawera life 's work of nearly two thousand poemswould have been lost. Lavinia Dickinson 's rescue of these poems gave the world a great treasure. (Dickinson, Emily) If the nineteenth century was, in the words of one historian, the age of association, when men and women formed societies against alcoholism, the disenfranchisement of women, illiteracy, slavery, poverty, and prostitution, Emily Dickinson 's life and writing were again atypical: "The Soul selects her own Society," she wrote in P409.Dickinson occasionally attempted humor at the expense of other races and classes, she was nonetheless equally ironic toward the opponents of progressivism. Dickinson was a prolific and passionate correspondent, who wrote