Emily Dickinson: The Men in Her Life
Friends, Confidants, Mentors or More Intimate Relationships
Emily Dickinson's private life was deeply influenced by her upbringing as the daughter of a prominent and prosperous lawyer in a very reserved and emotionally-rigid household. She was raised to be a cultured Christian woman however she rejected the conventional piety, domesticity and social duty prescribed by her father. As an adult, she chose to live a secluded life, whether because of this or as a the result of unrequited love.
Men in Emily Dickinson’s Early Life
Her letters and poetry are so full of intensity and passion that biographers continue to look for sources that may have brought forth such emotion. As a school girl, two men in particular, Leonard Humphrey, principal of Amherst Academy and Benjamin F. Newton, a law student, both of whom both died very young, seem to be referred to in:
I never as much but twice,
And that was in the sod;
Twice I have stood a beggar
Before the door of God!
Men Who Influenced Emily Dickenson’s Later Life
Charles Wadsworth is often mentioned as the love of Emily Dickinson’s life. He was a Philadelphia minister who she first met in 1854. He was 41 years old, married and had a family. There are drafts of three letters to him, which followed his visit to her in 1960, and the words afterwards have been considered “love poems.” When she learned of his impending move to San Francisco, she wrote: “I had a terror since September, I could tell to none….”
Judge Otis Lord, a widower and old family friend, was part of her life even during Dickinson’s retreat from the world. There is some evidence in the drafts of 15 letters written between 1878 and 1883 that indicate she came to care for Lord and may have considered marriage to him.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson , was a rising young literary man to whom Dickinson sent some of her poems in 1862. Although Higginson only saw her twice, their correspondence continued over a prolonged period. The essay that he wrote about her in the Atlantic Monthly is the only one by a literary figure of that period. It quoted some of her letters and poems and described his impression of her. However, there is no evidence of any romantic involvement between them.
The Love Poems of Emily Dickinson
We can never be sure that the “you” addressed in Dickinson’s poems were for a lover, but the intensity cannot help but make the reader wonder. She wrote,
I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf.
Whether Emily Dickinson, American woman poet, decided to live a secluded life because of love disappointments may never be answered. What is most important is that those men played a part in her life, greatly influencing the passion in her poetry.
Bibliography:
Emily Dickinson and Rachael Wetzsteon. Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. Barnes & Noble, NY: 2003. 400 pages
