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was born and spent her life in Amherst,Massachusetts, a small Calvinist village. Shenever married, and she led an unconventionallife that was outwardly uneventful but wasfull of inner intensity. She loved nature andfound deep inspiration in the birds, animals,plants, and changing seasons of the New Englandcountryside.Dickinson spent the latter part of her life asa recluse, due to an extremely sensitivepsyche and possibly to make time for writing(for stretches of time she wrote about onepoem a day). Her day also included homemakingfor her attorney father, a prominent figure inAmherst who became a member of Congress.Dickinson was not widely read, but knew theBible, the works of William Shakespeare, andworks of classical mythology in great depth.These were her true teachers, for Dickinson wascertainly the most solitary literary figure of hertime. That this shy, withdrawn village woman,almost unpublished and unknown, created someof the greatest American poetry of the 19th centuryhas fascinated the public since the 1950s,when her poetry was rediscovered.Dickinson’s terse, frequently imagistic styleis even more modern and innovative thanWhitman’s. She never uses two words when onewill do, and combines concrete things withabstract ideas in an almost proverbial, compressedstyle. Her best poems have no fat; manymock current sentimentality, and some are evenheretical. She sometimes shows a terrifyingexistential awareness. Like Poe, she exploresthe dark and hidden part of the mind, dramatizingdeath and the grave. Yet she also celebrated simpleobjects — a flower, a bee. Her poetry exhibitsgreat intelligence and often evokes theagonizing paradox of the limits of the human consciousnesstrapped in time. She had an excellentsense of humor, and her range of subjects andtreatment is amazingly wide. Her poems are generallyknown by the numbers assigned them inThomas H. Johnson’s standard edition of 1955.They bristle with odd capitalizations and dashes.A nonconformist, like Thoreau she often reversedmeanings of words and phrases and usedparadox to great effect. From 435:Much Madness is divinest sense —To a discerning Eye —Much Sense — the starkest Madness —‘Tis the MajorityIn this, as All, prevail —Assent — and you are sane —Demur — you’re straightway dangerousAnd handled with a chain —Her wit shines in the following poem (288),which ridicules ambition and public life:I’m Nobody! Who are you?Are you — Nobody — Too?Then there’s a pair of us?Don’t tell! they’d advertise — youknow!How dreary — to be — Somebody!How public — like a Frog —To tell one’s name — the livelongJune —To an admiring Bog!Dickinson’s 1,775 poems continue to intriguecritics, who often disagree about them. Somestress her mystical side, some her sensitivity tonature; many note her odd, exotic appeal. Onemodern critic, R.P. Blackmur, comments thatDickinson’s poetry sometimes feels as if “a catcame at us speaking English.” Her clean, clear,chiseled poems are some of the most fascinatingand challenging in American literature. ■35