Emily Dickinson was an American lyrical poet, and an obsessively private writer. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a family well known for educational and political activity. Her father, an orthodox Calvinist, was a lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College, and also served in Congress. She was educated at Amherst Academy (1834-47) and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (1847-48). Around 1850 Dickinson started to write poems. They were first in fairly conventional style. After ten years of practice she began to give room for experiments. …
