The Art of Emily Dickinson's Early Poetry

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In this study the author defines, for the first time, the developmental stage of Emily Dickinson’s career and identifies the stylistic habits already established prior to the outpouring of her mature poetry in the years following 1861. Through a perceptive reading of the poetry itself, rather than through biographical speculation, he discerns the unique voice of the poet and the theme which dominates her early work. In his examination of her artistic techniques—in metrics and rhyme, imagery and diction, paradox and irony—David Porter reveals the formal brilliance which contains her seemingly spontaneous and intensely personal expression.