Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the man of letters to whom Emily Dickinson first entrusted her poems, was dumbfounded by them, and asked, "What place ought to be assigned in literature to what is so remarkable, yet so elusive of criticism?" His question was answered only after Dickinson's death: She is now considered one of America's greatest poets. Her terse, oblique, visionary poems have almost no relation to the conventions of the second half of the 19th century, when they were written. They play adventurously with meter and rhyme and are completely free of the saccharine sentiments popular at the time. Irreverent, frank, eccentric, and deeply personal, Dickinson's poetry remains fresh and unique, and is always scrupulously in search of truth. As Dickinson put it herself: "Much Madness is divinest Sense--/To a discerning Eye..."
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La poeta nord-americana Emily Dickinson (Amherst, Massachusetts, 1830-1886) va néixer en una família benestant i puritana de Nova Anglaterra. Va estudiar a l’acadèmia d’Amherst, però la seva delicada salut i la seva rebel·lia religiosa la van portar a abandonar el curs abans d’hora. Dickinson, que era una jove activa i plena de vida, es va tancar amb trenta anys a la casa paterna i ja no en va sortir. Amb una obra escrita de prop de mil vuit-cents poemes, en vida en va veure publicats molt pocs, i no va ser fins al segle XX que va ser apreciada com a poeta.