英文介绍
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although part of a prominent family with strong ties to its community, Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a noted penchant for white clothing and became known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence. Dickinson was a recluse for the later years of her life.
While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1,800 poems were published during her lifetime.The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.[4] Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.
Although Dickinson's acquaintances were most likely aware of her writing, it was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Dickinson's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of her work became apparent to the public. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, though both heavily edited the content. A complete, and mostly unaltered, collection of her poetry became available for the first time when scholar Thomas H. Johnson published The Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1955. Despite some unfavorable reception and skepticism over the late 19th and early 20th centuries regarding her literary prowess, Dickinson is now almost universally considered to be one of the most significant of all American poets.
中文介绍
埃米莉·伊丽莎白·狄更生（Emily Elizabeth Dickinson，又译艾弥莉‧狄瑾荪或艾米莉·狄金森，1830年12月10日－1886年5月15日），美国诗人。诗风凝炼，比喻尖新，常置格律以至语法于不顾。生前只发表过10首诗，默默无闻，死后近70年开始得到文学界的认真关注，被现代派诗人追认为先驱。与同时代的惠特曼，一同被奉为美国最伟大诗人，后世对她的诗艺、恋爱生活、性取向多有揣测。
狄更生出生于马萨诸塞州安默斯特颇具影响力的一个显赫家族，性格内向，不爱露面。年轻时，她曾在安默斯特学院学习了七年，此后，又在曼荷莲女子神学院度过了一段短暂的时光，最终返回到位于安默斯特的家中。当地人认为她似乎格格不入。大家都知道她偏爱白色衣着，不愿见客，晚年时甚至不愿迈出自己房间一步。因此她与大多数朋友的友情都靠通信维系。
作为一位高产却孤僻的诗人，狄更生的1800多首诗歌作品仅有十几首在她在世时得到出版。这些在她生前出版的作品常常会被出版商大肆修改，以符合当时传统的诗歌规则。在狄更生所处的时代里，她的诗歌是独特的。她的诗歌包含短句，略去标题，韵脚不齐，并且还有反常规的大写字母和标点符号。她的许多诗歌探讨死亡和永生，这两个主题也反复出现在她寄给朋友的信里。
尽管大多数狄更生的朋友可能都意识到她的写作异于常人，但是直到1886年她去世这年，她的妹妹拉维尼亚发现了她藏匿的作品，狄更生大量的作品才为人所知。她的第一本诗歌作品集在1890年由私人好友托马斯·温特沃斯·希金森和梅布尔·托特出版，他们二人都对作品内容进行了重大修改。直至1955年，学者托马斯·H·约翰逊出版了《埃米莉·狄更生诗集》，这是狄更生作品首度完整出版，几乎没有任何修改。尽管19世纪末至20世纪初有些对其文学实力的不认同与怀疑，狄更生如今几乎被广泛认定是美国最重要的诗人之一。
