Emily Dickinson’s Secret Lover

Emily Dickinson’s Secret Lover

        Emily Dickinson, one of literatures most praised poets, is famous for her unique and out-of-the-box poetry.  Her poetry, which often contains only a few stanzas, is powerfully written and questions “the nature of immortality and death, with at times an almost mantric quality” (Pettinger). Her poetry though, was not published until 1893, after she had already died.  Out of all 1775 of Dickinson’s poems, “more than 300 of them concern about love,” and were her most rememberable work (KE).  For Dickinson, she viewed love more similar to what we believe is true love in todays modern society. “Meeting the one is fate, becoming their friend is a choice, but falling for them is beyond your control” (Benson).  Love to her meant having a “spiritual connection between lovers, the combination between soul and body and the inevitable separation between lover” (KE).  To feel such passion was exactly what Dickinson so terribly longed for all her life and continually expressed this longingness in her poetry.  Although, she never married and often secluded herself from much human interaction, research and researchers suggest that Dickinson did find such lover in her lifetime (Pettinger).  Her intense love poetry was not written until she met Charles Wadsworth, supposedly her secret lover (Emily Dickinson’s Life).  But still to this day, there are critics out there that say otherwise.  So the topic of whom her lover may be is often debated.  Each skeptic has their own theory of who this mystery man may be, but as for me, I agree with Alfred Habegger, an original Dickinsonian, that Reverend Charles Wadsworth was the man Dickinson fell madly in love with and gave her inspiration (Peck). I agree with Habeggar because, after they met was when Dickinson wrote passionate love poems about a man she’s in love with but could never be with (KE).  Then, after Wadsworth left her, was when Dickinson consumed herself with her poetry, writing 366 poems just in 1862, spilling deep heart wrenching feelings and emotions into her poetry, especially her love poetry (Emile Dickinson’s Life).  Therefore, because of the timeframe, and some of her poetry referring to a forbidden love, how could Dickinson been in love with any other man than Wadsworth.  

        Dickinson met Charles Wadsworth, a Presbyterian minister, in 1855 on a trip to Philadelphia were she was seeking eye treatment (Reverend).  Not long after meeting one other, did Wadsworth become Dickinson’s “closest earthy friend” who she developed a great love for, even though he was a married man (Emily Dickinson Academy).  With this boundary, the two could never be more than just friends but Dickinson still saw him as the romantic figure in her life whom she could confide in when writing her poetry (Reverend).  Because of the two’s close relationship, “many of Dickinson’s critics believe that Wadsworth was the focal point of Dickinson’s love poems” and was the reason she started writing passionate love poems (KE).  Shortly after Wadsworth visited her home in 1860, he departed to the West Coast, forever leaving Dickinson.(Reverend). Due to his absence in Dickinson’s life, “critics believe his departure gave rise to the heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson in the years that followed” (Emily Dickinson Poets). His absence from her life compelled her to write poems expressing the agony, loneliness, and misery she felt in her heart.  The only way she could comfort herself and feel relieved of pain from her tortured and broken heart was when she found consolation in her poetry (KE).  For the rest of Dickinson’s life, she filled her inner world with “extreme contradictions.  She longed for love, but she could not gain the true love.  She had to bear the long time separation from her lover” (KE).  According to Alfred Habegger, an original Dickinsonian, “this romance revealed to Dickinson the disconnection between her dreams and the realities of life. Painful and transforming, it brought a final sense of isolation, abandonment, and rejection” (Peck).

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