Emily Dickinson Is the Unlikely Hero of Our Time

Emily Dickinson Is the Unlikely Hero of Our Time
A daguerreotype taken in December 1846 or early 1847; the only authenticated portrait of Emily Dickinson after childhood. Amherst College Archives & Special Collections. Public Domain
The Conversation
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Since her death in 1886, Emily Dickinson has haunted us in many forms.

She has been the precocious “little dead girl” admired by distinguished men; the white-clad, solitary spinster languishing alone in her bedroom; and, in more recent interpretations, the rebellious teenager bent on smashing structures of power with her torrential genius.