A Gendered Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry and her Feminine Consciousness - Taking They shut me up in Prose - as an Example

Abstract

Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest female poets in the history of Western literature and a pioneer of modernist poetry. Her reclusive life was considered eccentric at her time. Her poetry is unique in style and expression, and she wrote about women’s desire for freedom and independence, as well as her ambition of breaking the restrictions for women in a patriarchal society. She believed that poetry was a superior literary form compared to prose and that women could also express themselves through poetry. This essay focuses on the feminine consciousness expressed in Emily Dickinson’s poetry. By analyzing her poem, They shut me up in Prose - from a gendered or feminist perspective, this essay discusses the relationship between Emily Dickinson’s female identity and her career as a poet: Emily Dickinson’s feminist thought expressed in her poetry was influenced by the women’s rights movement in the 19th century America, as well as her own life and education experience, and poetry was her way to rebel against the patriarchal literary tradition.