The eagerness with which the first volume of Emily Dickinson’s poems has been read shows very clearly that all our alleged modern artificiality does not prevent a prompt appreciation of the qualities of directness and simplicity in approaching the greatest themes,—life and love and death. That 'irresistible needle-touch,' as one of her best critics has called it, piercing at once the very core of a thought, has found a response as wide and sympathetic as it has been unexpected even to those who knew best her compelling power. This second volume, while open to the same criticism as to form with its predecessor, shows also the same shining beauties.
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) är en av de största amerikanska poeterna genom tiderna. Hon behandlade klassiska ämnen som naturen, kärleken och döden, men hennes poesi blev i sin fria form nyskapande i den viktorianska litteraturen. Dickinson efterlämnade en omfattande brevkorrespondens, ett fyrtiotal anteckningsböcker och nästan tvåtusen dikter. Dickinsons litterära livsverk publicerades postumt.
