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Emily Dickinson is now considered one of the greatest American poets of all time, despite the fact that her work was not widely recognized in her own day. Only about ten of her poems were published while she was alive. It was not until after her untimely death at the age of fifty-five that the true greatness of her writing was discovered when the seven hundred, seventy-five (Kennedy, Gioia p1117) poems that she wrote during her short lifetime were then uncovered. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10th, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She had two siblings, a brother Austin and a sister Lavinia. Her parents did not seem to have any sort of profound influence on her life. When she was in her teens she attended Amherst Academy (Habegger p139) and Holyoke Female Seminary (Habegger p191), both of which were very close to her home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily was an energetic and outgoing woman while attending the Academy and Seminary. Later on in her life, at some point in her mid-twenties, Emily began to grow reclusive, retreating into her own little world. Emily stayed in the same house that she was born in for her entire life, never venturing into the world outside of her windows. She focused almost solely on househ