Along with Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson is considered by many to be the genesis of modern American poetics. Her poems still sound radical today in their singular voice and originality; few poets can achieve a comparable voice without sounding imitative. That resounding individualism gained her notoriety as a hermetic, isolated eccentric; though her biography has its dramatic aspects, as with most legends, the reality is more nuanced than the stories would indicate. Memorialized in biographies, museums, countless works of art, movies, dolls, puzzles, refrigerator magnets, and finger puppets: Dickinson’s image may well be more familiar to many people than her poems are. “If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking” may be compact (though it isn’t her shortest work), but it demonstrates many of the themes, imagery, and style for which she is known. In the poem, Dickinson’s speaker searches for the source of grace and meaning—a question she daily explored.

Poet Biography

In the realm of American writers whose lives have been overrun by myth, perhaps only Edgar Allan Poe’s is more misconstrued than Emily Dickinson. As with most public myths, the sources for the Dickinson narrative prove to be both personal and general. Letters, diaries, and publications from her lifetime provide a richer picture of her life than that of a solitary spinster who shunned the public. Even her legendary white dress may have been overstated.

The central fallacy of the Dickinson myth is that she did not want to see her poetry in print. To the contrary, she sent poems in her letters to Samuel Bowles and Josiah Holland, editors at the Springfield Republican, and several were printed there. Notes to her close friend and sister-in-law Susan celebrate the publication of “Safe in the Alabaster Chambers” and playfully suggest editorial changes. After Bowles’s death, Dickinson cultivated a correspondence with abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Thomas Wentworth Higginson who published several articles in Atlantic Monthly, specifically one addressing new writers. Higginson’s advice may have contributed to the misconception about Dickinson and publication: He cautioned her to polish her work and not rush to print.

Born in 1830, Dickinson’s life did not dramatically differ from that of any young woman from a wealthy New England family. The transcendental movement and progressive era began to elevate thoughts of women’s education, though her rejection of its religious component did place Dickinson in the category of social eccentric. After one year at Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary, she returned to the family home at her father’s request—either because the school deemed her Christian conversion without hope, or because the school’s curriculum added nothing to the education Dickinson received at Amherst Academy, where students could access the lectures at Amherst College and where she flourished.

At home, Dickinson adopted only the household duties that corresponded to her affinities—especially those involving cultivation and creation. She declined to clean or to entertain the endless stream of houseguests her father’s political career invited, but she baked, gardened, served as advisor and confidante to her beloved brother Austin, and later helped care for his and Susan’s children. Susan and Emily would reportedly pin notes to the children as they traveled between households in what could be considered an early form of text messaging.

The iconic white dress on display at the Emily Dickinson Museum was a gift to a niece after the poet’s death. But in letters, Dickinson describes herself as wearing brown; in another, she ordered calico fabric. The image may have originated in a satiric letter from Mabel Loomis Todd, brother Austin’s mistress, who never met Dickinson in person. In the letter, Todd claims Emily was “the climax of the family oddity” who always wears white and never leaves the home. Todd may have been interested in painting Emily as eccentric, since Susan—Emily’s friend from girlhood—was the injured wife of Todd’s lover. Dickinson remained homebound after a debilitating eye condition left her sight diminished. She was treated in Boston twice, in 1864 and 1865; from 1865 until her death in 1886, Dickinson remained at the family compound which remained a lively setting for guests and extended family.

Dickinson’s immense poetic output from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s accrued momentum from a poetic “conversion experience” documented in poems and correspondence. Lacking the religious sign of election she for which she hoped as a child, Dickinson found another calling. As her community and family were swept up in yet another religious revival, Dickinson renewed her commitment to poetry. Throughout her life, she struggled with the idea that, especially for women, pursuit of the arts was viewed as self-centered. But the pull of freedom strengthens her resolve, and she devoted herself time and again to craft over family, over women’s roles, and over religious dogma.

By 1865, her eyesight in decline, Dickinson had bound over 1,100 poems into hand sewn books she called “fascicles.” Her sister Lavinia found the booklets after Emily’s death in 1886, at which point there were around 1,800 poems. Overwhelmed, she called on Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson for help. Todd and Higginson edited the volumes, at times drastically altering Dickinson’s poems to suit the tastes of the times (Todd had been granted financial rights related to publication by Dickinson’s brother, but the family squabbled for years over control). Todd also removed any references to her rival, Dickinson’s friend and sister-in-law Susan. In 1998, R.W. Franklin’s restored version of the poems offered a truer look at Dickinson’s body of work. The question of Dickinson’s texts and their authenticity may never be completely resolved.

Myths entertain, but they also tend to reveal collective cultural anxieties. Todd may have had her own personal and immediate reasons to place Dickinson in the margins as a curiosity. But from a publishing standpoint, Dickinson’s extraordinary claiming of personal freedom would have been a harder story to sell, especially in her time. It was much easier for the public to embrace an isolated madwoman than to think that all women might be on the cusp of rejecting their traditional roles. Since she did not joining the church, die not marry, and prioritized work over social obligation, Dickinson was less the Belle of Amherst than she was an early version of a modern career woman. She did not, however, consider herself a model or activist. Dickinson merely exerted control over her life—a radical enough gesture in its time.

Poem Text

Dickinson, Emily. “If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking”. 1929. Daily Poetry.

Summary

On its surface, this brief poem makes a statement about selfless acts of mercy. Its repeated line, “I shall not live in vain” (Lines 2 and 7), reveals its theme of finding individual purpose as a foundation for living. The speaker claims that if their efforts can bring consolation to any life, then life will have an established meaning. Whether the relief is emotional, as in stopping a heartbreak (Line 1), or physical (Lines 3 and 4), the speaker’s intercession on behalf of others seems to define their existence. In Lines 5 and 6, a bird is the beneficiary of the speaker’s kindness and effort; the speaker thus includes preservation of the natural world and benevolence to beings of any kind as acts eligible for grace and purpose. By phrasing the entire poem as a conditional syllogism—which often takes the form, “If A is true, then B is true”—the speaker creates a space for doubt and faith alike.