The question is whether there is anything to be gained from a comparison of Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, and of course there is. This does not mean that there is not good reason to consider them first as individuals and as very different poets writing at different times in history, for each writer reflects her time and her own personality to a strong degree. At the same time, it cannot be said that the two are writing on different matters, or on matters so widely separated as to make comparison futile. Indeed, their value as poets lies precisely in their ability to tap into something that is universal and that links the two as artists in spite of being separated by a century of time.
The similarities between the two women are reflected in the fact that both are held up as examples of repressed women who managed to find expression through their poetry and other writings because their respective societies did not provide an equal place for women. Both have also been portrayed as women who were at least partially destroyed by the degree to which their natures were repressed by a male-dominated society, though it is obvious that they were affected to differing degrees by this repression. One problem with this sort of assessment is that it is based on an external image and only a partial understanding of the psychological forces that made these two women choose their respective paths. Basically, the two did not fit into life as we expect people to be able to do. Emily Dickinson seems to have withdrawn from life and to have lived a very restricted existence geographically and personally. She died in the house where she was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. she left that state only once and left her village only a few times in her life. From the time she was 42 years of age, she rarely left her home or its grounds. This constituted a change in Emily over time, for as a youth she had been gregarious, whereas in the last year...