Emily Dickinson's poetic vocabulary has been variously described as being “a small, rigidly compartmented vocabulary of general and conventional groups of terms, plus a moderately capacious vocabulary of homely, acute, directly felt words from which the whole actualizing strength of her verse is drawn” as being a “large vocabulary including many rare words and some of her own manufacture” and as being “undeniably rich, subtle, and strikingly original.” Much of the discussion of her vocabulary has been based upon the impressions of individual commentators and not upon an objective survey of her vocabulary as a whole, but the appearance in 1951 of a concordance to the poems of the Amherst poet in print at that time and the recent publication of the definitive edition of her poems that includes all of the known Dickinson material have made possible a detailed study of her entire vocabulary which furnishes a factual basis for conclusions as to her verbal habits.
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