This essay from the Critical Survey of Poetry reflects on Dickinson's life and provides a critically analysis of the literary themes in her work. 
Emily Dickinson is one of America’s greatest and most original poets of all time. She took definition as her province and challenged the existing definitions of poetry and the poet’s work. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, like those in Brontë’s and Browning’s works, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes.
Unstructured Poetry
This clip discusses the 19th century explosion of free verse poetry including famous pieces from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.
Duration 10 mins
References
Course Hero. (2020, March 13). Poems of Emily Dickinson: Summary & analysis [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6GfsmOGra8c
Faulkner, H. (2002). Emily Dickinson. Critical Survey of Poetry, Second Revised Edition, 1–9.
Know Your Poetry. (2016). Unstructured poetry [Video]. ClickView. https://clickv.ie/w/DOln
Poetry Foundation. (2020). Emily Dickinson. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson