Was emily dickinson gay

Was Emily Dickinson gay? Perhaps it's best to let Emily answer this question in her own words, from one of the many letters she wrote the love of her life, Susan Gilbert. To Susan she said, "To own a Susan of my own, Is of itself a Bliss —Whatever Realm I forfeit, Lord, Continue me in this!".

Dickinson’s school days and young adulthood included several significant male friends, among them Benjamin Newton, a law student in her father’s office; Henry Vaughn Emmons, an Amherst College student; and George Gould, an Amherst College classmate of the poet’s brother Austin.

Although there isn’t a lot of hard evidence that confirms Dickinson’s sexual orientation, those who study her work believe that several surviving letters written to Susan Gilbert Dickinson may suggest that she wasn’t straight. Dickinson and Gilbert were incredibly close for most of their lives.

Scholarship lately has indicated that Dickinson had a lifelong love affair with her childhood friend Susan Gilbert, who later became her sister-in-law after she married Emily’s brother Austin.