Death of Favorite Aunt Lavinia Norcross
Poet involved
What happened
Emily Dickinson's favorite aunt, Lavinia Norcross, for whom her sister was named, died on April 18, 1860, in Monson, Massachusetts. Dickinson was so deeply attached to her aunt that she found it difficult to accept the reality of her death.
Literary impact
This loss, coming during Dickinson's most prolific period of poetic composition, deepened her engagement with themes of mortality and the afterlife. The grief she experienced found expression in numerous poems that wrestle with the pain of separation and the possibility of reunion beyond the grave, themes that would dominate her mature work.
Source: Wikipedia
