Portrait of Emily Dickinson (Image Source)

I don’t think anyone reading this could have possibly gotten this far in their education without hearing of Emily Dickinson. You might not be incredibly familiar with her poetry, but everyone knows that she is one of the greatest American poets. Personally, she is my favorite poet. I love the way she writes about nature and life and how the entre breadth of human emotion is captured in her words. But that’s not what I’m talking about today. Today I’m going to focus on a somewhat lesser-known aspect of Emily Dickinson – her queerness.

We can never know for sure whether or not Emily Dickinson really was queer, but something we can’t deny is the fact that she had a very intimate relationship with her sister-in-law Sue. Emily wrote many poems and letters for Sue. Many of which were her expressing how much she loved to have Sue near her or how much she hated when Sue was away. Now, this might just be a very strong female friendship, but it makes a lot more sense to say that Emily and Sue loved each other. For the most part, it is an accepted idea that Emily must have been either gay or bisexual, but people still occasionally argue that that’s just what friendship looked like. Whether or not Emily Dickinson truly was in love with Sue, her poems and story will forever be cemented as a piece of queer history. Especially with the phenomenal dramatization of these events in the show Dickinson.

They’re in love and it makes me so gosh darn happy (Image Source)

For those of you who have never watched Dickinson, I cannot recommend the show enough. The show brings to life the story of Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) in a way that focuses on the thoughts and experiences behind the poetry. The show also specifically follows the relationship between Emily and Sue (Ella Hunt) and explores the idea of their queerness in a truly beautiful way. Dickinson depicts all of the trials and tribulations of Emily and Sue loving each other while not being able to actually be together because of the time period and other obstacles. The show portrays queer love in such an authentic way because it doesn’t center all the issues around the fact that the characters are queer. They have real lives and real problems and real hopes and dreams that all have nothing to do with them being queer. Actually, I think this is one of the best things about Dickinson.

Whereas most other TV shows with queer characters center everything else in the show around that queerness, Dickinson allowed the characters to just be people who happened to be queer. Now, I know that may sound weird given how I’ve praised a lot of movies and tv shows for shining a light on all aspects of the queer experience, but just hear me out. I appreciate it when pieces of media show what it’s like to be queer, but I think this representation is especially meaningful when the main point of the characters isn’t that they’re queer. However, like I said Emily and Sue in Dickinson are shown the same way as any other character except they just happen to have additional storylines because of the fact that they are queer. For instance, Emily is still given an entire character arc as a writer and we see her struggle with craving fame and recognition but being too scared of all that comes with it. There is more to their characters than the love they have for each other.

She’s gay and a writer. Get yourself a girl who can do both. (Image Source)

I think this is really meaningful because a lot of queer representation can kind of be a double-edged sword. Obviously, it’s fantastic to have queer characters in tv shows and movies that queer people can relate to, but I also think it’s really important for those characters to represent all of what it means to be a queer person (and a lot of that is just being a person). For instance, I want to relate to a character because they have the same real-world problems as me not just because we’re both gay. With Dickinson I connect to Emily as a person and as a queer person. I understand her frustrations with her family and her desire to do something meaningful with her life, but I can also relate to loving your best friend in a way that people think you shouldn’t. For this reason, Dickinson is one of my favorite queer shows I’ve ever watched. It also definitely helps that I love Emily Dickinson’s poems in a way that I don’t think I have the words to describe, but overall, I really love the well-rounded queer characters in the show. So, if you haven’t watched Dickinson, maybe give it a watch. Or, at the very least read some Emily Dickinson poems, you won’t be disappointed.