Emily Dickinson

John Baskerville

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IntroFor my essay I wanted to focus on two inherently talented individuals whose work was not appreciated until after their untimely death. Rather than focus on the specifics of their life, I want to focus on the fact that throughout it they did not receive the appreciation that they deserved and for both of them their genius was noticed later on when they had already passed on. Even though they both were in completely different fields of work, Baskerville a designer and Dickenson a poet, their creative minds had a profound influence on modern design and poetry today.

First I will look into the life and death of the brilliant poet, Emily Dickinson. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10th, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was born into a good family that held up strong family morals and ties. She studied and Amherst Academy for seven years until she went to Mount Holoke Female Seminary. This did not last that entire long and a few years later she moved back in to the family house in Amherst. She was thought of to be very kooky and strange by the locals and was rarely seen especially in her later years of her life, where she was seldom seen outside of her house. She was known for her strange all white clothing appearance, and reluctance to make any sort of contact with any of the townsfolk. For the time the few poems which were published during her lifetime were thought of as so different from poetry of the time, that all of her published works were altered to fit those molds. Her poems

dealt with the idea of death and immorality and few had read them to know this except for the small number of acquaintances that she had. Roughly ten to fifteen of her poems were published during her lifetime and it wasn’t till her death on May 15, 1886, when the entirety of her work was found. When her younger sister, Lavinia, was going through her personal belongings she found the bulk of over eighteen hundred poems that were left unpublished through her lifetime. Her sister took the poems to acquaintances, Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, who edited it and publish her work in 1890. It wasn’t until 1955 until her actual work, unedited, was released to the public. When it was first released it received mixed reviews and wasn’t recognized and the poetic masterpiece as they are today. It wasn’t until later in the twentieth century, when The Poems of Emily Dickinson was publish by Thomas H. Johnson, that her poems were recognized.

About

Emily Dickinson

John Baskerville was born January 28th, 1706, in Wolvery, a small village in England. He then moved and spent his life in Birmingham. He started off his life as a printer and publisher in 1757, but it wasn’t until 1758, that he starting printing works for the University of Cambridge in 1758. It was noted that he was well known for the fact that he was an atheist, but in 1763 printed one of his most well-known works of his entire life, the Baskerville bible in 1763. This bible was simple enough but the big thing about it was the use of his typeface, which he called Baskerville. Baskerville was thought to be the peak of transitional types and connected the gap between old style type and modern type design. Even though there were groups of people who appreciated Baskerville, namely Benjamin Franklin, a large majority of people though this type was just flashy, with its extreme over the top look and unnecessary change in line weight. Due to this during his lifetime his fonts were not praised as they should have been. This was thought to be because of John Baskerville’s

Aboutrivals and enemies who portrayed it as so different and unusual that people accepted this and strayed away from his font. It wasn’t until years after his death, on January 8, 1775, that his font began to make a comeback. It wasn’t until the 1920’s when his fonts made its comeback, when it was released once again from Linotype, Monotype, and other companies who wanted to bring this amazing font back into the public’s eye. It also had a few different look alike that tried to resemble this amazing font. One that I found similar was Mrs. Eaves, which was known as the “wife” of Baskerville. This font was created in 1996, and is part of the revival of Baskerville. The reason why it has made such a big comeback in its inherit beauty, and the simple yet well-defined class that puts it above so many other fonts. Even though it was not thought to be that during its creation and it took so many years to catch on, Baskerville is one of more widely used and well known fonts of today.

John Baskerville

1) http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_im-age_group/2011/6/2/1307025539607/emily-dickinson-007.jpg

2) http://www.search.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/content/imag-es/2/2/Resource/946-0.jpg

3) http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1761.htm

4) http://ilovetypography.com/2007/09/23/baskerville-john/

5) http://www.biographyonline.net/poets/emily_dickinson.html

6) http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/

In looking at both of these masters of their own independent field, it may be easy to see the similarities even though they led completely different lifestyles. Dickenson, who was known for her lack of communication to the outside world and small amount of works that were actually published in her life; to Baskerville, a well-known printer and designer who simply was not appreciated because of his competition and his font was so innovative for his time that it went unnoticed till after his death. Both of these two people had completely different personalities and due to circumstances simply were not able to have their work recognized for what it was. It is sad looking at it now because I have so much respect for both of this people yet they will never know that something that they did created so much of an impact on poetry and design today. Their work will forever be remembered and live in history even though they may have not been able to see it in their lifetime.

Conclusion/Work Sited