Why did Emily Dickinson never used sonnets?

Answer 1

Actually, she did. Here's a description of sonnet forms and an example of one of her sonnets:

THE SONNET

A lyric poem of fourteen lines, following one or another of several set rhyme-schemes. Critics of the sonnet have recognized varying classifications, but to all essential purposes two types only need be discussed ff the student will understand that each of these two, in turn, has undergone various modifications by experimenters. The two characteristic sonnet types are the Italian (Petrarchan) and the English (Shakespearean). The first, the Italian form, is distinguished by its bipartite division into the octave and the sestet: the octave consisting of a first division of eight lines rhyming

abbaabba
and the sestet, or second division, consisting of six lines rhyming

cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce.

"Emily Dickinson

And still you scorn the confines life would cast
About your fixed and marked identity.
A father, lover, friend tried endlessly,
And all the cycled censors failed at last.
Now resurrected in your revived past,
At signal of the butterfly and bee,
Witness your love wedded in mystery!
Beyond the book, the dream once believed, you clasp.

Not what we read or see or trace in line,
Becomes the ultimate of greater worth;
It is the dream we hold as our own right
Unseen by men, but envied for the sign
It shines upon the face of these on earth
Who cling to love and faith beyond the light."

Answer 2

Emily Dickinson Sonnets

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Why did Emily Dickinson never used sonnets?

Answer 4

Not everyone likes writing in such a constrictive format, like sonnets or sestinas. Some writers like having the guidelines there, while others prefer a looser free verse structure.

And, that's not to say that she never wrote a sonnet. Maybe she just threw them all out!

Answer 5

Because poets and writers do not write to conform to literary styles but to convey some messages in styles that they deem appropriate. Hence Emily found her strategy much better than sonnet forms to convey her messages. Form is just the cloth that covers the content. Don't you put on clothing just to make you presentable before others? The real you is inside the wrappers just like the physical body is the temple of the invisible spirit.

Answer 6

I don't believe she ever did, as she preferred a shorter line, often alternating tetrameter with trimeter.

The sonnet above is not by her but about her.

Answer 7

May be she did not like them.

Answer 8

Because she didn't want to...?