the Times: Emily Dickinson hailed as role model for teenage girls by Northwood College head

The new dramatisation, Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld, is now showing on Apple TV

An eccentric 19th-century poet who dressed in white and barely left her bedroom might seem an unlikely role model for today’s teenagers. One headmistress, though, says that girls could learn a lot from Emily Dickinson about dealing with the pressures of modern life.

The reclusive writer who obsessed about death and suffering is the subject of a new TV drama starting next week. Zara Hubble, head of Northwood College for Girls in Harrow, northwest London, said that Dickinson, “broke out of the constraints” that small-town America of the mid-1800s imposed on her, and could inspire the Instagram generation to do the same. Teenage girls would see parallels in her life and their need to keep up with their peers on their social media.

“Girls these days feel the pressure of maintaining a constantly positive public persona. Dickinson chose to express her authentic self, not what society expected, which clearly resonates with girls today,” Mrs Hubble said.

Dickinson, who lived her whole life in Massachusetts, never married and rarely socialised. She defied conventional writing style and her poems have no titles.

“It was dark, introspective and very personal. It absolutely got beneath the veneer,” Mrs Hubble said, adding that “it has the authenticity girls do not get from their social media platforms but are craving”.

The full online article can be found here.