1media/melodrama cover.jpg2018-04-26T08:14:05-07:00Ashley Hawkins726140adc61c4a4e48ede277efffd60d746c27733022831vistoc2018-05-08T23:01:49-07:00Ashley Hawkins726140adc61c4a4e48ede277efffd60d746c2773Throughout the history of American culture, many artists gained as much fame for their creations as for the details of their personal lives, and perhaps no writer has a reputation that is as well known and central to the understanding of her works as Emily Dickinson has. Notorious for her self-imposed seclusion and her general antisocial and non-conformist behavior, Dickinson created a persona – which ultimately became a mythology – for herself defined by eccentricity, isolation, and (in retrospect) mental illness. Dickinson is the original fringe woman in American art; because she wrote primarily for herself, she presumably did not edit the thoughts expressed in her poems to be more palatable to a public audience, allowing her to express an unadulterated view into her troubled psyche in her poetry. Since then, female artists existing outside the mainstream have similarly used their positions as fringe women to discuss mental illness and depression in ways that mainstream (pop) culture would reject: Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton in literature; Fiona Apple, riot grrl bands, and other acts from the 1990s alternative music scene, and most recently (and most notably), Lorde.