Richard Sewall, 95; Emily Dickinson Biographer

Richard Sewall, 95, a Yale University English professor who was the author of an influential biography of poet Emily Dickinson, died Wednesday in Newton, Mass.

Born in Albany, N.Y., Sewall earned his bachelor’s degree at Williams College and his doctorate at Yale. He joined the Yale faculty in 1934, where he held a number of academic and administrative positions in a career spanning 40 years.

Sewall was given the National Book Award for his 1974 work, “The Life of Emily Dickinson,” in which he rejected the conventional view that Dickinson was a neurotic recluse pining over her inability to be loved.

Sewall’s biography, which took 20 years to research and write, presents the view that Dickinson did not turn to poetry as a solace but rather as a career goal chosen early in her life.

It was for this reason, he wrote, that she chose to live a rather remote life.

He retired from Yale in 1976. The university established a teaching award in his name, which is given annually to the school’s outstanding professor.