Although Emily Dickinson's life and poetry have been extensively researched, the possibility of her indebtedness to other literary sources for images, phrases, and concepts has merely been touched upon by her researchers. This thesis contributes an in-depth study of Ralph Waldo Emerson's influences upon her poetry. The Emily Dickinson Archives, part of the Houghton Library, Harvard University, contains the Dickinson family library to which Emily had access. The library contains eleven different volumes of Ralph Waldo Emerson's poems and essays and several additional volumes of these in later editions, making a total of sixteen. I found from my investigation of these volumes that Dickinson had marked passages and phrases in them which she later incorporated into her poetry in either of two ways: 1) through clear verbal echoes of Emerson's words and images, or 2) similar concepts, re-fashioned through her own wording. At the least, these markings provide a clue as to the essays which Dickinson found worth noting and from which she may have "borrowed" other phrases and concepts to re-work into her poetry. Some of Emerson's concepts influenced her poetically more so than others: 1) the nature of self--involving the mind, consciousness, and the soul of the individual; 2) life's experiences -- the joys of life and the compensations life offers for sorrow and anguish; and, 3) Emerson's concept of the poet-seer as the representative of all truths. Emily Dickinson's genius must be viewed in the light of all that was assimilated into her mind. Since evidence proves that Ralph Waldo Emerson's prose and poetry greatly inspired her creativity and thought, a further understanding of his influence upon her can only increase our knowledge of both Dickinson and her poetry.