Description
Book SynopsisThis Companion to America's greatest woman poet showcases the diversity and excellence that characterize the thriving field of Dickinson studies.
Trade Review"The twenty-six essays that make up this
Companion are all of extremely high quality [and] each is quite distinct from the others.... This book is an essential addition to any university library where Dickinson's poetry is included on courses, at any level, and would add depth and breadth to public library collections where Dickinson's poetry is already of significant interest." (
Reference Reviews, November 2009)
"The essays show the breadth, depth, and vitality of current scholarship in Dickinson studies. Indexed and selectively illustrated with black and white photographs, this volume merits a place alongside An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia and The Emily Dickinson Handbook, but is unique in offering readers the benefits of digital collaboration." (Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin, Fall 2008)
Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors viii
Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Sources xv
Acknowledgments xvi
Introduction 1
Martha Nell Smith and Mary Loeffelholz
Part I: Biography – the Myth of “the Myth” 9
1 Architecture of the Unseen 11
Aife Murray
2 Fracturing a Master Narrative, Reconstructing “Sister Sue” 37
Ingrid Satelmajer
3 Public, Private Spheres: What Reading Emily Dickinson’s Mail Taught me about Civil Wars 58
Martha Nell Smith
4 “Pretty much all real life”: The Material World of the Dickinson Family 79
Jane Wald
Part II: The Civil War – Historical and Political Contexts 105
5 “Drums off the Phantom Battlements”: Dickinson’s War Poems in Discursive Context 107
Faith Barrett
6 The Eagle’s Eye: Dickinson’s View of Battle 133
Renée Bergland
7 “How News Must Feel When Traveling”: Dickinson and Civil War Media 157
Eliza Richards
Part III: Cultural Contexts – Literature, Philosophy, Theology, Science 181
8 Really Indigenous Productions: Emily Dickinson, Josiah Holland, and Nineteenth-Century Popular Verse 183
Mary Loeffelholz
9 Thinking Dickinson Thinking Poetry 205
Virginia Jackson
10 Dickinson and the Exception 222
Max Cavitch
11 Dickinson’s Uses of Spiritualism: The “Nature” of Democratic Belief 235
Paul Crumbley
12 “Forever – is Composed of Nows –”: Emily Dickinson’s Conception of Time 258
Gudrun M. Grabher
13 God’s Place in Dickinson’s Ecology 269
Nancy Mayer
Part IV: Textual Conditions: Manuscripts, Printings, Digital Surrogates 279
14 Auntie Gus Felled It New 281
Tim Morris
15 Reading Dickinson in Her Context: The Fascicles 288
Eleanor Elson Heginbotham
16 The Poetics of Interruption: Dickinson, Death, and the Fascicles 309
Alexandra Socarides
17 Climates of the Creative Process: Dickinson’s Epistolary Journal 334
Connie Ann Kirk
18 Hearing the Visual Lines: How Manuscript Study Can Contribute to an Understanding of Dickinson’s Prosody 348
Ellen Louise Hart, with Sandra Chung
19 “The Thews of Hymn”: Dickinson’s Metrical Grammar 368
Michael L. Manson
20 Dickinson’s Structured Rhythms 391
Cristanne Miller
21 A Digital Regiving: Editing the Sweetest Messages in the Dickinson Electronic Archives 415
Tanya Clement
22 Editing Dickinson in an Electronic Environment 437
Lara Vetter
Part V: Poetry & Media – Dickinson’s Legacies 453
23 “Dare you see a soul at the White Heat?”: Thoughts on a “Little Home-keeping Person” 455
Sandra M. Gilbert
24 Re-Playing the Bible: My Emily Dickinson 462
Alicia Ostriker
25 “For Flash and Click and Suddenness–”: Emily Dickinson and the Photography-Effect 471
Marta L. Werner
26 “Zero to the Bone”: Thelonious Monk, Emily Dickinson, and the Rhythms of Modernism 490
Joshua Weiner
Index of First Lines 496
Index of Letters of Emily Dickinson 500
Index 503
