ALH Online Review, Series X 1. Dickinson In Her Own Time: A ... degree, whose best thought could not exist in pretenseâ
ALH Online Review, Series X 1 Dickinson In Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn From Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates, ed. Jane Donahue Eberwein, Stephanie Farrar, and Cristanne Miller (Iowa City: U of Iowa Press, 2016), 202 pp. Reviewed by Wendy Martin, Claremont Graduate University This collection of important documents about Emily Dickinson's life and poetry, some of which have not been published previously, is an invaluable resource for scholars and students, as well as general readers. It includes memoirs and recollections by family and friends, both intimate and more distant, along with letters and posthumous reviews; it is an invaluable contribution the editors make to have all of this material so readily available in one place. Dickinson’s life and work have been subject to conflicting interpretations from the time she was a young woman: a dour recluse, lovelorn spinster, a death-obsessed neurasthenic, a helpless agoraphobic, and someone who actively decided to remain in the privacy of her home to concentrate on her extended family, close friends and her writing. The essays and letters collected here from Dickinson’s intimate friends throughout her life help to unravel the complex web of conjectures and controversies about her and to debunk the elaborate myths perpetuated since her death in 1886 at the age of 56. As the editors explain, the portrait of Dickinson as morose and withdrawn is dispelled by reminiscences that make it clear that she was “humorous, playful and interested in other people” (xv). For example, recollections from Dickinson’s relatives and close friends like Henrietta Mack Eliot, MacGregor Jenkins and Clara Bellinger Green, Emily Fowler Ford and Clara Newman Turner, who knew her when they were children, improves our understanding of the damaging impact of the mythology elaborated about Dickinson. Emily Fowler Ford remembers the poet’s “glinting playfulness” (110); among the most vivid instances is the time Dickinson’s nephew Gilbert, who lived next door at the Evergreens, left his high top rubber boots at the Homestead where Dickinson, her sister, Lavinia, and parents lived. As Clara Newman Turner reports the story, the next morning the boots were “standing erect & spotless on a silver tray, their tops running over with Emily’s flowers” at the front door of Gilbert’s home (143). Dickinson’s habit of remaining “at home,” as she phased it, has been the source of much scholarly controversy as well as general fascination and puzzlement. In this context, it is crucial to recognize that privacy was a fiercely held value in Victorian culture, both in the US and England. Victorian social norms, with the insistence on separate spheres in which women, especially those of the privileged classes, were associated with private space to © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail:
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2 ALH Online Review, Series X a fetishistic extent created the opportunity for Dickinson to stay at the Homestead with visits next-door; these adjoining houses shared ample grounds which included a very large garden and greenhouse. Both Dickinson households were full of people much of the time, family members of all ages, as well as servants and frequent visitors to both homes. The accounts of Dickinson’s life by close friends and family members make it clear that she preferred being at home. For example, Emily Fowler Ford observes that Dickinson was very domestic even as a young woman, though “she could name the haunts and the habits of every wild or garden growth within her reach” (111). Mabel Loomis Todd in her Preface to the poems published in 1891, “Emily had tried society and the world, and found them lacking. She was not an invalid, and she lived in seclusion from no lovedisappointment. Her life was the normal blossoming of a nature introspective to a high degree, whose best thought could not exist in pretense” (xxi.) Todd also observed that “storm, wind, and the wild March sky, sunsets and dawns; the birds and bees, butterflies and flowers of her garden with a few trusted friends were sufficient companionship.” And Lavinia Dickinson further explains to Caroline Healey Dall in a letter of 29 Jan 1895, “Our mother had a period of invalidism, and one of her daughters must be constantly at home. Emily chose this part and, finding the life with her books and nature so congenial, continued to live it, always seeing her chosen friends and doing her part for the happiness of the home” (119). Clara Newman Turner recalls, the following year, that Dickinson’s seclusion “began by simply not joining in some things which were not congenial & a gradual withdrawing from many things” (142). Perhaps just as controversial over the years has been Dickinson’s relationship to traditional religion. Again, this collection sheds considerable light. Clara Newman Turner recalls that when the headmistress at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary asked those students who were committed Christians to stand up, Dickinson was “the only one who did not rise” (149). Emily Norcross reports that her cousin “says she has no particular objection to becoming a Christian and she says she feels bad when she hears of one and another of her friends who are expressing a hope but still she feels no more interest“ (6). In the well-known letter to T. W. Higginson thanking him for his literary advice, the poet writes that her family is “religious except me, and address an eclipse, every morning whom they call their “father” (98). In another letter to Higginson, she writes, “do not try to be saved, let redemption find you, as it certainly will. Love is its own rescue: for we, as at our supremest are but its trembling emblems” (102). Perhaps the most interesting part of this collection is the material documenting the complex politics surrounding the posthumous publication of Dickinson’s work. Clearly, there was considerable conflict and controversy in the family about who owned the
ALH Online Review, Series X 3 rights, especially between Lavinia and Susan Gilbert Dickinson. Lavinia insisted that all of her sister’s work was bequeathed to her while Susan ferociously guarded her right to publish the poems and letters that she had received from Emily. This intense rivalry becomes patent when Lavinia accuses Susan of not moving quickly enough to publish the poems; Susan insists that she wishes to protect the Dickinson family privacy. After considerable quarreling, Lavinia enlists Austin’s lover, Mabel Loomis Todd, along with Higginson, the well-known critic and editor, to arrange to bring Dickinson’s work to light. Austin Dickinson weighs in with an observation that “Sister Vin,” believing that Emily was a “shining genius, was determined to have some of her writing where it could be read by all men, and she is expecting to famous herself thereby, and now we shall see“ (56). This observation about Lavinia’s ambition for herself seems to be borne out by her letter to Thomas Niles on 24 February 1891: “Has the book been introduced in California? Would there be any harm in acquainting some book seller there with the news? I have heard of it (today) in Michigan and Tennessee. We want it everywhere. . . . I’m greedy for every crumb of Appreciation. Thank you again for all your kind interest in my ‘Joan of Arc’ ‘crusade’” (78). In general, these materials reveal an intriguing tale of jealousy and competition, ambition, and a desire for control and dominance. Susan herself described these family politics as a “hornet’s nest” (82). The final part of this volume documents the public reception of Dickinson’s poetry. As we know, only ten poems were published in Dickinson’s lifetime; even so, she was recognized as a writer while she was alive. This collection contains her considerable correspondence with important editors, including Higginson of the Atlantic; Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican; Josiah Gilbert Holland, literary editor for the Republican as well as founder and editor of Scribner’s; Helen Hunt Jackson, the widely known poet and writer; as well as Thomas Niles, an editor who helped with the publication of Dickinson’s work by Roberts Brothers after her death. William Dean Howells in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine observes that the poems are “terribly unsparing” but are “true as the grave and certain as mortality” (71). Several critics described Dickinson’s poetry as ahead of its time in regard to meter and rhyme; as many have observed, including the modernist poet, Amy Lowell, Dickinson anticipated the modernist movement in the arts, especially poetry. As Lowell avers in 1918, “thirty years after her death, the flag under which she fought had become a great banner, the symbol of a militant revolt” (164). Emily Dickinson In Her Own Time is truly a gift to all of us.
