Emily Dickinson’s Works are Now an Open Book
“Saying nothing…sometimes says the most,” Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter to her aunt. Those words describe fittingly the poet’s very private and secluded life, since much of it has remained shrouded in mystery for decades — she lived in almost total isolation, seldom leaving her house in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Among the riddles surrounding Dickinson (1830–1886) are her relationship with Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia in 1855 and corresponded with for many years, as well as the fate of hundreds of her poems, the bulk of which remained unpublished during her lifetime. Upon Dickinson’s death, her sister Lavinia discovered in a locked chest some 40 hand-bound volumes — also called “fascicles”–which the prolific poetess made by folding and sewing together several sheets of stationery paper. Ten or so pieces that were released at the time were significantly changed by the publishers to fit the conventional style of the time, which was in total contrast to Dickinson’s creative but unusual use of dashes. (The Hills untied their Bonnets — The Bobolinks — begun — Then I said softly to myself — “That must have been the Sun”!)
Now, one of these mysteries — the whereabouts of her poems — has finally been solved, with the inauguration this week of the online Emily Dickinson Archive. It brings together her manuscripts, which had been scattered among Harvard University, Amherst College, the Boston Public Library, and five other institutions.
The new portal is a convenient, one-stop resource for scholars as well as Dickinson fans to virtually browse through handwritten poems, the notes she made on the edges of used envelopes and other scraps of paper, as well as those famous dashes that left her editors frazzled.
Interestingly, after Dickinson’s death and the discovery of the fascicles, Lavinia had given the poems to her brother’s wife to be organized; the sister-in-law then turned them over to her husband’s mistress, sparking a long-lasting legal battle over the ownership of the manuscripts.
The new project also came to fruition amid a bitter, centuries-old feud between Harvard and Amherst universities, which hold two of the largest collections of Dickinson’s papers. The conflict surrounds the copyright of the documents as well as the choice of materials for the archive.
In the end, however, the life and works of the enigmatic and very private poetess hold fewer unexplained mysteries.
Originally published at simplycharly.com.
