English 016.303 Fall 2013 Emily Dickinson at Large Professor Max Cavitch Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:30-2:50 Office hours: Th 10-1 FBH 323 FBH 341 [email protected]
Required texts: Franklin, ed., The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition (Harvard 0674018249) Johnson, ed., Emily Dickinson: Selected Letters (Harvard 0674250702) Habbegger, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (Modern Library 0812966015)
Reserved texts (available for use at VPL, Rosengarten Reserve): R. W. Franklin, ed., The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, 2 vols. (1981) ---, The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, 3 vols. (1998)—not yet on reserve Thomas H. Johnson, ed., The Letters of Emily Dickinson, 3 vols. (1958) ---, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, 3 vols. (1955) Jay Leyda, The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson, 2 vols. (1960) Richard Sewall, The Life of Emily Dickinson (1974)
Graded work Attendance, participation, and short assignments: ~30% of semester grade Two short essays: ~20% of grade One in-class presentation: ~20% of grade One long essay: ~30% of grade
Course policies Attendance is mandatory. Complete each assignment carefully before coming to class, and be prepared to talk about it. All members of the seminar will be expected to participate actively and thoughtfully in seminar discussion at each class meeting.
Poem of the Day For each class meeting, be especially diligent in preparing one poem of your choice from that day’s assigned reading. Everyone will from time to time be called upon to 1) read it aloud and 2) lead a discussion of it.
Essays During the first half of the semester, you will write two short (1000 words) essays on topics I will assign. Topic assignments will be posted to the course’s Canvas site one week before the due-date. These short essays are meant to 1) give me a sense of your critical writing and 2) to give you early feedback on your writing in anticipation of the long (5000-7000 words) essay due later on. The long essay is meant to be an extended piece of thorough scholarship and original criticism. Essay due-dates are indicated on the schedule of classes below. Late essays will be accepted only at my discretion and (if accepted) will be marked down one-third of a letter grade for each day beyond the deadline. Prepare your essays according to the following specifications. If these specifications are not met, your essay will be returned to you for immediate correction and will be marked down at least a third of a letter grade for being late: • 12 pt. font, double-spaced • 1” margins on all four sides • give it a good title • mark all pages with your name and the page number • quote accurately and provide full bibliographic citations (use either Chicago or MLA style)
In-class presentation 15-20 minutes, on a topic developed by you in consultation with me. Ideally, the presentation will be related to your long essay, but this is not mandatory. Presentations will begin after Spring Break. Talk to me about possible topics and your preferred presentation date as soon as possible.
Academic integrity It is your responsibility to be familiar with the University’s Code of Academic Integrity. Instances of academic dishonesty will be referred to the College Office for adjudication.
Schedule of classes
Th 8/29 Introductory
"In Ebon Box, when years have flown" (F180); Letter #58; "There is another sky" (J2); "There is another sky" (FA13-2); photo of enclosure to Letter #58
T 9/3 Letters
“I've nothing else - to bring, You know” (F253); “Going to Him! Happy letter!” (F277); “All the letters I can write” (F380); “She dealt her pretty words like Blades” (F458); “This is my letter to the World” (F519); “The Way I read a Letter's – this” (F700); “Essential Oils - are wrung” (F772); “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (F1263); “A Word dropped careless on a Page” (F1268); “Belshazzar had a Letter” (F1487); “A Letter is a joy of Earth” (F1672)
Letters, pp. 1-42 (1842-1850)
Th 9/5 What Was a Poet?
“Heart not so heavy as mine” (F88); “Besides the Autumn poets sing” (F123); “I would not paint – a picture” (F348); “This was a Poet” (F446); “I dwell in Possibility” (F466); “I was the slightest in the House” (F473); “From Blank to Blank” (F484); “The Robin is the One” (F501); “The Birds begun at Four o’clock” (F504); “I reckon – When I count at all” (F533); “The Martyr Poets - did not tell” (F665); “Split the Lark – and you’ll find the Music” (F905); “The Poets light but Lamps” (F930); “Shall I take thee, the Poet said” (F1243); “There is no Frigate like a Book” (F1286); “To pile like Thunder to it’s close” (F1353); “To see the Summer Sky” (F1491); “If I could tell how glad I was” (F1725)
Habbeger, pp. 1-120 (1636-1840)
M 9/9 Essay #1 due by 5 pm
T 9/10 Soul, self, and the problem of others
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?” (F260); “You see I cannot see – your lifetime” (F313); “I like a look of Agony” (F339); “The Soul has Bandaged moments” (F360); “I cried at Pity – not at Pain” (F394); “One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted” (F407); “The Soul selects her own Society” (F409); “He fumbles at your Soul” (F477); “The Soul unto itself” (F579); “The Soul that hath a Guest” (F592); “No Rack can torture me” (F649); “I cannot live with You” (F706); “Me from Myself – to banish” (F709); “On a Columnar Self” (F740); “I felt a Cleaving in my Mind” (F867); “The Soul should always stand ajar” (F1017); “Along and in a Circumstance” (F1174); “I did not reach Thee” (F1708)
Letters, pp. 43-127 (1851-1854)
Th 9/12 Bliss, rage, the body, and the sublime
“I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’” (F165); “’Tis so much joy! ’Tis so much joy!” (F170); “A wounded Deer – leaps highest” (F181); “I taste a liquor never brewed” (F207); “Is Bliss then, such Abyss” (F371); “I cannot dance opon my Toes” (F381); “Dare you see a Soul at the ‘White Heat’?” (F401); “’Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch” (F425); “We grow accustomed to the Dark” (F428); “It would have starved a Gnat” (F444); “They shut me up in Prose” (F445); “Nature – sometimes sears a Sapling” (F457); “I live on Dread” (F498); “A Pit – but Heaven over it” (F508); “There is a pain – so utter” (F515); “A still – Volcano – Life” (F517); “I started Early – Took my Dog” (F656); “Pain – has an Element of Blank” (F760); “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun” (F764); “I think To Live – may be a Bliss” (F757); “A nearness to Tremendousness” (F824); “A narrow Fellow in the Grass” (F1096); “When Etna basks and purrs” (F1161); “One Joy of so much anguish” (F1450); “The farthest Thunder that I heard” (F1665); “On my volcano grows the Grass” (F1743); “The reticent volcano keeps” (F1776)
Habegger, pp. 121-278 (1840-1852)
T 9/17 Wife
July 1856: Austin marries Susan Gilbert
“A Wife – at Daybreak – I shall be” (F185); “Title divine, is mine” (F194); “I’m ‘wife’ – I’ve finished that” (F225); “Rearrange a ‘Wife’s’ Affection!” (F267); “I got so I could take his name” (F292); “A solemn thing – it was – I said” (F307); “He put the Belt around my life” (F330); “I am ashamed – I hide” (F705); “She rose to His Requirement – dropt” (F857); “To own a Susan of my own” (F1436)
Letters, pp. 129-63 (1855-1861)
Th 9/19 Master
“The Moon is distant from the Sea” (F387); “The face I carry with me – last” (F395); “I am alive – I guess” (605); “Why make it doubt – it hurts it so” (F697); “I live with Him – I see His face” (F698); “The power to be true to You” (F699)
Letters #187, 233, and 248
Habegger, pp. 279-441 (1852-1862)
T 9/24 War
“A Slash of Blue! A sweep of Gray!” (F233); “What if I say I shall not wait!” (F305); “The name - of it - is ‘Autumn’” (F465); “Whole Gulfs - of Red, and Fleets - of Red” (F468); “He fought like those Who've nought to lose” (F480); “When I was small, a Woman died” (F518); “It feels a shame to be Alive” (F524); “One Anguish - in a Crowd” (F527); “They dropped like Flakes” (F545); “The Battle fought between the Soul” (F629); “To know just how He suffered - would be dear” (F688); “My Portion is Defeat – today” (F704); “Robbed by Death - but that was easy” (F838); “Dying! To be afraid of thee” (F946); “A Sickness of this World it most occasions” (F993); “He scanned it – Staggered” (F994)
Letters, pp. 165-88 (1862-1865)
Julia Ward Howe, “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (1862) Herman Melville, “Shiloh” (1866) Walt Whitman, “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night” (1865)
Th 9/26 Advice, retrenchment, and retrospection
“It would never be Common – more – I said” (F388); “The Province of the Saved” (F659)
Fascicle 16 (F336-46) (see http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~ajf2j/emily/stab.html)
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?” (1859); “A Letter to a Young Contributor” (1862)
Habegger, pp. 442-93 (1862-1865)
T 10/1 Poetesses
“All overgrown by cunning moss” (F146); “Her – last Poems” (F600); “I think I was enchanted” (F627); “Publication - is the Auction” (F788);
Emily Brönte “Death” (1846) “Remembrance” (1846) Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856) “Felicia Hemans” (1835 1850) “L. E. L.’s Last Question” (1839 1844) “Mother and Poet” (1861) Felicia Hemans “Properzia Rossi” (1828 1839) “The Image in Lava” (1827 1839) Helen Hunt Jackson “The Story of Boon” (1874) Emma Lazarus “In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport” (1871) “The Crowing of the Red Cock” (1882) L. E. L. (Letitia Elizabeth Landon) “The Phantom Bride” (1824) “The Factory” (1835 1873) “The Marriage Vow” (1837 1873) Christina Rossetti “After Death” (1862) “At Home” (1862) “L. E. L.” (1863 1866) Ralph Waldo Emerson “The New Poetry” (1840) Rufus Griswold Preface to The Female Poets of America (1848)
Habegger, pp. 495-575 (1866-1878)
Th 10/3 Nature and creature
“It sifts from Leaden Sieves” (F291); “The Grass so little has to do” (F379); “I like to see it lap the Miles” (F383); “The Day undressed – Herself” (F495); “The Wind begun to rock the Grass” (F796); “A Drop fell on the Apple Tree” (F846); “Further in Summer than the Birds” (F895); “As imperceptibly as Grief” (F935); “A Spider sewed at Night” (F1163); “What mystery pervades a well!” (F1433); “A Route of Evanescence” (F1489)
Letters, pp. 189-256 (1866-1879)
M 10/7 Essay #2 due by 5 pm
T 10/8 Death and mortality 1883: ED’s nephew Gilbert, age 8, dies
“She died at play” (F141); “A clock stopped” (F259); “It was not Death, for I stood up” (F355); “A Toad, can die of Light” (F419); “The Color of the Grave is Green” (F424); “If I may have it, when it’s dead” (F431); “I died for Beauty – but was scarce” (F448); “Because I could not stop for Death” (F479); “The Whole of it came not at once” (F485); “’Tis not the Dying hurts us so” (F528); “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” (F591); “What care the Dead, for Chanticleer” (F624); “I went to thank Her” (F637); “Grief is a Mouse” (F753); “A Coffin – is a small Domain” (F890); “This Chasm, Sweet, opon my life” (F1061); “I’ve dropped my Brain – My Soul is numb” (F1088); “’Twas Crisis – All the length had passed” (F1093); “To disappear enhances” (F1239); “Death is the supple Suitor” (F1470); “A word made Flesh is seldom” (F1715)
Habegger pp. 576-629 (1878-1886)
Th 10/10 no class – fall break
T 10/15 Looking ahead
“Exultation is the going” (F143); “I shall know why – when Time is over” (F215); “‘Heaven’ – is what I cannot reach!” (F310); “This World is not conclusion” (F373); “You’ll find – it when you try to die” (F441); “Presentiment – is that long shadow – on the Lawn” (F487); “You constituted Time” (F488); “No Crowd that has occurred” (F653); “Which is best? Heaven” (F1021); “When they come back – if Blossoms do” (F1042); “The Blunder is in estimate” (F1690); “As subtle as tomorrow” (F1748)
Letters, pp. 257-330 (1880-1883)
Th 10/17 Looking back
“I’ve known a Heaven, like a Tent” (F257); “I should have been too glad, I see” (F283); “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” (F372); “’Tis good – the looking back on Grief” (F472); “When I hoped, I recollect” (F493); “I could not prove the Years had feet” (F674); “Behind Me – dips Eternity” (F743); “It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon” (F843); “After a hundred years” (F1149); “Yesterday is History” (1290)
T 10/22 Virginia Jackson, Dickinson's Misery: A Theory of Lyric Reading (2005), Beforehand and Chapter 1
Th 10/24 Dickinson’s Misery, Chapter 3
Praise? Bury? Undress?
T 10/29 Higginson, “Emily Dickinson’s Letters” (1891)
Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi, “The Editor’s Preface,” from The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime (1914)—this text is online at: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/dickinson/hound/preface.html
Th 10/31 incarnations of “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”
-from correspondence with SGD -from Fascicle 6 -from Fascicle 10 -from Springfield Daily Republican (1 March 1862) -from Todd & Higginson’s 1890 edition -from Franklin’s Variorum -from Franklin’s “Reading Edition” -electronic/interactive versions at: http://www.emilydickinson.org/safe/index.html
Martha Nell Smith, from Rowing in Eden Rereading Emily Dickinson (1992)
Smith, “A Hypermedia Archive of Dickinson’s Creative Work” (1996)
Spaces, Places, and Illocalities
T 11/5 “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’” (F165); “All the letters I can write” (F380); “This is my letter to the World” (F519); “The Way I read a Letter’s – this” (F700); “Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead” (F759); “I learned – at least – what Home could be” (F891); “That Distance was between Us” (F906); “Myself can read the Telegrams” (F1049); “We send the wave to find the wave” (F1643); “A Letter is a joy of Earth” (F1672)
Logan Esdale, “Dickinson’s Epistolary ‘Naturalness’” (2004)
Diana Fuss, “Interior Chambers: The Emily Dickinson Homestead” (1998)
Th 11/7 “Exultation is the going” (F143); “I shall know why – when Time is over” (F215); “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” (340); “This World is not conclusion” (F373); “It will be Summer – eventually” (F374); “A House opon the Hight” (F555); “I went to Heaven” (F577); “You cannot put a Fire out” (F583); “The Brain – is wider than the Sky” (F598); “When they come back – if Blossoms do” (F1042); “Immured in Heaven!” (F1628)
Barton Levi St. Armand, “Dark Parade: Dickinson, Sigourney, and the Victorian Way of Death” (1984)
---, “Emily Dickinson Reading Walt Whitman”
Edward Hirsch, “The Unnaming”
Sharon Olds, “Emily Dickinson’s Writing Table in Her Bedroom at the Homestead, Amherst, Mass.”
Facing Others
T 11/12 “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church” (F236); “There came a Day – at Summer’s full” (F325); “Tie the strings to my Life, My Lord” (F338); “He showed me Hights I never saw” (F346); “Like Flowers, that heard the news of Dews” (F361); “It’s thoughts – and just One Heart” (F362); “Better – than Music!” (F378); “Empty my Heart, of Thee” (F393); “I never felt at Home – Below” (F437); “He gave away his Life” (F530); “When Bells stop ringing – Church – begins” (F601)
Letters 24, 32, 36, 50, 77, 153, 175, 184, 641, 650, 728, 751, 752a, 830
Jane Donahue Eberwein, “‘Is Immortality True?’: Salvaging Faith in an Age of Upheavals” (2004)
Th 11/14 “A throe opon the features” (F105); “I came to buy a smile – today” (F258); “Again – his voice is at the door” (F274); “You see I cannot see – your lifetime” (F313); “Her smile was shaped like other smiles” (F335); “I like a look of Agony” (F339); “The face I carry with me – last” (F395); “A Charm invests a face” (F430); “I see thee better – in the Dark” (F442); “We Cover Thee – Sweet Face” (F461); “I had not minded – Walls” (F554); “But little Carmine hath her face” (F566); “It knew no Medicine” (F567); “Fitter to see Him, I may be” (F834); “What I see not, I better see” (F869); “The Hollows round His eager Eyes” (F1071); “The Face we choose to miss” (F1293); “Recollect the Face of me” (F1306); “An antiquated Grace” (F1367); “We shun because we prize her Face” (F1430); “Blossoms will run away” (F1614)
Letter 233, 248, and 268
Habegger, Appendix 1
Polly Longsworth, “‘Whose but Her Shy-Immortal Face’: The Poet’s Visage in the Popular Imagination”
Philip Gura, “How I Met and Dated Miss Emily Dickinson: An Adventure on eBay” -at http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-02/gura/
Richard Foerster, “Emily Dickinson in Boston, 1864-65”
Alicia Suskin Ostriker, “Frowning at Emily”
Donald Revell, “Emily Dickinson’s Mirror, Amherst”
Eros and Violence
T 11/19 “Bind me – I still can sing” (F1005); “The Daisy follows soft the sun” (F161); “A wounded Deer – leaps highest” (F181); “My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun” (F764); “Sexton! My Master's sleeping here” (F75); “It would have starved a Gnat” (F444); “I can wade Grief” (F312); “I had been hungry all the years” (F439); “Pain has an element of blank” (F760); “Success is counted sweetest” (F112)
the “Master” letters
Camille Paglia, “Amherst’s Madame de Sade,” from Sexual Personae
Vivian R. Pollak, “Sisterhood,” from Dickinson: The Anxiety of Gender (1984)
Billy Collins, “Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes” (2000)
Amy Lowell, “The Sisters” (1922)
Th 11/21 Liberty/Pro War?: “What if I say I shall not wait!” (F305); “It feels a shame to be Alive” (F524); “Robbed by Death – but that was easy” (F838); “Revolution is the Pod” (F1044)
Futility/Anti-War?: “The Battle fought between the Soul” (F629); “A Sickness of this World it most occasions” (F993); “Peace is a fiction of our Faith” (F971)
Effect of War on death: “’Tis not that Dying hurts us so –“ (F528); “The name – of it – is ‘Autumn’” (F465); “The first We knew of Him was Death” (F1006); “Death leaves Us homesick, who behind” (F1066)
Effect of War on Nature: “A Slash of Blue! A sweep of Gray!” (F233); “They dropped like Flakes” (F545); “Our little Kinsmen – after Rain” (F932); “Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?” (F933)
Letters #269, 278, 280, 281; please also look at page 190 in the letters, the blurb about the dormancy of her writing and then look in the Franklin edition at the relatively small number of poems written in these years. These are the years immediately following the Civil War.
Shira Wolosky, “Public and Private in Dickinson’s War Poetry” (2004)
Whitman, “Look Down Fair Moon”; “Bivouac on a Mountain Side”
also, please review: Habegger, Chapter 18, “The Fighting Years” (442-93)
T 11/26 Sight and Sound
“Did the Harebell loose her girdle” (F134); “I’ll clutch – and clutch” (F385); “You’ve seen Balloons set – Hav’nt You?” (F730); “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” (F1263); “My life closed twice before it’s close” (F1773)
Letters 22, 29, 233, and 260; also review Higginson’s transcription of letter 260 in his essay “Emily Dickinson’s Letters”
Milan Kundera, from Testaments Betrayed
T 12/3 musical settings by Copland, Adams, Rorem, et al.
John Shoptaw, “Listening to Dickinson” (2004)
Hart Crane, “To Emily Dickinson” (1927)
Adrienne Rich, “‘I Am in Danger – Sir’”
Amy Clampitt, “Amherst”
Th 11/28 no class – Thanksgiving
Th 12/5 individual meetings in lieu of class
T 12/10 individual meetings in lieu of class
Th 12/12 final essay due