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Life of the Woods a Study of Emily Dickinson by Donald Craig Love A

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Life of the Woods a Study of Emily Dickinson by Donald Craig Love A Life of the Woods A Study of Emily Dickinson by Donald Craig Love A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2013 © Donald Craig Love 2013 I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract Beginning with T.W. Higginson, the poet’s first public critic and posthumous editor, the prevailing view of Emily Dickinson has been of a maker of “wonderful strokes and felicities, and yet an incomplete and unsatisfactory whole,” a view that is often based on her perceived strangeness as a person. More recently, Virginia Jackson has advanced the view of Dickinson’s poetry as being poorly served by modern methods of practical criticism, “dependent on their artifactual contexts” and on thoughts “too intimate for print.” Unabashedly practical in its approach, this thesis argues that the general shape of Dickinson’s life reveals her writings as the product of her personal quest for growth, and that, further, her reclusive habits reflect this quest. Dickinson’s removal from the ordinary modes of life in her town parallels Henry David Thoreau’s more transient life in the woods. No less than Thoreau, Dickinson wished “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life,” but the combined pressures of gender and social situation placed restrictions on how Dickinson might do so as a woman. Yet while she did not take up an abode in the woods, Dickinson’s home life enabled her to live in the manner of the woods—a symbol of inexhaustible diversity in the poet’s imagination, and an endless source of significance beyond her conscious will. The title of the study hints at the mode of life the poet associates with this uncharted, enchanted place. The Introduction uses Dickinson’s early letters to Higginson to trace out her project as a poet in light of mid-nineteenth century critical principles. It shows how the poet repeatedly draws a distinction between herself as a person and herself as a poet, and how the theory of organic form which was dominant in her time helps to clarify her aesthetic achievements, while it also offers an explanation of why she never sought to publish her works. iii The main argument of this thesis is composed of two parts. Part I is composed of three chapters, all of which concern challenges posed by Dickinson’s writing. The first chapter considers several significant aspects of Dickinson’s autograph manuscripts, rejecting the materialist theories of some recent writers on the subject while also considering what the manuscripts tell us about the poet on the page. The second and third chapters explore the main purpose of Dickinson’s non-verbal notation, her use of non-standard conventions of orthography and punctuation (including capitalisation), and also her use of line breaks. Part II is also composed of three chapters, each of which focuses on distinct topics to offer new perspectives on Dickinson’s poems. The fourth chapter examines several poems in light of the tradition of natural visionary wisdom that flourished in New England in Dickinson’s time. The fifth chapter applies the literary conception of paradox to several of Dickinson’s more challenging poems, showing how the mode of paradox allows her to grasp the fuller sense of experience. The subject of the last chapter is death, immortality, and the “Immortality” the poet associates with enchanted earthly experience. The Conclusion describes an important function of Dickinson’s poetry—it offers to make us conscious of what is strange, wonderful, and unknowable in the world. A few prospects for the next stage of the study are also described. iv Acknowledgements Many people at the University of Waterloo helped me at various times throughout the doctoral programme. The staff at the Dana Porter Library did so consistently, especially Leanne Romaine, Laurie Strome, and Ted Harms of Interlibrary Loans, who attended to many requests and promptly. Early on in the project, Elaine Garner proved to be a powerful advocate for me at Student Awards, while Linda Warley, Associate Dean of Arts, granted support to bring the project to completion. Financial support also came in the form of an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, as well as scholarships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the President of the University of Waterloo. Administrative staff were also helpful, particularly Julie-Anne Desrochers, Fiona McAlister, Carolyn Nelson, and Margaret Ulbrick. Midway through the project, Maria Dubecki helped to type and organise some of my notes. Over the years I enjoyed talks with many students of English, including Adam Bradley, Cara DeHaan, Jennifer Doyle (and Scott Smith), Maria O’Brien; as well as with many faculty of English, including Tristanne Connolly, Jennifer Harris, Ken Hirschkop, Victoria Lamont, Kate Lawson, Andrew McMurray, John North, and Marcel O’Gorman; and also with Joseph Novak of Philosophy. In the last few years I enjoyed conference travel and attendance with Clare Bermingham, and more recently becoming neighbours. Two other members of the faculty deserve special mention here: Fraser Easton, for enticing me to the doctoral programme and encouraging me to complete it; and Randy Harris, for much dialogue and encouragement in the years leading up to the thesis. From the first year to the second last, talks with Pamela Mansutti made campus life far happier and more rewarding; since then, occasional e-mails have confirmed the warmth I recall from those years. v My supervisor, Kevin McGuirk, gave kind support from the start, and challenged me till the end. The other members of the thesis committee—Kenneth Graham, Sarah Tolmie, and David- Antoine Williams—all gave encouragement and comments which greatly helped to strengthen the work. I am very grateful to Mario Boido from the department of Spanish and Latin American Studies, who served as the internal-external examiner of the thesis, and especially to Domhnall Mitchell from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who crossed the Atlantic to serve as the external examiner, and left me with many valuable comments and kind impressions. Faculty at other institutions were also helpful: early on in the project, Debra Fried at Cornell provided specialised direction on Dickinson, while John Baird at the University of Toronto shared more general insights on life, literary study, and the profession. Andrew DeMan, director of Community Lit., organised two poetry courses at the Kitchener Public Library, which enabled me to test out some of my readings on a general audience, as did the poetry reading group which formed out of the first of these courses. I am especially grateful to four members of this group: Catherine Cromwell, Hilary Kekanovich and Kevin Loader, and Sonia Laposi. Friends were a great boon to me in many ways: Randy Agh, Guillermo Aureano, Ryan and Amy Bullock (and family), Fraser Easton and Camie Kim (and family), Tristan Graham, Meghan Harder, Alan Howard, Alysia Kolentsis, Helena Lancinger, Daniel Newman, Sean Rogers, Richard Toporoski, and Chris and Caroline van Donkelaar (and family). In the last two and a half years of the project, frequent talks with Chris van Donkelaar helped to expand my knowledge of the arts and to reinforce my sense of their keen importance. Teresa McQuillin proved an immense help to my young family at a difficult stage of the project. vi My parents, Donald and Judy Love, have been crucial sources of love and support for as long as I can remember, as have my two sisters, Kirsten and Jennifer. My brothers-in-law, Richard Dipatri, Dan Enticott, and Andy Fawcett, and also my sister-in-law, Avital Furman, all exemplify in different ways the delights to be gotten from an extended family, as do my six nieces—Lucy, Camille, Vivian, Freya, Edith, and Meadow—and my many aunts, uncles, and cousins, especially Craig and Jean Hutton, Carol Hutton, and Scott Doege. My parents-in-law, Lorraine Fredin and Jim Salisbury, and also Bruce Fawcett and Rita Hauck, helped me to grow. My cousin Rob Vicente (1985-2010), and my grandmother Audrey Hutton (1923-2011), became presences midway through the project, and continue to be remembered. The study could not have been written without those to whom it is dedicated, most affectionately, and whose importance in my life is “Out of Plumb of Speech.” vii To my wife, Melanie, and to our children—Percy, Nora, Elsie— all makers of joy in their own peculiar ways viii Contents List of Abbreviations x Inerrata: A Note on Dickinson’s Spellings xi Introduction 1 Part I Chapter One The Poet’s Hand and Mechanical Reproduction 51 Chapter Two Preserving the Silvan Way 1: Orthography and Punctuation 80 Chapter Three Preserving the Silvan Way 2: Lineation and Stanzas 109 Part II Chapter Four Disclosing the Natural 133 Chapter Five “Plain english” and the Mode of Paradox 171 Chapter Six Of Death and the Earth 203 Conclusion This Mortal Abolition, This Loved Philology: The Great Cause of Poetry 233 Works Cited 239 ix List of Abbreviations ADEL Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amherst, MA, J.S. & C. Adams, 1844. Accessed through Emily Dickinson Lexicon, Cynthia Hallen, ed., http://edl.byu.edu/index.php, 2007. AM The Atlantic Monthly BPL Boston Public Library EL Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures. The Library of America. New York, NY: Literary Classics of the United States, 1983. Fasc. Fascicle, a term first used by Todd in the “Preface” to Poems by Emily Dickinson (1891), where it is spelled “fascicule,” to refer to the forty little books of poems Dickinson copied by hand and bound with string.
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