A Companion to Emily Dickinson

This Companion to America's greatest woman poet showcases the diversity and excellence that characterize the thriving field of Dickinson studies. The volume's original contributions are written by cutting-edge scholars and provide incisive interventions into current critical discussions as well as opening up fresh areas of critical inquiry. They feature new work being done in the critique of nineteenth-century American poetry, as well as new work being done in Dickinson studies.

Notes on Contributors. Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Sources. Acknowledgments. Introduction ( Martha Nell Smith and Mary Loeffelholz ). Part I: Biography - the Myth of "the Myth". 1 Architecture of the Unseen ( Aife Murray ). 2 Fracturing a Master Narrative, Reconstructing "Sister Sue" ( Ingrid Satelmajer ). 3 Public, Private Spheres: What Reading Emily Dickinson's Mail Taught me about Civil Wars ( Martha Nell Smith ). 4 "Pretty much all real life": The Material World of the Dickinson Family ( Jane Wald ). Part II: The Civil War - Historical and Political Contexts. 5 "Drums off the Phantom Battlements": Dickinson's War Poems in Discursive Context ( Faith Barrett ). 6 The Eagle's Eye: Dickinson's View of Battle ( Renee Bergland ). 7 "How News Must Feel When Traveling": Dickinson and Civil War Media ( Eliza Richards ). Part III: Cultural Contexts - Literature, Philosophy, Theology, Science. 8 Really Indigenous Productions: Emily Dickinson, Josiah Holland, and Nineteenth-Century Popular Verse ( Mary Loeffelholz ). 9 Thinking Dickinson Thinking Poetry ( Virginia Jackson ). 10 Dickinson and the Exception ( Max Cavitch ). 11 Dickinson's Uses of Spiritualism: The "Nature" of Democratic Belief ( Paul Crumbley ). 12 "Forever - is Composed of Nows -": Emily Dickinson's Conception of Time ( Gudrun M. Grabher ). 13 God's Place in Dickinson's Ecology ( Nancy Mayer ). Part IV: Textual Conditions: Manuscripts, Printings, Digital Surrogates. 14 Auntie Gus Felled It New ( Tim Morris ). 15 Reading Dickinson in Her Context: The Fascicles ( Eleanor Elson Heginbotham ). 16 The Poetics of Interruption: Dickinson, Death, and the Fascicles ( Alexandra Socarides ). 17 Climates of the Creative Process: Dickinson's Epistolary Journal ( Connie Ann Kirk ). 18 Hearing the Visual Lines: How Manuscript Study Can Contribute to an Understanding of Dickinson's Prosody ( Ellen Louise Hart, with Sandra Chung ). 19 "The Thews of Hymn": Dickinson's Metrical Grammar ( 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. 23 " Dare you see a soul at the White Heat?": Thoughts on a "Little Home-keeping Person" ( Sandra M. Gilbert ). 24 Re-Playing the Bible: My Emily Dickinson ( Alicia Ostriker ). 25 "For Flash and Click and Suddenness-": Emily Dickinson and the Photography-Effect ( Marta L. Werner ). 26 "Zero to the Bone": Thelonious Monk, Emily Dickinson, and the Rhythms of Modernism ( Joshua Weiner ). Index of First Lines. Index of Letters of Emily Dickinson. Index.