Talk:Emily Dickinson

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Contents 1 White 2 Photo is copyrighted 3 Needs sources 4 Middle name 5 biography rewrite 6 Removed text 7 Loves 8 A suggestion 9 Characterizing the Poems 10 Music 11 Article removed from Wikipedia:Good articles 12 Still unbalanced 13 When did it all begin? 14 Moved to new article 15 AFD on Sexuality of Emily Dickinson 16 Emily Dickinson and "hermetic" 17 Reference descriptions 18 References 19 Anyone Know About Her Opinion On This? 20 Protection

[edit] White

I read somewhere that she wore only white in the last few years of her life... is this true or just and urban myth? If it's real, maybe someone should put it in.

I'd like to know too.... heh "Dick"in"son"

[edit] Photo is copyrighted

The image of Dickinson that was formerly on this page is owned by the EMELYN of Amherst College and is not in the public domain.

Paul Statt Director of Media relations Amherst College psstatt@amherst.edu

---

Wouldn't this fall under fair use?

Right now the photo is listed here as having an expired copyright: see [1]. At the least, it should either be deleted from there as well or justified as fair use. Sam 18:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs sources

Lots of info, but none cited. Needs references

[edit] Middle name

her middle name was Elizabeth, can someone put that in? yes yes

[edit] biography rewrite

I intend to rewrite the biography (and romantic life) section of this article over the next week or two, since it's quite inadequate. Improvements before this gets done might be better focused on the poetry sections, though I'll try to preserve any good material. -- Rbellin|Talk 15:38, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Excellent idea. I hope the focus on her sexuality is considerably dimmed.

By all means let's erase and scissor out the facts. --Kstern999 19:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed text

I today removed this:

Dickinson lived to write a "letter to the world" that would express, to quote R.N.Linscott,im poems of absolute truth and of Henry James called "the landscape of the soul." If the cultivated taste of her own day failed to appreciate her genius, as both Samuel Bowles and Thomas Wentworth Higginson failed, the long day has passed and she has won the fame that "belonged" to her.

Because I couldn't make any sense of it. If you can, feel free to restore it. Naturenet | Talk 11:24, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

• I think I can understand what this person was saying. on this paragraph the editor made references to Dickinson poems. For example, in one of Dickinson's poems she says something along the lines of, "If fame belonged to me then I could not stop it. If it did not, then the longest day would pass." In other words, this editor was trying to be poetic, but unless you are familiar with Dickinson's poems then you might not understand what is being communicated, so it's probably not best for this page. And it didn't seem to be very well communicated anyway. -- Andrew Parodi 09:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Loves

It seems rather silly that almost half of this article is about Dickinson's sexuality, which is irrelevant and unsupported. It's certainly an interesting sidenote, but should something as trivial and thoroughly unproved really be such a significant part of this article?

This is the second longest section, yet it is entirely speculative. There is also no counter evidence given to supplement the "gay theory." similarity to Shakespeare's love sonnets to a young man, Lincoln's supposed homosexuality etc

I agree that this section needs work, and I had intended to rewrite it based on better and more varied sources but got sidetracked and ran out of time during my work on the Dickinson biography. It is not "speculative," however -- in fact, it's a purely factual summary of various Dickinson scholars' views on the subejct, and should be expanded to report more scholars' opinions. (Remember, WP:NPOV dictates that we report all relevant opinions on a matter such as Dickinson's sexuality.)

The section has also been subject to repeated vandalism and POV-pushing in the past. For now, I consider it a minimally acceptable placeholder that briefly discusses the issue and is fair and NPOV, but it will need rewriting and better sourcing in the future. I will take a crack at it myself if I am able, but other editors are (of course) also welcome to improve it. -- Rbellin|Talk 16:17, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A suggestion

The page includes this negative review:

"She was neither a professional poet nor an amateur; she was a private poet who wrote as indefatigably as some women cook or knit. Her gift for words and the cultural predicament of her time drove her to poetry instead of antimacassars....She came, as Mr. Tate says, at the right time for one kind of poetry: the poetry of sophisticated, eccentric vision. That is what makes her good — in a few poems and many passages representatively great. But...the bulk of her verse is not representative but mere fragmentary indicative notation. The pity of it is that the document her whole work makes shows nothing so much as that she had the themes, the insight, the observation, and the capacity for honesty, which had she only known how — or only known why — would have made the major instead of the minor fraction of her verse genuine poetry. But her dying society had no tradition by which to teach her the one lesson she did not know by instinct."

I was thinking that maybe the page could close with some positive review of her work, as the article seems to narrate how Dickinson went from being unpopular in her day, to increasingly popular as the years went on. -- Andrew Parodi 09:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew, I was just reading Blackmur's "Language as Gesture" this week and was surprised to the degree his conservative dogmatism seems to obscure him from a proper appreciation to the works, notably, of Hart Crane and Emily Dickinson. Blackmur is willing to see Dickinson (following Tate) as an anomaly, producing some great poetry, but vastly unsophisticated in her innovations of English meter, her nuance and re-definition of rhyme, assonance and other highly technical devices. In this sense Blackmur's views seem analogous to Eliot writing on Blake from "The Sacred Wood" (1922), admitting Blake as worthy of critical concern and interest but as a spinster, or native curiousity.

We need to show to what extent Dickinson not only joins Whitman as the greatest poet America has produced, in a consensus of critical and popular opinion, but also how many critics site Dickinson as the greatest female lyrical voice the West has yet produced. Adam Fitzgerald 02:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, hopefully someone will include some more favorable review of Dickinson's work, so as to balance out this page. I don't know which to include, though. Hopefully, someone with more knowledge will insert the appropriate comments. -- Andrew Parodi 09:35, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Another suggestion: Include which poems were published during her life. --64.9.10.166 15:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Characterizing the Poems

The article says: "Most of her work is reflective of life's small moments and some larger issues in society." Some might view this as a quite superficial reading of the poems. Read them all again, from start to finish, and you will have a totally different impression, one might suggest.

I want to urgently agree: "Most of the work is reflective of life's small moments..." this entirely naive and misleading. Adam Fitzgerald 02:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Music

I don't quite understand how Mozart could have incorporated her poetry into his music, since he died before she was born.

Cao 01:06, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out -- it originally said Nick Peros, and the Mozart link was apparently an unfixed remnant of the frequent vandalism this article receives. -- Rbellin|Talk 02:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article removed from Wikipedia:Good articles

This article was formerly listed as a good article, but was removed from the listing because the good article criteria section 2 is not met. Information is not verifiable for no references or citations to facts —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.88.67.230 (talk • contribs).

Say what? The article has an extensive references section, and all of the biographical information is drawn from the handful of standard Dickinson biographies. The good article criteria specifically state that inline citations are not required, and I have no idea how any stretch of the imagination could call the biographical information "not verifiable". -- Rbellin|Talk 18:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[]Some thoughts. I'm new to Wikipedia, so I don't want to try to edit the article. I do have a few thoughts on ED and the article. I'm not sure if I'm doing this in the right format. Anyway:

1. I don't think the publication history should leave out mention that Mabel was ED's brother's (Austen)lover. It's interesting in its own right, and it explains the competition that went on between Mabel and Sue (Austen's wife) and their respective daughters over the publication of ED's poems up until Johnson's 1955 collected poems began to straighten things out.

2. Death and flowers were among ED's overriding poetic concerns, with the images often interlinked. I don't know what the copyright rules are, but the article should at least reference poems such as "I Could Not Stop for Death" and "After Great Pain a Formal Feeling Comes." How can there be an article about ED that does not include the word "death"? Or "daffodils"?

3. The article references her "sexual adventures." There is no evidence whatsoever that she had sexual adventures in modern terms. Her poetry is often erotic (cf. "Wild Nights"), and her feelings for Sue ("I want a Sue of my own") are an interesting area of speculation, but they will always remain speculation.

4. I think the article should note that Franklin has published copies of the originals of the so-called (by Mabel) fascicles. One can see in ED's experimentation with her handwriting, arrangement, and the infamous dashes that the presentation of the poem was almost as important to her as the words. No one has yet come up with a coherent theory of ED's groupings within the fascicles, an interesting subject in itself.

4. It might be useful to include Archibald MacLeish's famous line, "we are all half in love with that dead girl."

5. I don't know where it might fit in the article, but her letters are as significant--and as often ellusive--as her poetry.

6. The article's opening line references Whitman. This is more subjective, but, to me, Whitman is only of historical interest. I think most people today find his poetry stilted and dated, while many people find Ed powerfully expressing, in her obscure way, their own longings and feelings and reaching for something outside themselves. She (perhaps along with Frost)is the Great American Poet, the one great contribution to world poetry.

I would like to help with the article, however I may.GlennS 07:13, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Still unbalanced

I feel this article still gives undue prominence to the controversy surrounding Dickinson's sexuality. Let's remember that Dickinson is notable as a poet, not as a putative lesbian. As a first step I am moving the poetry section to before the life section.. anyone who has any better ideas, feel free. Zargulon 15:47, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a suggestion. I noticed that they had the same problem for Abraham Lincoln. In that case all the discussion regarding Lincoln's sexuality was put into its own seperate article. 65.115.233.18 06:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When did it all begin?

The article states that Dickinson found her vocation as a poet in the decades of 1840-1850.

Of course one might ask how many decades were there between 1840 and 1850. But more important is the fact that at the end of 1840, Dickinson was 10 years old. I have never heard of a person who found her or his vocation at that age.

R.W. Franklin provides a list of her poems distributed per year. According to this list, her first poems were written in 1850 (at the age of 20), and the last ones in the year of her death in 1886. This information should be included in "Poetry and influence".

[edit] Moved to new article

As almost half of this article was about Dickinson's sexuality, which is a matter of great controversy. I moved all the parts about Dickinson's sexuality to a new article Sexuality of Emily Dickinson I noticed they did the same thing on the Abraham Lincoln article. If anyone has serious objections feel free to change the article back and propose a better solution. Cyberrex7891 05:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

While I don't object to this approach (it's a matter of no consequence to me either way), there still needs to be a brief mention of the issue (say, a single paragraph) and a prominent link to the detailed article here. You can't just delete the issue from this article entirely. -- Rbellin|Talk 17:46, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I added a link to Sexuality of Emily Dickinson and made a brief mention of the issue within the article Cyberrex7891 02:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I just viewed the page and it said "POOOPY" at the end of the intro... so I reverted it, and I noticed that there's vandalism throughout the version I reverted it to.. Sorry... I'll try to fix it... If I'm doing something wrong, please tell me on my talk page... Kokoloko2k7 16:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

ok u cant just let anyone edit this info because it doesnt make it reliable then

Thanks for some reason this article seems to attract a lot of vandalism.Cyberrex7891 17:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AFD on Sexuality of Emily Dickinson

Hi all. Following an AFD discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sexuality of Emily Dickinson, the content has been merged back into this article. If you do not wish to keep it, then edit it down, or get rid of it - you know better than I do how useful / reliable the info is, but it is not sufficient to stand alone as an article. Thanks. Proto::► 10:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emily Dickinson and "hermetic"

Hermetic means tightly sealed or closed. Figuratively this could apply to ED's life.

Hermitic means solitary or like a hermit. To my mind this is perhaps more directly applicable.

In any event I think the characterization of 'hermitic' as a misspelling is unwarranted.

Best regards for a happy New Year. Tex 03:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

(Presumably your comment was referring to this edit) I'm fine with changing the word to something else, but it's not a misspelling of "hermitic" to be corrected, and it doesn't mean "tightly sealed." It's clearly being used in what the OED gives as sense 2A, the broad sense transferred from Hermes Trismegistus "...unaffected by external influences, recondite." In this sense "hermetic" is actually a fairly commonly used adjective in descriptions of Dickinson. -- Rbellin|Talk 04:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

(See Wiktionary, too.) -- Rbellin|Talk 04:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I was mistaken! Here I thought you had changed "hermitic" to "hermetic" on the grounds that the former was misspelled.

Instead it turns out that I told you that "hermetic" was misspelled!

Perhaps Mother was right, and all the years of girl-chasing, drinking, and driving too fast have affected my mind. Even now, looking at the history, it looks exactly as if you changed "hermitic" to "hermetic", and cited a misspelling in the summary! But my eyes must deceive me; probably the exertions of New Year's Eve have pushed me right over the edge.

Tex 20:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It seemed to me that your change of "hermetic" to "hermitic" was premised on the belief that "hermitic" was meant and that it had simply been misspelled. My edit summary clearly did not adequately convey this, and it seems that I was wrong and it was meant as a rewording, but one that happened to change only one letter. "Hermetic" in the sense of "obscure" is commonly used to describe Dickinson (though more appropriate to her work than her life, really), and though a bit reclusive, she was definitely not a hermit. -- Rbellin|Talk 20:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't I who changed "hermetic" to "hermitic".

Tex 21:03, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the confusion and the inadequate edit summary, then. -- Rbellin|Talk 21:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Not to worry. Since you mention the OED, I derived some amusement from an example they quote of the use of "hermitic", which mentions Mallarmé entering "a hermitic seclusion". An odd thing to say about Mallarmé!

Tex 21:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference descriptions

I'm replacing detailed descriptions (that I wrote quite some time ago) of many of the books in the References section. (These were cut by User:Red Darwin in a quick series of massive changes to the article more than a year ago without discussion.) Since Wikipedia is not paper, I see no reason why the Refs section ought not to provide more detailed information to readers who want to find more books on Dickinson. -- Rbellin|Talk 21:09, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

User:Ruakh just re-deleted the book descriptions with the edit summary "rm editorializing; the thought was a good one, but then we'd need to provide references to support our characterizations of our references." This makes no sense to me, since the descriptions are not controversial in any way I can see, nor do they depart from basic common knowledge among scholars (and if they become controversial, they should be changed). It seems clearly helpful (to an uninformed reader) to provide brief annotations describing the best-known sources on Dickinson. The rest of the article is in a fairly shoddy state with respect to citation (and to writing, and to accuracy); why pick out this text for peremptory deletion rather than pursuing the worthy goal of better citation for the whole article? -- Rbellin|Talk 22:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. It seems silly to me to have references for claims about our references, but as you seem quite convinced that we need to make claims about our references, and I'm not strongly opposed to having references for claims about our references, I've added {{cn}} tags to those claims that seem like they require some sort of reference. When you have a chance, please add relevant citations for these claims. —Ruakh_TALK 23:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

This article's references are in a terrible state and have been for a while, judging based on this talk page. Although there is a references section, it does not in any way follow the guidelines for one given at WP:CITE. Currently, anyone could claim anything is not supported, and there is no way to know whether they are right or wrong. Many of these statements seem unsupported, and the references section as it is now does little to help. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 13:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, that was based on the references list that this article apparently used to have, based on a link from a previous discussion on the subject. Why is this list gone? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 13:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anyone Know About Her Opinion On This?

I have heard that Emily Dickinson did not hold Walt Whitman in high regard and she considered him to be "uncultured" or "uncivilized." Since she and Walt Whitman are considered to be "two quintessential American poets of the 19th century" I think that tidbit should be added in if it can be verified. Alas, the place I heard it from (which is a reliable source) isn't one that is verifiable. (Word of mouth, actually.) Does anyone know of any legit verifiable sources that would back this up? -WarthogDemon 23:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

She did not. In fact she stated, "I never read his book- but was told that he was disgraceful." She never read him, but was warned agaisnt his style. She thought he was better left unread. Willie Stark 20:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

In that case, is it possible to mention it within the article using a good source? -WarthogDemon 00:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

After trawling through the article's history again to restore content deleted by vandals several months ago, I've come to the conclusion that we aren't adequately keeping up with the constant flood of schoolchildren vandalizing this article -- so I've requested semi-protection for it. -- Rbellin|Talk 17:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)