the Emily Dickinson Archive recently developed at Harvard will make available digitized copies of the manuscripts of all Dickinson’s poems. The manuscripts are essential for interpreting the work, because they contain many peculiarities—punctuation, spacing, capitalization—that inflect the meaning of the poems, of which only a few, badly mangled, were published during Dickinson’s lifetime. Nearly every high school student comes across a poem by Dickinson at one time or other. Now teachers can assign a particular poem in its manuscript and printed versions (they often differ considerably) and stimulate their students to develop closer, deeper readings.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/22/world-digital-library-coming-true/
This old teacher wishes he could have his time over again.
Max in Melbourne
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