My take exactly. As far as I know, none of the scholarly students of
Dickinson take her very seriously, although she apparently wants to
be included in that club.
Mark
At 12:23 PM 6/30/2007, you wrote:
>How about "damaged"? It's the term used by Thomas
>Wentworth Higgins (if I've got the name right) after
>their one and only meeting, from which he fled. Her
>hopes and ambitions to be a well-known poet went with
>him, but her poetry continued nonetheless.
>
>Susan Howe's _My Emily Dickinson_ is accurately
>titled--"her" Dickinson is an impressional book and
>figure of the poet, but again not one who is
>recognizable to all others. In fact, I think it does
>Dickinson "damage" in a twisted biography that says
>more about Howe than Dickinson.
>
>Candice
>
>
>
>--- Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Mark
> >
> > I take your points, absolutely. But 'madness' seemed
> > to me a bit
> > extreme, while the other terms don't. I agree that
> > both male & female
> > critics have kept the flame alight. I realize, as I
> > no longer have to
> > read 'academic' criticism that it is books like
> > Susan Howe's My Emily
> > Dickinson that really reach me, but then we can find
> > essays by male
> > poets that also find in her predecessor writing, an
> > influence that is
> > so important.
> >
> > She certainly did see from a different angle, and
> > that slant is still
> > true....
> >
> > Doug
> > On 30-Jun-07, at 9:33 AM, Mark Weiss wrote:
> >
> > > How about "oddness," "eccentricity," etc. Emily
> > Dickinson was an
> > > outsider artist. To deny her peculiarities is, I
> > think, to disparage
> > > the contributions of those whose mental or
> > emotional status is, let's
> > > say, compromised. To admit them is not to dismiss
> > her or diminish the
> > > value of what she sees from a slightly different
> > angle from the rest
> > > of us.
> > >
> > > It's become something of a cliche to see
> > Dickinson's reputation as the
> > > hostage of mostly male critics who have noticed
> > that she was at the
> > > least a bit strange. Those same male critics have
> > consistently placed
> > > her in the top ranks of American poets. As far
> > back as Untermeyer, she
> > > was paired with Whitman as the great precursor of
> > 20th century
> > > American poetry.
> > >
> > > We use the past, natch, for our own purposes, but
> > in doing so we
> > > sometimes deny the dead their own integrity, which
> > includes their
> > > deformities. A pity--what we learn from, I think,
> > is difference.
> > >
> > > Curiously, nobody seems to mind that Smart was as
> > mad as a hatter. Or
> > > for that matter that Wieners was schizophrenic.
> > >
> > > Mark
> > >
> > > At 11:19 AM 6/30/2007, you wrote:
> > >> Wonderful poet, absolutely, visionary, for sure,
> > but I'm not sure
> > >> madness fits...
> > >>
> > >> Doug
> > >> On 29-Jun-07, at 1:28 PM, Anny Ballardini wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> I agree. Welcome back Jon.
> > >>>
> > >>> On 6/29/07, Jon Corelis
> > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The greatest poet of visionary madness, I
> > think, in English language
> > >>>> poetry.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> --
> > >>>> ===================================
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
> > >>>>
> > >>>> ===================================
> > >>>
> > >> Douglas Barbour
> > >> 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> > >> Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> > >> (780) 436 3320
> > >> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> > >>
> > >> Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > >>
> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> God be with you, my dears. You keep
> > >> the old bugger. I shan't be needing him!
> > >>
> > >> Norman Douglas (last words)
> > >
> > >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > 11655 - 72 Avenue NW
> > Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
> > (780) 436 3320
> > http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> >
> > Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> > http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> >
> >
> > God be with you, my dears. You keep
> > the old bugger. I shan't be needing him!
> >
> > Norman Douglas (last words)
> >
>
>
>
>
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