Wolff - Emily Dickinson

SAMUEL RICHARDSON
AND THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
PURITAN CHARACTER

A FEAST OF WORDS
The Triumph of Edith Wharton

This is a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Copyright 1986 by Cynthia Griffin Wolff

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.

Owing to limitations of space, all acknowledgments for permission to reprint previously published material can be found on .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. Emily Dickinson.

Bibliography: p.

1. Dickinson, Emily, 18301886Biography.

2. Poets, American19th centuryBiography. I. Title.

PS1541.Z5W58 1986 8114 [ B ] 86-15192

ISBN 0-394-54418-8

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8041-5346-1

v3.1

FOR

TOBIAS BARRINGTON WOLFF

AND

PATRICK GIDEON WOLFF

(in random order)

CONTENTS

EMILY, AUSTIN, AND LAVINIA DICKINSON
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

EDWARD DICKINSON
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

EMILY NORCROSS DICKINSON
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

VIEW OF AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst; Photo: Winfred Bernhard)

AMHERST ACADEMY
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst)

EMILY ELIZABETH DICKINSON
(courtesy of the Amherst College Archives)

AUSTIN DICKINSON
(courtesy of the Amherst College Archives)

LAVINIA DICKINSON
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst, Special Collections)

THE EDWARD DICKINSON/ORRIS BIGELOW HOUSE
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst)

THE DICKINSON HOMESTEAD
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

SUSAN DICKINSON
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst, Special Collections)

AUSTIN DICKINSON
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst, Special Collections)

THE EVERGREENS
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

SAMUEL BOWLES
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
WITH HIS DAUGHTER
(by permission of the Jones Library, Amherst)

JOSIAH HOLLAND
(from the collections of the Library of Congress)

REVEREND CHARLES WADSWORTH
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst, Special Collections)

HELEN HUNT JACKSON
(from the collections of the Library of Congress)

OTIS PHILLIPS LORD
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

AMHERST, 1886
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst; Photo: Winfred Bernhard)

THE HONORABLE EDWARD DICKINSON
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst, Special Collections)

LAVINIA DICKINSON
(by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University)

SUSAN DICKINSON
(courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst, Special Collections)

illustrations within text

Image from the grave of Mrs. Susanna Jayne (from Edmund Vincent Gillon, Jr.s Early New England Gravestone Rubbings , Dover Publications)

Emblems of the Resurrection (from Edward Hitchcocks Religious Lectures on Peculiar Phenomena , J. S. & C. Adams, 1850)

Engraving by Holmes and Barber (from Holmes and Barbers Emblems and Allegories , J. H. Johnson, 1851; Photo courtesy of Barton Levi St. Armand)

Images from New England gravestones (from Peter Beness The Masks of Orthodoxy , University of Massachusetts Press, 1977)

I would like to begin by thanking my former husband, Robert Paul Wolff, who was very helpful during the preparation and early stages of composition.

A number of people offered unique help during the periods of research and writing. Mrs. Kendall DeBevoise, curator of the Emily Dickinson House (where I spent many happy afternoons as a guide), was able to give me facts about its history that have been scattered among many secondary sources, for Mrs. DeBevoise has become, herself, a knowledgeable scholar of Dickinsons life and work. John Lancaster of the Frost Library was more than helpful in my assemblage of information about Dickinsons schoolingand was particularly informative about Edward Hitchcock and his work. Finally, as many Dickinson scholars know, the Jones Library in the town of Amherst has an Emily Dickinson Room, where a vast store of secondary material has been collected. Daniel Lombardo, the curator of this collection, so graciously made its resources available that I could move my typewriter into a small study and read books and articles about the poetall the while able to gaze out the window and look down Main Street, where the Dickinson House could be glimpsed in the distance.

Several of my colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provided help of another sort. Professor Jay Keyser took time from his own busy schedule to discuss a number of vexingly difficult poems. Arthur Kaledin, superbly knowledgeable about American social history and letters, scrutinized the manuscripts attempts to re-create Emily Dickinsons social milieu. Claudia von Canon, musician and novelist, gave her advice and support throughout the long period of composition.

Other colleagues, more geographically scattered, were invaluable because they read what proved to be a very long manuscriptreceiving chapters as I wrote them and pointing out deficiencies of exposition, organization, and analysis: Professor Katherine Henderson of the College of New Rochelle; Joseph Mazzeo, Professor Emeritus of Columbia University; Everett Emerson, Professor of American Literature at Chapel Hill; and Priscilla Hicks, Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

All of these peoplefriends and colleaguesgave me much more than merely intellectual assistance: they gave warmth and affection and sustaining encouragement. Two in particular gave such substantive help that their literal aid and their emotional generosity were of crucial importance. Monica Kearney put the many successive versions of this book on a computer disk; she kept track of the footnotes I lost; she read each section with an interest that was an incentive to keep writing; and she reassured me when I doubted my own work. Elizabeth C. Moore was kind in so many ways that they cannot be listed: she took time from a busy life to help with the drudgery of counting lines of poetry and proofreading galleys; together with her husband, Barrington Moore, Jr., she was a constant source of comfort during a long and arduous labor. I can find no words adequate to express my thanks.