E. Thomas Finan - Reading Reality

I am fortunate to have taught at Boston Universitys College of General Studies during the composition of this book. Dean Natalie McKnight and her predecessor Linda Wells have provided great personal and scholarly support, for which I am very thankful. Adam Sweeting and Meg Tyler served at various times as chair of the Humanities Division at the College. Their support, encouragement, and advice have been great gifts. My colleagues at CGS have exemplified the spirit of intellectual cooperation that is at the heart of the Colleges mission. I am particularly grateful for the financial support provided by the College and Dean McKnight for the permissions and indexing costs of the book. Under the auspices of Boston Universitys Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning at the College of General Studies, Bruce Dennis provided helpful research assistance in the later phase of this project. I am very grateful for a publication award from the Boston University Center for the Humanities to support this project.

Portions of this book were delivered at conferences sponsored by the American Comparative Literature Association; the American Literature Association; the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers; and the Thoreau Society. A portion of this book was also delivered as a talk at Boston University through the Faculty Research and Scholarship Committee at the College of General Studies. I am grateful to the organizers of these events for the opportunity to present and to the audiences for their useful comments, questions, and suggestions.

A variety of friends and colleagues (two not mutually exclusive categories) read portions or earlier versions of this manuscript: Cheryl Boots, Charles Capper, David Mikics, Cristanne Miller, Allen Speight, Adam Sweeting, and Meg Tyler. I am also grateful for discussions about this project with Marshall Brown, David Dowling, Leslie Eckel, Lucas Fain, Paul Franz, Robert Habich, Daniel Karlin, Wendy Martin, Pat McCarthy, Anita Patterson, John Paul Russo, David Sloane, and others. Kevin P. Van Anglen has been an invaluable scholarly resource, and his comments on drafts for this project have improved it immensely. This book grew out of a dissertation for which Rosanna Warren served as the principal advisor; her incisive commentary, intellectual generosity, and continued support have made this and so much else possible.

At the University of Virginia Press, Eric Brandt proved indispensable in helping this volume through the publication process. Charlie Bailey, Helen Chandler, Morgan Myers, and the rest of the press staff also helped shepherd this book through its production. Leslie Tingles editorial eye did much to improve the text. The anonymous readers commissioned by the press showed great critical care and intellectual charity, and their remarks greatly improved the manuscript.

Research for this book has been assisted by the holdings of Mugar Memorial Library at Boston University; the Houghton Library at Harvard University; the Thomas P. ONeill Jr. Library at Boston College; and the American Antiquarian Society.

My parents and brother have provided support that goes far beyond this book. In the closing days of this project, my wife and I welcomed our first child into the world. To Jenny and Ceciliafor being and for coming to be.

A portion of chapter 4 was originally published as the following article: Captivity Is Consciousness: Consciousness and Its Revisions in Dickinsons Poetry, Emily Dickinson Journal 24, no. 2 (2015): 2445. Copyright 2015 Johns Hopkins University Press. I am grateful to the Emily Dickinson Journal and Johns Hopkins University Press for permission to reproduce it here.

Emily Dickinsons poems are reproduced with permission of the publisher: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, edited by Ralph W. Franklin (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Copyright 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.