A Mad Dash

At the end of June, I wrote a post which inventoried a list of “loose ends” to tie up, and slowly and somewhat surely, I’ve addressed  some of the miscellaneous matters.  Here’s a summary of what I’ve parceled up so far:

* Grammar –  poem with “syntax”:  Check! 
 
I wrote about “Going to Him!  Happy letter!” in the very late-June post mentioned above, HERE.

* Eben Loomis' poem "A Sunset Idyl":  Check!
 
I commented on Mabel Loomis Todd’s father’s poem over the course of two days, HERE and HERE.

* Mathematics v. grammar – info on short poem re: ingots/Peru:  Check! 
 
At first, I couldn’t remember what this reminder was all about, but I finally figured it out, HERE. 

* Dashes – info from Helen V’s book:  Check! 
 
That’s the focus for my post today – so cast your eyes and thoughts below, dear reader!
 
However, before I get to “Helen V’s book,” which is Helen Vendler’s Dickinson, Selected Poems and Commentaries, let me share a crafty little post I came across the other day on Tumblr from the mind of “gnars-house”:

Of course, my first thought was, “Dash it all – why didn’t I write that?”  So simple. So true. So apparent.
 
My second thought was of Helen Vendler, for Gnars-house’s chef-d'oeuvre reminded me of my record of unfinished business and my pledge to address “Dashes – info from Helen V’s book” – so let's dive in, shall we?

In the introduction to her collection of poems and commentaries, Vendler states this (and I’ve added the bold here and there for emphasis):

Did Dickinson write any poems without a dash?  I suspected so, but still – I wondered. 
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I paged through my copy of Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson.  Poem number 9, “If recollecting were forgetting” – no dashes.  Hmm…but take a look to the right of her name at the bottom of the original manuscript.  Do I detect a dash?

Note:  Where Franklin uses a comma at the end of Line 2 (as shown above), Johnson provides a period. 

STOP THE PRESSES:  When I wrote the "Note" above – about the comma vs. the period – I wondered which appeared in the 2016 Cristanne Miller edition, Emily Dickinson's Poems As She Preserved Them, a comma or a period.  I checked the index for the page on which to find the poem, and I was shocked to find that the work wasn't included in the book.  

Well, it is – but it wasn't when I first checked.  Here's the story:  

Below:  Index entries in the Miller edition of Dickinson's poems.

After perusing the index of Miller's edition, I decided to check for the poem in The Letters of Emily Dickinson, also edited by Cristanne Miller.  I discovered that the poem had been sent to Samuel Bowles in the summer of 1859, and Miller included it in her book with this note:  "Fascicle 1; M 40 (beginning 'Oh if remembering were forgetting –')."  

The "M40" stands for "Miller edition, page 40," and sure enough, there on page 40 of Miller's edition was the poem – although beginning with the word "Oh" (in italics), and not "If."

At the right:  The poem as it appears in Miller's edition. 

And did you notice?  There are five dashes in the poem!  So why no dashes in the Franklin edition?

You see, in Cristanne Miller's edition, she included the poems "as she preserved them" -- so Miller published the poem as it appeared in Dickinson's Fascicle One, from the summer of 1858. 

In Franklin's edition, his policy was "to choose the latest version of the entire poem, thereby giving to the poet, rather than the editor, the ownership of change."  Since the poem with no dashes was sent to Bowles in 1859, that later version was published. 

The next poem with no dashes in the Franklin edition is number 54, “‘Lethe’ in my flower.” 

The lower portion of the manuscript (as seen above) was destroyed or lost; however, a transcript of the poem made by Mabel Todd when the manuscript was intact supplies the last six lines of the poem.  But think about that for a moment.  Todd, the editor of the first posthumously published collections of Dickinson poetry  – who modified much of the poet’s punctuation and grammar  – transcribed the poem – so who knows.  Maybe there were dashes used throughout the poem?
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Vendler offers a similar – and intriguing – discussion on this matter (a dash-less poem that likely was penned with dashes) – so I’ll get to that tomorrow.

By the way, the next item on my list of unfinished business  mentioned at the start of this post was  “Story of the giant coffee cup." This dates back to a post from six months ago where, at the conclusion, I said, “this is eerily reminiscent of the day the planets aligned and some unknown, unseen force directed me to the giant coffee cup and saucer in Milwaukee, but I’ll save that story for another day” – and that “another day” will come one of these days!  Pinky promise!