Yesterday I discussed a few poets’ uses of internal rhyme, and one poem I’d mentioned was Robert Frost’s “Birches.” I also mentioned that at an earlier date I’d come across an article comparing various Frost poems to some by Dickinson, so I revisited that article and printed it so that I could take a closer look – and the opening lines took me by surprise.
Here’s how the article, “Defining Poetry in the Twilight Interval,” opens:
“‘She is the best of all the women poets who ever wrote, from Sappho on down. As for all the other women poets…they can’t touch Emily …Emily wrote fine lines – right from the soul.’ Robert Frost’s remark to Louis Mertins indicates not only intense admiration for his Amherst predecessor but also how astutely he assessed her merit and how presciently he anticipated her future reputation.”
The author of the article, Karen Kilcup, noted in the next paragraph that “Frost was only sixteen when the ‘lawless’ Emily Dickinson’s first volume appeared,” and she also included a scathing review from that time – written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of the Atlantic Monthly – to represent the types of reviews Frost would have encountered when Dickinson was first published. Aldrich wrote the following:
"An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar….Miss Dickinson’s versicles have a queerness and a quaintness that have stirred a momentary curiosity in emotional bosoms. Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”
Ouch! Could he have been more wrong? LOL.
Here’s how the article, “Defining Poetry in the Twilight Interval,” opens:
“‘She is the best of all the women poets who ever wrote, from Sappho on down. As for all the other women poets…they can’t touch Emily …Emily wrote fine lines – right from the soul.’ Robert Frost’s remark to Louis Mertins indicates not only intense admiration for his Amherst predecessor but also how astutely he assessed her merit and how presciently he anticipated her future reputation.”
The author of the article, Karen Kilcup, noted in the next paragraph that “Frost was only sixteen when the ‘lawless’ Emily Dickinson’s first volume appeared,” and she also included a scathing review from that time – written by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of the Atlantic Monthly – to represent the types of reviews Frost would have encountered when Dickinson was first published. Aldrich wrote the following:
"An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar….Miss Dickinson’s versicles have a queerness and a quaintness that have stirred a momentary curiosity in emotional bosoms. Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”
Ouch! Could he have been more wrong? LOL.
Kilcup noted, “Frost knew better, quickly recognizing that his predecessor was not simply a star, but a supernova.”
More on Frost and Dickinson tomorrow.
BTW: The complete Aldrich review appears below as it appeared in the January 1892 issue of the Atlantic Magazine (the review begins at the bottom of the right column on page 143; click the images to enlarge).
More on Frost and Dickinson tomorrow.
BTW: The complete Aldrich review appears below as it appeared in the January 1892 issue of the Atlantic Magazine (the review begins at the bottom of the right column on page 143; click the images to enlarge).
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