Yesterday I mentioned that in a May 1891 letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Mabel Loomis Todd included a poem written about Emily Dickinson by a student at Amherst College: “I enclose a sonnet written to E. D. out of pure enthusiasm by one of our students here.”
The poem, a sonnet, was written by LeRoy Phillips of the class of 1892 at Amherst. In June 1891 the poem was published in the “Amherst Literary Monthly,” and then in November 1891, it was printed in the “New England Magazine.”
The poem, a sonnet, was written by LeRoy Phillips of the class of 1892 at Amherst. In June 1891 the poem was published in the “Amherst Literary Monthly,” and then in November 1891, it was printed in the “New England Magazine.”
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Of course, Dickinson died in 1886, and the first posthumous edition of some of her poetry was published by Todd and Higginson in 1890. The first poem in the book, selected by Todd, was “This is my letter to the world.”
 |  To me, it seems very obvious that Phillips used the opening poem to structure his tribute to her. The two poems share at least eight words in common (world, never, nature, tender, message, see, love and sweet), and the opening line to Phillips’ sonnet seems to respond directly to the first two lines of Dickinson’s poem: “This is my letter to the world / The never wrote to me” and “Her message to a world she never knew.” |
Below, I’ve color coded the two poems to show the many similarities.
YELLOW: The similar opening lines with “world,” and “message,” which shows up in Phillips’ first line, shows up in line 5 of Dickinson’s poem.
BLUE TEXT: Both poems use the word “world.”
GREEN: The duplicate use of “never.”
TEAL: The various references to “nature.”
LIGHTER GRAY: The uses of the word “tender.”
DARKER GRAY: The uses of the word “see.”
PURPLE: Note the similarity of “Sweet countryman” to “sweet companionship.”
RED TEXT: Both poems use the word “love.”
Of course, in addition to the parallels between the two poems, there are other allusions to references to Dickinson’s life and poetry! To be honest, for a poem written in 1890 or 1891, I am impressed with how much Phillips knew about Dickinson above and beyond the themes in her poetry – her reclusiveness, her disinterest in publication, her “earthly joy and care,” her independent spirit; I lalso love his final image, how she “talked with Death, her soul’s own liberty.”
Is there anything else about these two poems that jumps out at you?
BLUE TEXT: Both poems use the word “world.”
GREEN: The duplicate use of “never.”
TEAL: The various references to “nature.”
LIGHTER GRAY: The uses of the word “tender.”
DARKER GRAY: The uses of the word “see.”
PURPLE: Note the similarity of “Sweet countryman” to “sweet companionship.”
RED TEXT: Both poems use the word “love.”
Of course, in addition to the parallels between the two poems, there are other allusions to references to Dickinson’s life and poetry! To be honest, for a poem written in 1890 or 1891, I am impressed with how much Phillips knew about Dickinson above and beyond the themes in her poetry – her reclusiveness, her disinterest in publication, her “earthly joy and care,” her independent spirit; I lalso love his final image, how she “talked with Death, her soul’s own liberty.”
Is there anything else about these two poems that jumps out at you?
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