Emily Dickinson died in 1886, and some of her poetry wasn’t published until 1890 (only ten of her poems were published in her lifetime – all without attribution).
Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson were the editors of the first few editions of Dickinson’s poetry, and their work to decipher and ready the poems for publications was arduous.
Some of the issues the two had to deal with included the following:
DICKINSON’S HANDWRITING: For example, in “I know some lonely houses off the road,” did she write “afar” –
or “ajar”? HERE
GRAMMAR: For example, in “I died for beauty, but was scarce,” should Dickinson have used the past tense of “lie” or “lay”? HERE In “The grass has so little to do,” should the uncountable noun “hay” be “a hay” or “the hay”? HERE And what about her use of “don’t” vs. “does”? HERE.
PUNCTUATION: Just one example (of many): In “A narrow fellow in the grass,” should there be a question mark in line 3 – and if so, where? HERE.
DASHES: In “Ancestors’ Brocades,” Millicent Todd Bingham wrote, “As Emily grew older, she dispensed with punctuation more and more until she was using dashes for the most part, with an occasional comma or period. What should be done about those dashes? To what conventional forms did they most closely correspond?”
CAPITALIZATION: Bingham also wrote, “The editors (i.e., Todd and Higginson) decided that her way of beginning important words with capitals would not convey in print the nuance of emphasis intended. Capitals must be used sparingly if at all.”
STARTS/ENDS OF LINES: One example: In “My river runs to thee,” were the final four words, “Say sea, take me!” meant to be one line or two? HERE.
WORD CHOICE: Often Dickinson would include alternative word choices on the drafts of her poems. In the case of “The Bible is an antique volume,” she listed a dozen alternative words for “thrilling.” HERE
SPELLING: Was Dickinson deliberate with her misspelling? She once enclosed a copy of “Of tribulation – these are They” in a letter to Higginson. In the poem, she spelled “ankle” as “ancle.” At the bottom of the page she added, “I spelled ankle wrong.” Why would she have done that? HERE
RHYME: In 'Hope' is the thing with feathers," Emily Dickinson rhymed "soul" with "all." In "I'll tell you how the sun rose," she rhymed "time" with "ran." In "The soul selects her own society," she paired "one" with "stone" and "gate" with "mat." As a result, the early editors would often change Dickinson’s slant rhymes and (sort of) near rhymes to make lines more “palatable” to the public. For example, in “Because I could not stop for Death,” they changed the following lines:
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun” to read as follows
…to read like this:
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
In addition to complications associated with the categories listed above, there were still other problems to deal with – stay tuned for Part 2 of this post tomorrow.
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