Yesterday, in Part 1 of this topic, I wrote about the issues Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson had to deal with in preparing Emily Dickinson’s poetry for publication.
The issues touched on yesterday included Dickinson’s handwriting, grammar, punctuation, dashes, capitalization, starts/ends of lines, word choice, spelling, and rhyme. Part 1 can be accessed HERE.
The issues touched on yesterday included Dickinson’s handwriting, grammar, punctuation, dashes, capitalization, starts/ends of lines, word choice, spelling, and rhyme. Part 1 can be accessed HERE.
In addition to complications associated with the categories listed above, there were still other problems to deal with, and in particular, today’s post will focus on the editors’ dilemma of having to deal with new words coined by Dickinson.
This was certainly a big issue in the late-nineteenth century: “Out of all the conflicting difficulties loomed one perpetual problem,” wrote Millicent Todd Bingham in “Ancestors’ Brocades,” “a decision which confronted my mother afresh with each poem – should it be published or not? Just how much shock, of form or of content, could the reader absorb?”
By the mid-twentieth century, though, researchers indicated that this was not necessarily an overwhelming issue. In his article “Emily Dickinson’s Poetic Vocabulary,” William Howard wrote, “Emily Dickinson’s vocabulary is large, but it is not appreciably inflated by words of her own coining or by rare or unusual words.”
This was certainly a big issue in the late-nineteenth century: “Out of all the conflicting difficulties loomed one perpetual problem,” wrote Millicent Todd Bingham in “Ancestors’ Brocades,” “a decision which confronted my mother afresh with each poem – should it be published or not? Just how much shock, of form or of content, could the reader absorb?”
By the mid-twentieth century, though, researchers indicated that this was not necessarily an overwhelming issue. In his article “Emily Dickinson’s Poetic Vocabulary,” William Howard wrote, “Emily Dickinson’s vocabulary is large, but it is not appreciably inflated by words of her own coining or by rare or unusual words.”
Howard reported that, out of the approximately 19,100 lines of poetry written by Dickinson, there are “159 words…not recognized by the dictionaries of Emily Dickinson’s time.”
* Seven of these are verbs formed with the prefix re-, e.g. redeck, rewalk.
* Nine are adjectives formed with the prefix a-, e.g., achirrup, a’lull, asiailing.
* Nineteen are words formed with the prefix un-, e.g., unbared, erudite, unpretentious.
* Forty-three are compound words, e.g., by-thyme, co-eternity, egg-life, goer by.
* Forty-seven are adjectives formed with the suffix -less, e.g., arrestless, conceiveless, findless, latitudeless, reportless, vital-less.
* Thirty-four are words of her own coining, e.g., addings, heres, inconite, optizan, russetly, gianture.
Gianture? I asked Google to “define gianture.” Google responded, “a person's name written in their own handwriting, or a mark that stands in for their name” – in other words, a signature.
Sorry, Google! Try again!
Part 3 tomorrow.
* Seven of these are verbs formed with the prefix re-, e.g. redeck, rewalk.
* Nine are adjectives formed with the prefix a-, e.g., achirrup, a’lull, asiailing.
* Nineteen are words formed with the prefix un-, e.g., unbared, erudite, unpretentious.
* Forty-three are compound words, e.g., by-thyme, co-eternity, egg-life, goer by.
* Forty-seven are adjectives formed with the suffix -less, e.g., arrestless, conceiveless, findless, latitudeless, reportless, vital-less.
* Thirty-four are words of her own coining, e.g., addings, heres, inconite, optizan, russetly, gianture.
Gianture? I asked Google to “define gianture.” Google responded, “a person's name written in their own handwriting, or a mark that stands in for their name” – in other words, a signature.
Sorry, Google! Try again!
Part 3 tomorrow.
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