Okay, I admit, today’s post is a bit off beat – a bunch of odd connections on the interwebs, and Imma save my two faves for last. Here’s the story:
Back at the start of the month, I shared Dickinson’s poem “Besides the Autumn poets sing" (HERE), and I mentioned how surprised I was by Dickinson’s use of the word “Mesmeric.” Of course, the word comes from the name of scientist Franz Anton Mesmer, and I’ll admit – I knew of Mesmer, but no real specifics. I think I assumed Mesmer came a little later, say a contemporary of Freud. Therefore, the reference to Mesmer threw me.
The same post included info on the poem “Autumn” by Scottish poet James Thomson’s work “The Seasons.” I later found out that Thomson’s full work was required reading at school for Dickinson. Hmm. That made me wonder, “Would Dickinson have studied about Franz Mesmer in school?” I assume she did; still, I ran a Google-search on that question – and what a hodge-podge of oddities popped up.
The first entry to surface made me laugh. It was from my own site, the very post I described (and linked) above.
Back at the start of the month, I shared Dickinson’s poem “Besides the Autumn poets sing" (HERE), and I mentioned how surprised I was by Dickinson’s use of the word “Mesmeric.” Of course, the word comes from the name of scientist Franz Anton Mesmer, and I’ll admit – I knew of Mesmer, but no real specifics. I think I assumed Mesmer came a little later, say a contemporary of Freud. Therefore, the reference to Mesmer threw me.
The same post included info on the poem “Autumn” by Scottish poet James Thomson’s work “The Seasons.” I later found out that Thomson’s full work was required reading at school for Dickinson. Hmm. That made me wonder, “Would Dickinson have studied about Franz Mesmer in school?” I assume she did; still, I ran a Google-search on that question – and what a hodge-podge of oddities popped up.
The first entry to surface made me laugh. It was from my own site, the very post I described (and linked) above.
On the first page of possibly-related links, another post from my own site popped up (HERE). This article had nothing to do with Mesmer, but it does use the word “school” as I had discussed the poem “Because I could not stop for Death” which includes the line “We passed the School, where Children strove / At Recess – in the Ring.”
At Logos Journal, “a journal of modern society and culture, an article popped up entitled “Anti-Vaxxers and the Covid Crisis: The Sorry Story of the Pernicious Influence Of A Pseudo-Science.” The includes this: “The appeal to pseudo-science is not new. A paradigmatic example of a pseudo-science is the eighteenth-century belief system (and practice) of mesmerism (Ruse 2013a, b). Oddly enough, in the final line of the opening paragraph, the author happened to mention the name of “Emily Dickinson,” hence the connection. You can check it out HERE.
Next up was someone’s thesis prepared for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Kent. The 191-page paper (HERE) is called “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mesmer and His Legacy,” and I ran a word-search on the doc for the name “Dickinson,” and one name did pop up, “R. D. Dickinson,” for a lecture titled “Does Death End It All.” Hmm…I wonder if R. D. was related to Emily.
Oh my! Another thesis popped up (HERE), submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in English in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa, and entitled “Emancipation & Authenticity: forms and fictions of Gnostic selfhood In nineteenth-century United States’ literature.” I searched the 267-page document for “Mesmer,” and it showed fifteen times. The first was in this footnote:
“Recently, Catherine Waitinas unearthed a second Animal Magnetism-endorsing editorial written by Whitman dating from 1841, one year previous to the editorial typically referenced to demonstrate Whitman’s interest in Animal Magnetism. See: ‘“Animal Magnetism’: The ‘Contemporary’ Roots of Whitman’s ‘Is Mesmerism True?’” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 34 (2016), 55-68”
I then ran a search on “Dickinson,” and the name showed up 237 times. Here’s the first:
“In fact, not unlike the prestige of heightened sensitivity to pain discussed in the chapter on Emily Dickinson, neurasthenia became an identity-marker with hierarchical implications, by which the neurasthenic patient might enjoy status as being ever-so-slightly more thoroughly modern than their counterparts.”
Wow. Id that ain’t sayin’ something, huh? I suppose I’ll have to read this paper later.
Next up, one of my two favorites: A Wikipedia article popped up about the Beat Generation (HERE). Evidently, Allen Ginsberg saw Emily Dickinson as having an influence on Beat poetry. I suppose I’ll have to look into that later! By the way, the article also included the name “Mesmer,” but not for Franz. Instead, it mentions Sharon Mesmer (HERE), a Polish-American poet, fiction writer, essayist and professor of creative writing.
Finally, a link popped up from eScholarship.org entitled “UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations" (HERE), and in the text below, it stated, “Emily Dickinson may well have learned of her father’s interest and enthusiasm in the top of treating insanity, and it is likely that it came up often….”
Say what? How intriguing. I’ll definitely take a look at this 339-paper later! And BTW: The name “Dickinson” appears 501 times in the paper, “insanity” shows up 50 times,” and “mesmer” shows up once – in this footnote:
“The belief that diagnosis depended upon the imagination of a doctor sometimes led the public to turn to non-medical forms of healing and homeopathy. The public demonstrated concern about fake medicines and “quack” doctors (exemplified by stories such as Mitchell’s “The Autobiography of a Quack” in 1831) as well as enthusiasm for spiritualism—the belief that the dead could interact with the world of the living through séances and mesmerism….”
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