For the past couple of days, I’ve shared info surrounding the “One poem only I dread a little to print” – to quote Thomas Wentworth Higginson concerning Emily Dickinson’s poetry – “lest the malignant read into it more than that virgin recluse ever dreamed of putting there.”
Yesterday (HERE) I also mentioned lyrics to a couple of modern day songs to show how far we’ve come – though I suppose some might rather say “how far we’ve plunged” – with artistic representations of erstwhile sexual inhibitions and taboos.
However, to bring the 150-year ago Victorian world of the Dickinsons into sharper focus – the very era of the “malignant” readers, the “virgin recluse,” and the “dread” of publishing “Wild Nights – Wild Nights” – I thought I would just drop a few observations about what was going on back then:
* Mabel Loomis Todd came to Amherst in 1881 with her husband David so that he could take a job as an assistant professor of astronomy at Amherst College.
* At that time, Austin Dickinson, Emily’s brother, was the treasurer of the college. He was married to Emily’s friend of many years, Susan Gilbert Dickinson.
* When Mabel Todd was 25, she and Austin Dickinson, who was 53 and the town’s most influential citizen, fell in love and embarked on an affair that was to last 13 years, until his death.
* Around September 1882, Mabel Todd had attended a whist party (a card game) at Austin and Susan Dickinson’s home, and the night after the party, the two professed their love for one another. Austin Dickinson wrote the word “Rubicon” in his personal journal.
* Their spouses found out almost immediately. David Todd was compliant; he himself had – shall we say – a roving eye for women. Susan Dickinson's fury would never be placated.
* Mabel Tood kept records in her diary, and used codes to keep track of her menstrual periods, orgasms, with whom (David or Austin) she made love, and how often.
From The Amherst Affair & Love Letters of Austin Dickinson and Mabel Loomis Todd, edited and with an introduction and commentary by Polly Longsworth, comes this: “Lest we think theirs was a merely epistolary affair or that the 19th-century bedroom was a place greatly different from the bedrooms of today, we read in the diary that in 1884 Mabel made love on an average of 20 times a month, eight with her husband, 12 with her lover.”
* Here’s just one example of Austin’s and Mabel’s journal entries, from January 3, 1886:
Austin: “at the other house 3 to 5 and +=====XXX.”
Mabel, from the same day/date: “A most exquisitely happy and satisfactory two hours.”
* The affair, at times, bloomed into a ménage-a-trois involving Mabel’s husband, David Todd, and, at least once, a ménage-a-quatre, with another woman taking part.
I could go on – but I think you get the picture.
The idea of the Victorian era as a time of extreme sexual repression is a myth – or certainly a highly oversimplified generalization.
While Victorian society outwardly emphasized modesty, propriety, and restraint – especially for women – the reality was more complex – so it really comes as no surprise that Dickinson wrote that little poem which Higginson so dreaded publishing!
Yesterday (HERE) I also mentioned lyrics to a couple of modern day songs to show how far we’ve come – though I suppose some might rather say “how far we’ve plunged” – with artistic representations of erstwhile sexual inhibitions and taboos.
However, to bring the 150-year ago Victorian world of the Dickinsons into sharper focus – the very era of the “malignant” readers, the “virgin recluse,” and the “dread” of publishing “Wild Nights – Wild Nights” – I thought I would just drop a few observations about what was going on back then:
* Mabel Loomis Todd came to Amherst in 1881 with her husband David so that he could take a job as an assistant professor of astronomy at Amherst College.
* At that time, Austin Dickinson, Emily’s brother, was the treasurer of the college. He was married to Emily’s friend of many years, Susan Gilbert Dickinson.
* When Mabel Todd was 25, she and Austin Dickinson, who was 53 and the town’s most influential citizen, fell in love and embarked on an affair that was to last 13 years, until his death.
* Around September 1882, Mabel Todd had attended a whist party (a card game) at Austin and Susan Dickinson’s home, and the night after the party, the two professed their love for one another. Austin Dickinson wrote the word “Rubicon” in his personal journal.
* Their spouses found out almost immediately. David Todd was compliant; he himself had – shall we say – a roving eye for women. Susan Dickinson's fury would never be placated.
* Mabel Tood kept records in her diary, and used codes to keep track of her menstrual periods, orgasms, with whom (David or Austin) she made love, and how often.
From The Amherst Affair & Love Letters of Austin Dickinson and Mabel Loomis Todd, edited and with an introduction and commentary by Polly Longsworth, comes this: “Lest we think theirs was a merely epistolary affair or that the 19th-century bedroom was a place greatly different from the bedrooms of today, we read in the diary that in 1884 Mabel made love on an average of 20 times a month, eight with her husband, 12 with her lover.”
* Here’s just one example of Austin’s and Mabel’s journal entries, from January 3, 1886:
Austin: “at the other house 3 to 5 and +=====XXX.”
Mabel, from the same day/date: “A most exquisitely happy and satisfactory two hours.”
* The affair, at times, bloomed into a ménage-a-trois involving Mabel’s husband, David Todd, and, at least once, a ménage-a-quatre, with another woman taking part.
I could go on – but I think you get the picture.
The idea of the Victorian era as a time of extreme sexual repression is a myth – or certainly a highly oversimplified generalization.
While Victorian society outwardly emphasized modesty, propriety, and restraint – especially for women – the reality was more complex – so it really comes as no surprise that Dickinson wrote that little poem which Higginson so dreaded publishing!
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