Yesterday I wrote about a perplexing comment made by Dickinson scholar Thomas Johnson about an underscore Dickinson added between the stanzas of a poem the poet sent to her friend Susan Gilbert when she was in New Hampshire visiting relatives:
“Poems (1896), 200, titled "Eternity"; LL 78-79. With Dickinson drawing a line between stanzas (significant for interpreting the identities of stanzas identified with ‘Safe in their Alabaster Chambers’).”
I really have no idea what that line would have to do with interpreting “the identities of stanzas” with “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers.”
Anyway, in the latter part of his comments, Johnson also said the following:
“Sent to ‘Susie’ when she was visiting in Manchester, New Hampshire, who made two transcriptions, indicating perhaps that Sue made copies of Emily's work to send out. Martha Dickinson Bianchi, wrote that it was ‘The first verse Aunt Emily sent to Mamma - ‘ and says that it was ‘sent to Susan in 1848 when she was but eighteen. . . .’ but it was written five years later. This is the kind of misdating that Rebecca Patterson critiques as part of an effort to mask Emily's adult desire for Sue (The Riddle of Emily Dickinson, especially the first and fourth chapters).”
My post two days ago (HERE) was about efforts made by Mabel Lewis Todd (and/or Austin Dickinson) to “erase” Susan’s name from Dickinson’s poetry, letters – and reputation – and this comment indicated other efforts, above and beyond those of Mabel Loomis Todd and Austin Dickinson, to misdate documents, mislead the public, and mask what might have been going on.
The person named in Jonson’s comment, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, was Susan Dickinson’s daughter, Emily’s niece.
The “campaign” to cover-up Dickinson’s desires for Sue (and for others?) is depicted in the 2018 romantic comedy “Wild Nights with Emily” (with Molly Shannon as Dickinson) – I remember a scene showing Mabel Loomis Todd (played by Amy Seimetz) in front of an audience so that she could “set the record straight.” (LOL – pun intended).
The film ends with titles explaining that recent technology revealed Mabel's erasures and that the love letters were indeed written to Susan.
All of this was front and center in the 1998 book Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson edited by Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith. However, you’ll notice in Johnson’s comment with which I opened this post, he mentioned Rebecca Patterson’s book, THe Riddle of Emily Dickinson – which proposed that Dickinson's great love was not a man but a woman, Catherine Scott Turner Anthon, the “Katie” of Dickinson's letters and poems – and that book was published in 1951.
More on this tomorrow – or soon. ;-)
“Poems (1896), 200, titled "Eternity"; LL 78-79. With Dickinson drawing a line between stanzas (significant for interpreting the identities of stanzas identified with ‘Safe in their Alabaster Chambers’).”
I really have no idea what that line would have to do with interpreting “the identities of stanzas” with “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers.”
Anyway, in the latter part of his comments, Johnson also said the following:
“Sent to ‘Susie’ when she was visiting in Manchester, New Hampshire, who made two transcriptions, indicating perhaps that Sue made copies of Emily's work to send out. Martha Dickinson Bianchi, wrote that it was ‘The first verse Aunt Emily sent to Mamma - ‘ and says that it was ‘sent to Susan in 1848 when she was but eighteen. . . .’ but it was written five years later. This is the kind of misdating that Rebecca Patterson critiques as part of an effort to mask Emily's adult desire for Sue (The Riddle of Emily Dickinson, especially the first and fourth chapters).”
My post two days ago (HERE) was about efforts made by Mabel Lewis Todd (and/or Austin Dickinson) to “erase” Susan’s name from Dickinson’s poetry, letters – and reputation – and this comment indicated other efforts, above and beyond those of Mabel Loomis Todd and Austin Dickinson, to misdate documents, mislead the public, and mask what might have been going on.
The person named in Jonson’s comment, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, was Susan Dickinson’s daughter, Emily’s niece.
The “campaign” to cover-up Dickinson’s desires for Sue (and for others?) is depicted in the 2018 romantic comedy “Wild Nights with Emily” (with Molly Shannon as Dickinson) – I remember a scene showing Mabel Loomis Todd (played by Amy Seimetz) in front of an audience so that she could “set the record straight.” (LOL – pun intended).
The film ends with titles explaining that recent technology revealed Mabel's erasures and that the love letters were indeed written to Susan.
All of this was front and center in the 1998 book Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson edited by Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith. However, you’ll notice in Johnson’s comment with which I opened this post, he mentioned Rebecca Patterson’s book, THe Riddle of Emily Dickinson – which proposed that Dickinson's great love was not a man but a woman, Catherine Scott Turner Anthon, the “Katie” of Dickinson's letters and poems – and that book was published in 1951.
More on this tomorrow – or soon. ;-)
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