The Critic

 On September 15, I shared early reviews of Dickinson’s poetry from 1890 through 1900 (HERE).  Some of the reviews were quite harsh (and remember – the critics were reading the “cleaned up” versions of the works as modified by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson).

The portion of poet/critic Andrew Lang’s review that I included from the Illustrated London News, March 7, 1891, said, “This is certainly a very curious little book.  It has already reached its fourth edition, partly, no doubt, because Mr. (William Dean) Howells praised it very highly.  I cannot go nearly so far as Mr. Howells, because, if poetry is to exist at all, it really must have form and grammar, and must rhyme when it professes to rhyme."

Here is more of his review:

“She did not write for publication.  Her friends have produced her work.  Sometimes it is as bad as this –
 
Angels’ breathless ballot
Lingers to record thee;
Imps in eager caucus
Raffle for my soul.

This, of course, is mere nonsense. What is a ‘breathless ballot’?  How can a ballot record anything, and how can it ‘linger’ in recording, especially if it is in such a hurry as to be breathless? 

Indeed, one turns over Miss Dickinson’s book with a puzzled feeling that there was poetry in her subconscious, but that it never became explicit.  One might as well seek for an air in the notes of a bird as for articulate and sustained poetry here.”  

​At one point Lang does admit that “there was poetry in the writer,” and he shared the first four lines of “I never saw a moor” as example of “true lyrical note" (the entire poem is shown at the right). 

He concluded thusly, though:
 
“There is not much else that can be quoted without bringing in the fantastic, irresponsible note of a poet who has her own audience, and had constructed her own individual ‘Ars Poetica.’  The words of Mr. Aldrich in ‘The Sisters' Tragedy’ (Macmillan) might have been written about Miss. Dickinson –

A twilight poet groping quite alone,
Belated in a sphere where every nest
Is emptied of its music and in wings." 

The “Mr. Aldrich” invoked by Lang was poet, editor, and literary critic Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who was also highly critical of Dickinson. In a review from 1892 Aldrich wrote this:

“Miss Dickinson’s versicles have a queerness and a quaintness that have stirred a momentary curiosity in emotional bosoms.  Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”  

Pictured at the right:  Poet and literary critic Thomas Bailey Aldrich

By the way, I believe I have discovered a poem written by Aldrich that was, in fact, a secret tribute to Dickinson (though I’m sure he would never have admitted it).  The poem is entitled "Broken Music."  Consequently, Lang’s mention of  Aldrich's poem “The Sisters' Tragedy” in his review quoted above piqued my interest.

“The Sisters' Tragedy” – with the line “A twilight poet groping quite alone” – I mean, seriously?  Was this ANOTHER stealthy reference to Emily Dickinson – and “the sisters' tragedy," perhaps, was Lavinia Dickinson’s decision to publish her Emily’s poetry.  Wouldn’t that be something?
 
I went exploring and found Aldrich’s “The Sisters' Tragedy,” and no – it was not about Emily and Lavinia Dickinson –  but blessed bovine (i.e., "holy cow"), it was the soppiest, schmaltziest sapfest to which my optic nerves have been subjected.

I will share "The Sisters' Tragedy" tomorrow.  For now, I'll leave it at this:  If Hallmark movies were a thing back in Aldrich’s day, he surely would have been a lead writer.  Good lord is that poem goofy. But here’s the odd thing – when I found the poem, the lines quoted by Lang in his review were not even in the poem – so what's up with that?

I  had to do more sleuthing.

Okay, so it turns out that Aldrich did write a dramatic work entitled “The Sisters’ Tragedy”; however, Macmillan and Company then published a collection of his works and put them in all in a book which they titled The Sisters’ Tragedy, with Other Poems, Lyrical & Dramatic -- and the lines quoted by Lang were in that book, but in a different poem, one called  “AT THE FUNERAL OF A MINOR POET [One of the Bearers soliloquizes]”

Right:  The Sisters' Tragedy, with Other Poems, Lyrical & Dramatic 

So the essential question at hand is this:  Was Thomas Bailey Aldrich's poem "At the Funeral of a Minor Poet [One of the Bearers soliloquizes]" in any way a reference to Emily Dickinson?

I investigated further, and Google’s AI Overview stated that Aldrich “first published his poem ‘At the Funeral of a Minor Poet’ in The Atlantic in 1883.”  Hmm…Dickinson died in 1886 so it seemed highly unlikely that the poem was in any way related to his perspective on Dickinson.  

But then my little eye spied this from The Atlantic: 

So let's regroup:

Emily Dickinson died in 1886.  Aldrich's poem was published in 1887.  Of course, the first series of Dickinson's Poems was not published until 1890; however, Aldrich was editor of The Atlantic from 1881 to 1890, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson was a frequent contributor – and Aldrich was well aware of Dickinson and her “chaotic” (Aldrich’s word) poetry – and Aldrich was well aware of Higginson's relationship with Dickinson  – and Aldrich was well aware that Higginson spoke at Dickinson's funeral (he recited Emily Brontë’s poem “No Coward Soul Is Mine”) in 1886  – and then in the December 1887 issue of The Atlantic, Aldrich publishes “At the Funeral of a Minor Poet.”

Below:  Thomas Bailey Aldrich's "At the Funeral of a Minor Poet [One of the Bearers soliloquizes]."  The lines quoted by Andrew Lang in his review of Dickinson's poetry are highlighted. 

Aside from the masculine pronouns “he” and “him" (to throw the scent off of Dickinson?),  take a look at some of the images from the poem: 

• each flower and leaf that made you fair
• your praise in verses manifold
• delicate
• in blossom like a bough
• the month of May
    

He even adds, “Some thought / The workmanship more costly than the thing Moulded or carved / …And yet Nature's self /  Works in this wise” – and later, “He was born  Artist, not artisan.”

I dunno.  This all sounds to me like Aldrich's view of Dickinson.  Am I off base here?

That mention of “upon a blade of grass” in line 10 called to mind Dickinson’s poem “The Grass so little has to do" (at the right).  I know that Higginson and Todd had quite a debate about that poem -- Higginson thought the final line should read "I wish I were THE Hay."

Mabel Loomis Todd later wrote of their debate:

"The quaintness of the [indefinite] article really appealed to me, but my trusted collaborator was decided on that line. 'It cannot go in so,' he exclaimed, 'everybody would say that hay is a collective noun requiring the definite article. Nobody can call it a hay!' So I retired, feeling that of course he was right with regard to the public. But I have always had a sneaking desire to see a change back to the original version!"​

The Higginson-Todd "hay debate," or course, took place closer to the publication date of Poems in 1890, so it is unlikely Aldrich knew of this poem in 1887.  Still, as I read his poem, I began to think I was reading a veiled tribute to Dickinson.

And you know what’s odd about all of this?  Remember that review by Andrew Lang -- the one with which I opened this post?  Let me quote from it again:

“The words of Mr. Aldrich in ‘The Sisters' Tragedy’ (Macmillan) might have been written about Miss. Dickinson.”

I’m beginning to think Lang was not too far off base with that comment.  What do you think?