This – Is the Blog Post – That Sunset Washes

Dear reader, the sun sets on the Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson with today’s post – at least for the time being.  I’ve written about it for the past couple of days, but before I move on, I thought I’d share a final few comments.

First and foremost – **a drum roll, please** – I’ve ordered a copy for myself. I suspect the bookseller is probably wondering “who the hell bought this thing.” LOL.

​As a reminder, the book is an 899-page volume edited by S. P. Rosenbaum and published by Cornell University Press that provides the context and exact line for every significant word used across Dickinson's 1,775 poems based on Thomas H. Johnson's definitive three-volume edition from 1955.  It also includes an appendix that ranks words by usage frequency – revealing, for example, that the poet used the word "I" 1,682 times.  You know Dickinson – she was always, “me, me, me, me!” 

Of her top five words, three of them are “I” (1682), “my” (755), and “me” (616) – totaling 3,053 times. “You” shows up 378 times – so don’t “you” feel left out? 

​Below:  The words used most often by Dickinson:

The book was edited by S. P. Rosenbaum and dedicated to S. E. Whicher, so I wondered who they were.   
 
Concerning Rosenbaum, I found this:

“Stanford Patrick Rosenbaum (1929-2012) was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was educated at the University of Colorado (B.A. with Honours in English and General Studies, 1951), Rutgers University (M.A. 1955), and Cornell University (Ph.D., 1960).”

Remember that “Cornell – 1960” bit – I’ll get back to it in a minute.
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S. E. Whicher, to whom Rosenbaum dedicated the book, was a 1936 graduate of Amherst College. While there, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, plus he sang bass in the Amherst Musical Club, he was a member of the swimming team, and he performed with the Amherst Masquers – their 1936 season is depicted below. 

Whicher’s senior yearbook entry states, “His work in English shows creative ability,” and that must have been true because to this day, Amherst College awards the Stephen E. Whicher Prize, “established in memory of Stephen E. Whicher, class of 1936, for the best essay by a senior in the interpretation of American literature. [Awarded by the Department of English in even-numbered years and the Department of American Studies in odd-numbered years.]”

Later in life Whicher became a highly regarded Professor of English and a leading scholar of 19th-century American Transcendentalism. He wrote several definitive texts on Ralph Waldo Emerson. His most famous work is Freedom and Fate: An Inner Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, which explores the philosopher's intellectual journey. Other notable works include Selections from Ralph Waldo Emerson: An Organic Anthology and the essay collection Emerson.

Hmm…I noticed that Whicher’s middle name was “Emerson.”  Was he related to Ralph Waldo Emerson?  Evidently not.  At least nothing I could find suggested that the two were related.
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Alas, in 1961, Which committed suicide.  I found this article in the New York Times:

Sooo…Rosenbaum edited the Concordance, first published in 1964 by Cornell University Press, and he dedicated it to Whicher, a professor at Cornell who died in 1961 – AND – Rosenbaum earned his PhD from Cornell in 1960 – so I suspect Rosenbaum studied under Whicher?
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Well, I looked into this, and I found the info below from an EDIS “Bulletin” from 2002:

NOTE:  See my travelogue, "Dial 'Em' for Emily," for the complete article, HERE. 

07.21.2026:  DOUBLE ETERNITY, CLICK HERE. 
07.20.2026:  THE ORACLE WORE A WHITE DRESS -- PART DEUX, CLICK HERE.
07.19.2026:  ALL THINGS MATTER, CLICK HERE. 
07.18.2026:  INTRODUCTORY PLOG POST ABOUT "DIAL 'EM' FOR EMILY," CLICK HERE.