This week I’ve been highlighting some of the emails I receive from Academia.edu about papers of interest concerning Emily Dickinson. Yesterday’s post – with links to Monday’s and Tuesday’s posts too – can be found HERE.
About mid-month I received an email about a paper entitled, “‘Say some philosopher’: Emily Dickinson as Thinker,” by Jed Deppman, a faculty member at Oberlin College.
The paper’s title references line 14 from a second, longer version of Dickinson’s poem “Knows how to forget!”
About mid-month I received an email about a paper entitled, “‘Say some philosopher’: Emily Dickinson as Thinker,” by Jed Deppman, a faculty member at Oberlin College.
The paper’s title references line 14 from a second, longer version of Dickinson’s poem “Knows how to forget!”
The paper opens with these lines:
“Emily Dickinson was a serious poet, but was she also a serious philosopher? Some readers would answer: of course not. For one thing, generic differences make it impossible: philosophy is systematic and analytical. Philosophers induce, deduce, and write an un-poetic prose that reaches for clarity, accuracy, and objectivity. For another, a long critical tradition confirms that if philosophy is antithetical to most poetry then it is a fortiori remote from Dickinson’s sphinx-like, tuneful, imagistic lyrics.”
The second paragraph opens with this:
“Other readers would answer: of course. For one thing, if philosophy is not just a logical or analytic method but a love of wisdom and a search for difficult truths, then Dickinson’s poetic and epistolary writings on love, death, God, consciousness, ecstasy, identity, nature, and language are full of it. For another, a long critical tradition confirms Dickinson’s identity and strength as a thinker.”
The poem from which the paper draws its title is discussed on page 7 of the paper. Depp says of the poem that it “ironically frames the activity of philosophizing even as it pursues a typical Common Sense inquiry into how much and what kind of control we have over memory. Its relentless manner and know-nothing posture recall Socrates, and its speed, energy, and sharp wording communicate a satire whose targets are hard to identify.”
If you’re interested in reading more, the paper can be found HERE.
“Emily Dickinson was a serious poet, but was she also a serious philosopher? Some readers would answer: of course not. For one thing, generic differences make it impossible: philosophy is systematic and analytical. Philosophers induce, deduce, and write an un-poetic prose that reaches for clarity, accuracy, and objectivity. For another, a long critical tradition confirms that if philosophy is antithetical to most poetry then it is a fortiori remote from Dickinson’s sphinx-like, tuneful, imagistic lyrics.”
The second paragraph opens with this:
“Other readers would answer: of course. For one thing, if philosophy is not just a logical or analytic method but a love of wisdom and a search for difficult truths, then Dickinson’s poetic and epistolary writings on love, death, God, consciousness, ecstasy, identity, nature, and language are full of it. For another, a long critical tradition confirms Dickinson’s identity and strength as a thinker.”
The poem from which the paper draws its title is discussed on page 7 of the paper. Depp says of the poem that it “ironically frames the activity of philosophizing even as it pursues a typical Common Sense inquiry into how much and what kind of control we have over memory. Its relentless manner and know-nothing posture recall Socrates, and its speed, energy, and sharp wording communicate a satire whose targets are hard to identify.”
If you’re interested in reading more, the paper can be found HERE.
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