Emily Dickinson as a Second Language: Demystifying the Poetry

✍ Scribed by Greg Mattingly

• Publisher: McFarland
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 259
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

 Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) wrote in 19th century American English and referenced long-vanished cultural contexts. A “private poet,” she created her own vocabulary, and many of her poems have quite specific local and personal connections. Twenty-first century readers may find her poetry elusive and challenging. Promoting a richer appreciation of Dickinson’s work for a modern audience, this book explores unfamiliar aspects of her language and her world.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Foreword by Cindy Dickinson
Preface
Introduction
One. Words to Lift Your Hat To
Forgotten Words and Meanings from 19th-Century America
The Language of Home
Victorian Flower Language
Coining Her Own Words
Two. New England
Pictures of an Agricultural Community
Feeling the Cycles of the Seasons
The Railroad Comes to Town
Three. The Private Poet
Circumference
North, South, East and West
Latitude, Degree, Meridian
Film
Physiognomy
Dickinson’s Italic
Four. The Second Great Awakening
Emily Dickinson’s Religious Heritage
Early Struggles
The Language of the Church
Signs and Emblems
Argument from Design
Five. The King James Version
Biblical Allusion, Christian Typology and a Pagan Goddess
The Vail
The Book of Revelation
Some Very Different Crowns
The Symbolic White
Intimate with the Gospels
Six. The Poem in Context
“My Friends are my Estate”
Life in Amherst
The Great White Plague
The American Civil War
The Trove, the Herbarium and the Vault
Seven. Secrets of the Temple: Specialized Vocabularies
The Law, Commerce and Politics
The Language of Science
Eight. The Language of Intimacy
It’s Like She’s Talking Directly to Me!
Conversational Style
The Omitted Center
Words Beyond Words
Nine. The Poet’s Toolbox
“If no mistake you have made, losing you are”
Double Duty Words
A Poet’s License
Sweet Torment and Sumptuous Despair
A Turn at the End
Afterword
Appendix A
Appendix B
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index of First Lines
General Index