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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsDickinson: Raw or Cooked?
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/jan/25/dickinson-raw-or-cooked/Emily Dickinson (left) and Kate Scott Turner Anthon, 1859. Analysis suggests that this daguerrotype, recently brought to the attention of scholars, is the only photographic image of Dickinson as an adult
It is a conflict reaching back to what has come to be called The War Between the Houses, when Dickinsons manuscripts were divided into two main collections. One consisted of the poems Dickinson had sent to her sister-in-law, Susan Dickinson. The other was the pile of manuscripts discovered in a drawer after Dickinsons death in 1886 by her sister, Lavinia. Susan had first volunteered to find a publisher for Dickinsons poetry. When in Lavinias view she showed insufficient zeal in pursuing this goal, Lavinia turnedin what seems a deliberate act of hostilityto Susans rival for her husbands affections, Mabel Todd. Todd, more comfortable in the literary world, secured the cooperation of Dickinsons literary adviser Thomas Wentworth Higginson as coeditor for the project.
The manuscripts sent to Susan were sold to Harvard in 1950. The others, in Mabels hands, were donated to Amherst in 1956. The spoils of Dickinson are also divided, with her bedroom furniture at Harvard instead of in the Homestead, which was deeded to Amherst. (As the Amherst archivist Michael Kelly recently told Jennifer Schuessler of The New York Times: They have the furniture, we have the daguerreotype; they have the herbarium, we have the hair.) With the resources of the Internet, it was hoped that the two collections might finally be united, at least virtually. And so Harvard (which has published successive versions of Dickinsons collected poems and thereby retained the copyright) launched its digital Dickinson project. When the archive was about to go live, however, a spat broke out, reported in The Boston Globe and The New York Times.
It was learned that representatives of Amherst and Harvardtwo historically mens schools where Dickinson could never have enrolledhad differing ideas of what the archive should consist of and how it should be presented. Should it be free to all comers (the preference of Amherst, which had already made its manuscripts available online in 2012) or pay-per-view (Harvards preference)? Should it be identified with Harvard or should Amherst have equal billing? Should it be restricted, as Harvard preferred, to manuscripts identifiable with specific poems (namely, the 1,789 poems in Ralph Franklins three-volume variorum edition of 1998) or should it include all Dickinsons manuscripts, incorporating those seemingly radical drafts and gnomic fragments (from the Amherst archive)?
dawg
(10,624 posts)elleng
(130,895 posts)A beautifully illustrated gift book exploring the flowers and poems of the beloved "Belle of Amherst"
A woman who found great solace in gardens, Emily Dickinson filled her poetry with references to her flowers. Now, in Emily Dickinson's Gardens, author Marta McDowell invites poetry and gardening lovers alike to explore the words and wildflowers of one of America's best-loved poets.
Each chapter of this illustrated book follows a different season in the gardens, conservatories, and Amherst environs where the poet tended, collected, and drew inspiration from flowers.
"Here is a brighter garden" where you will discover:
Excerpts from Dickinson's poetry and letters Historical details about the poet's life, emphasizing her horticultural interests Plus: Instructions on how to create an Emily Dickinson garden of your own, including plans, design ideas, plant sources, and growing tips.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11622.Emily_Dickinson_s_Gardens
I attended this, at NYC Botanical Garden:
The Poet as Gardener and Tiger Lily
Emily Dickinson once called herself a a Lunatic on Bulbs, referring to her passion for daffodils, hyacinth and other spring perennials, which she raised indoors in winter in her family home in Amherst, Mass. And a lunatic she probably seemed to neighbors who spied her gardening by moonlight on summer evenings in the flower beds behind the house.
We now suspect that one reason Dickinson preferred night gardening was because of vision problems: for several years in her early middle age, sunlight stung her eyes. But no such explanations are needed to justify the indoor-outdoor format of Emily Dickinsons Garden: The Poetry of Flowers, an ambitious, multipart show, opening Friday at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, that considers Dickinson equally as a horticulturalist and a poet, and forges links between the two.
A collaboration with the Poetry Society of America, the show takes as its model an earlier one at the Botanical Garden, Darwins Garden: An Evolutionary Adventure, which included documentary materials and was centered on a re-creation of Darwins 19th-century English garden inside the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Darwins Garden was a popular hit in 2008; the hope is that Dickinsons Garden will be too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/arts/design/30dickinson.html
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)Thank you ashling for the OP and, elleng for the reply. The links, pictures and excerpts all interesting and appreciated.
elleng
(130,895 posts)She's my favorite poet, and my daughter and I attended the botanical garden event with great pleasure. Learned a lot, too.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)Bucky
(54,003 posts)Um, I mean, what a stupendous literary and cultural find!