Introduction
After
Lavinia Dickinson's death, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, Susan and Austin
Dickinson's daughter, became the only remaining member of the family
line and inheritor of a great many Dickinson manuscripts. She took
this responsibility seriously, working to rekindle the reading
public's ardor for both Dickinson's life and works. She edited and
published an article in Atlantic
Monthly,
"Selections from the Unpublished Letters of Emily Dickinson to
Her Brother's Family"; The
Single Hound,
a collection of Emily's correspondence to Susan (1914); Life
and Letters of Emily Dickinson
(1924), Complete
Poems of Emily Dickinson
(1924), Further
Poems of Emily Dickinson
(1929), Face
to Face
(1932), an expanded biography with letters and poems; Unpublished
Poems of Emily Dickinson
(1935), and The
Poems of Emily Dickinson
(1941). She worked with Alfred Leete Hampson on some of these volumes.
It is
clear from Hampson's introductions that he and Bianchi feel
responsible for bringing Dickinson back into the forefront of
American literature: "[B]y the dawn of the twentieth century,
examination of contemporary criticism reveals that as a factor in
critical consideration she had dropped from sight" (Face
to Face x),
but "undeterred by the apathy of public and publishers,"
Dickinson's small following persuaded Bianchi to publish Life
and Letters,
the reception of which "was an overwhelming surprise" (Poems viii).
And, according to Hampson and Bianchi, their further publications
ensured a permanent spot in the developing American canon.
Glimpses
of the manuscript dispute between the Dickinson and Todd clans are
apparent in the various introductory comments. Mabel Loomis Todd is
never mentioned—Bianchi may refer to Lavinia, but not
Todd—and one wonders if the comments Bianchi makes regarding
other editorial productions are veiled gibes at Todd. In an indirect
reference to Todd, she quotes Amy Lowell's praise of The
Single Hound
as being "worth the other [earlier] three volumes put together.
One cannot help feeling that the editors of the first three series
compiled the books with an eye to conciliating criticism. The whole
of Emily Dickinson is not in them as it is in The
Single Hound;
in the fact the most interesting part of her genius suffers eclipse
at the hands of her timorous interpreters. (Face xi)
There is a
sense of proprietary territorialism in Bianchi's editions and
biographies, and as the last in the Dickinson line, she positions
herself as the authority —the most reliable eyewitness—on
Dickinson's life.
Biography
One of
Bianchi's goals in presenting Dickinson's works is to correct the
"voluminous stock of quite lurid misinformation of irrelevant
personalities" surrounding her aunt's life. She disputes the
notions that Dickinson was a "weird recluse," a
"lovelorn sentimentalist," a "fantastic
eccentric." Rather, she seeks to portray Dickinson's life
"simply and truthfully" (Life
and Letters Foreword).
These are admirable concerns, ones that continue today with
Dickinson scholars, for Dickinson is still taught in terms of these
stereotypes. Also admirable is Bianchi and Hampson's respect for her
mother's influence on Dickinson's work: "When Emily was sixteen
she met Susan Gilbert . . . who was to be her brother's wife-and to
become the most comprehending and mentally stimulating influence in
her own life" (Poems vii).
Martha Nell Smith and Ellen Louise Hart are the first modern editors
to really pick up on this idea (see Open
Me Carefully)
and continue Bianchi's mission to establish Susan as the central
figure in Emily's life.
In seeking
to dispel the stereotypes of the nineteenth-century
"poetess," though, Bianchi seems to undermine her project
somewhat in her introduction to Life and Letters by characterizing
Dickinson's day-to-day life as being "frail," almost not of
this world at all. Emily lived in a "shy unreality," and
Bianchi comments that clues to the "frail external incidents of
her days" are difficult to come by, given the "thronging
events of the Spirit which eternally preoccupied her" (Life
and Letters Foreword).
Bianchi's recollections of her are "deathless," immortal.
She treats Emily with reverence again when she notes the additional
difficulty for the biographer because of the "sacred pact
observed with her chosen few" that required that all letters be
burned after her death (Life
and Letters Foreword).
Furthermore,
she characterizes Dickinson's work as being that of an unconscious
artist rather than a professional who worked hard at her craft. She
terms the correspondence between Emily and Susan Dickinson
"poetic flashes," sent to Susan "on every gust of
impulse." This hardly seems accurate when one considers the
careful exchange of drafts of "Safe in Their Alabaster
Chambers," in which both women read and wrote carefully,
thoughtfully. Although Bianchi speaks of Dickinson only in terms of
highest praise, it is different from the respect for one who strives
to perfect her craft over time, one who self-consciously shaped and
developed her view of her art throughout her lifetime.
Hampson
seems intent on establishing Dickinson as purebred American stock. He
spends several paragraphs particularly in his introduction to Poems
tracing Dickinson's American ancestry, from her first
"American" ancestors, who sought "'not conquest or
dominion, but freedom and the right to serve, at the dictation of his
own conscience, his God before his King'" (Poems vi)
to her grandfather, "a 'poet' and mystic of another sort" (Poems v).
In Face
to Face,
one of the first things he points out is that she was born "as
she herself said-'New Englandly'" (ix).
Bianchi, too, notes in Life
and Letters
that "[H]er heredity is distinctly traced for nine generations
in America" (5). The editors seem intent on establishing
Dickinson firmly in the national literary canon. At this time,
American literature anthologies were beginning to be produced, and as
Hampson alludes to in his Foreword to Face
to Face,
Dickinson is beginning to be studied in universities.
Editorial
Theories and Assumptions
Bianchi
insists that her editorial practices present Dickinson's work to her
readers "without editorial embellishment" (Face xi),
and that they retain the originals' "intrinsic value" (Life
and Letters).
Exactly which aspects of the works are intrinsically valuable are
not defined. In her Atlantic
Monthly
article she claims to present correspondence "just as
[Dickinson] sent it to my mother" (37). She does this in
response to "critics already impatient of any intermediary
between themselves and Emily Dickinson's own words," perhaps
another veiled reference to Todd and her work (Face xi).
Genre
As her
titles suggest, Bianchi classifies Dickinson's writing into
traditional genres: letters and poems. This practice continues today,
with a notable exception being Hart and Smith's Open
Me Carefully.
Several of Bianchi's publications combine biography and letters
and/or poems, but even when the two genres appear in the same book,
the "poems" are clearly poems and the "letters"
clearly letters, despite Dickinson's original blending of the two.
Organization
of the Books and the Paratext
When
Bianchi is dealing with biography, she arranges the works
chronologically to the best of her ability. Her Poems, however, are
divided into categories of traditional themes: "Life,"
"Nature," "Love," "Time and Eternity,"
"The Single Hound," "Further Poems,"
"Additional Poems," and an appendix, which includes poems
published previously in
Life and Letters.
In Life
and Letters,
Face
to Face
and her Atlantic
Monthly
article, Bianchi surrounds Dickinson's texts with her own, offering
interpretation and context based on the authority she assumes from
having known and lived in such close proximity to Dickinson. In Poems,
however, she does not supply notes except occasionally to cite where
a poem had been previously published.
Editing Practices
Contrary
to Bianchi's claims that she does not alter the value of Dickinson's
texts, her editing practices do show quite a few changes from the
manuscripts. Although she refrained from practices like Todd and
Higginson's, who actually rewrote lines and words, a quick comparison
of the manuscripts with the Bianchi versions shows that Bianchi also
made Dickinson's verse or prose conform more nearly to the
expectations of her readers.
Acknowledgements
In
Face to Face,
Bianchi expresses her gratitude for the help of many people: Abigail
Seelye Scudder, Sara Colton Gillett, Annie and Jane Crowell, Virginia
Dickinson Reynolds, Alice Cooper Tuckerman, Ruth Huntington Sessions,
Ruth Bowles Baldwin Elizabeth Troope Smith, Laura Stedman Gould,
Sarah Jenkins Squires, Florence Howland Smith, Gertrude Graves,
Elizabeth Smith Tyler, Alfred Leete Hampson, Judge Henry P. Field,
Theodore Longfellow Frothingham, MacGregor Jenkins, Dr. B. Kendall
Emerson, Theodore Stebbins, and Robert N. Linscott. It is interesting
to note that she lists women first, and does not address them by
their marital titles. She also thanks the "old-time dwellers in
Amherst who have so warmly expressed to me their vivid memory of my
family as they knew it in life" (xxiii).
No mention of Mabel Loomis Todd, Thomas Higginsworth, or Millicent
Todd Bingham is made.
Lineation
Bianchi
changes line breaks freely. In the case of Dickinson's
"letters," she makes them conform to regular prose,
beginning and ending paragraphs where she sees fit, regularizing
dialogue. The Bianchi texts look radically different on the page from
their appearance in the manuscripts (see "Memoirs of Little Boys
that Live" [Link Forthcoming]). In her earlier works she uses
the first line as a title, although Franklin notes that she was one
of the first Dickinson editors to discontinue this practice. In Poems,
the poems are simply numbered rather than titled, but Bianchi does
change lineation as she sees fit.
Spelling,
Punctuation and Capitalization
Bianchi
normalizes punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Franklin
complains about her "maladroit" transcriptions of
Dickinson's handwriting (Variorum 5),
but at least she did not willfully change Dickinson's rhymes, as did
Higginson. In addition, Dickinson's handwriting is difficult to
decipher, as even Franklin must admit (see discussion
of Franklin
). Perhaps Bianchi's and Franklin's differences are not so much a
result of Bianchi's carelessness as of a different reading of the handwriting.
Dating
and Attribution
Bianchi
and Hampson admit to difficulties in dating Dickinson's work. Unlike
other editors who have "erroneously assumed" that
Dickinson's handwriting could be used as evidence for chronology,
Bianchi and Hampson argue that "the poems copied by the poet and
included in letters to friends often had no relation to the actual
time they were first written, as the first drafts sent to her Sister
Sue reveal; while in her own tied packages of manuscript, arranged by
herself, the order is arbitrary, even whimsical, and the period of
the handwriting displayed is not necessarily the same as that of the
original setting down" (Poems x).
The
editors evidently took the original draft to be the standard for
their chronology. They go on to list their methods of dating:
"[L]ong patient comparison of manuscript with manuscript, as
well as their relation to letters and events and dates definitely
noted by her family" (Poems x).
Final Thoughts
While
Bianchi was subject in many ways to the conventional ideas of what a
poem should look like or be, she also seemed to recognize that
Dickinson herself was unconventional and did not conform to the
popular stereotypes that surround her even today. Bianchi's mission
to dismantle the misinformation and print Dickinson's work exactly as
she had written it is admirable, even if she did not always succeed.