(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Matthew Redmond, Stanford University
(THE CONVERSATION) Since her death in 1886, Emily Dickinson has haunted us in many forms.
She has been the precocious little dead girl admired by distinguished men; the white-clad, solitary spinster languishing alone in her bedroom; and, in more recent interpretations, the rebellious teenager bent on smashing structures of power with her torrential genius.
As the world continues to endure the ravages of COVID-19, another ghost of Dickinson steps into view. This one, about 40 years old, seems by turns vulnerable and formidable, reclusive and forward. She carries the dead weight of crises beyond her control, but remains unbowed by it.
It was while drafting my dissertation, which explores the meaning of old age in America, that I first encountered this Dickinson. She has been with me ever since.
The depths of loss
Most admirers of Dickinsons poetry know that she spent a considerable part of her adult life in what we call self-imposed confinement, rarely venturing outside the family homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts. Less known, perhaps, is that the final 12 years of her life were passed in a state of nearly perpetual mourning.
It began with the death of her father. For all his stern comportment, Edward Dickinson had enjoyed a special relationship with Emily, his middle child. When her surviving letters declare him the oldest and oddest sort of a foreigner, one hears the affectionate annoyance that comes with real devotion. He died in 1874, away from home.
Loss followed loss. Favorite correspondent Samuel Bowles died in 1878. With the passing of Mary Ann Evans, otherwise known as George Eliot, in 1880, Dickinson lost a kindred spirit a mortal who, in her words, had already put on immortality while living. A very different loss was that of Dickinsons mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson, with whom she enjoyed little or no rapport for much of their life together, but who became at least somewhat precious to her daughter on her deathbed. That was in 1882, the same year that took from her literary idol Ralph Waldo Emerson and early mentor Charles Wadsworth.
The following year saw the death of her cherished eight-year-old nephew, Gilbert, from typhoid fever, his illness having spurred one of Dickinsons rare excursions beyond the homestead. The year after that, Judge Otis Phillips Lord, with whom she pursued the only confirmed romantic relationship of her life, finally succumbed to an illness of several years and was wearily dubbed by the poet our latest Lost.
[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]
Piling on
What impact did so much grief have on the mind of one of Americas greatest visionary artists? Her letters say little enough. Writing to Mrs. Samuel Mack in 1884, however, she frankly admits: The Dyings have been too deep for me, and before I could raise my heart from one, another has come.
The word deep is an arresting choice, making it sound as though Dickinson is drowning in a pile of dead loved ones. Each time she comes up for air, yet another body is added to the great mass.
This is characteristic of Dickinson. If her imagination shrinks from visualizing breadth, it thrives on depth. Some of the most captivating images in her poetry are piles of things that cannot be piled: thunder, mountains, wind. During the Civil War, she uses the same technique to represent soldiers heroic and terrible sacrifice:
In describing her more personal losses of the 1870s, Dickinson seems to imagine yet another pile of human corpses rising before her eyes. Or maybe it is the same pile, her loved ones added to the dead troops whose fate she kept contemplating to the end of her own life. Seen in this light, the Dyings appear not just too deep but unfathomably so.
Life after death
At the time of this writing, the pile of lives that overshadows our lives is 800,000 deep and getting deeper by the hour. Dickinsons imagery shows how keenly she would have understood what we might feel, dwarfed by a mountain of mortality that will not stop growing. The same anger, exhaustion and sense of futility were her constant companions in later life.
Fortunately, she had other companions. As recent studies have shown, Dickinson was the best kind of social networker, maintaining profoundly generative relationships by correspondence from the family homestead. Her poetic output, though greatly diminished toward the end of her life, never ceases, and its offerings include some of her richest meditations on mortality, suffering and redemption.
These words resonate in the current crisis, during which protecting the daily mind has become a full-time job. News reports, with their updated death tolls, erode our intellectual and spiritual foundations. All seems lost.
But if strain and sorrow are palpable in this poem, so is courage. Dickinsons lonely speaker chooses to express what she has felt, to measure and record the burden of loss that life has thrust upon her. Beliefs, once bandaged, may heal. And while no man has ever been bold enough to confront the deeper Consciousness that so many deaths expose within the human mind, the speaker will not rule out doing so herself. There is still room in this blighted world for the kind of visionary experience from which hope not only springs, but flourishes.
Living in the shadow of death, Dickinson remained enamored of life. This, as much as anything, makes her a hero of our time.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/emily-dickinson-is-the-unlikely-hero-of-our-time-144262.
Go here to see the original:
Emily Dickinson is the unlikely hero of our time - Fairfield Citizen
- Cyberpunk 2077's Development Was Shorter Than Anyone Realized - CBR - Comic Book Resources - January 19th, 2021
- How Star Wars Could Bring Back A Weapon More Powerful Than The Darksaber - Screen Rant - January 19th, 2021
- How to Fix Some of the Bachelors Thorny Logistical Issues - The Ringer - January 19th, 2021
- JUANITA FLOYD: What testimony will you leave behind? - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - January 17th, 2021
- The Kansas City Chiefs can secure place among NFLs all-time greatest teams - Arrowhead Addict - January 17th, 2021
- Kumbh Mela 2021 dates: Everything you need to know - The Indian Express - January 17th, 2021
- WandaVision Featurette May Be Hiding Another Major Avenger | CBR - CBR - Comic Book Resources - January 17th, 2021
- What happened to Jack on Macgyver? Here is the characters fate in the latest episode - Republic World - January 17th, 2021
- Essenes in Judaean Society: the sectarians of the Dead Sea Scrolls - OUPblog - January 17th, 2021
- 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things' and 'Ham on Rye': Odds and ends - People's World - January 17th, 2021
- Lord Of The Rings: 10 Things About Arwen and Aragorn's Relationship That Make No Sense - Screen Rant - January 17th, 2021
- CRYPTOSIS Take You Behind The Scenes Of "Prospect Of Immortality" Music Video - bravewords.com - January 9th, 2021
- Holocaust Memorial Center hosts 'Soap Myth' online reading and discussion - The Detroit News - January 9th, 2021
- Ahead of the national championship, Justin Fields high school coach relives his dominance in Georgia - Saturday Down South - January 9th, 2021
- Inverted tulips, juniper trees added to Iran's national heritage list - Tehran Times - January 9th, 2021
- How are former Yankees doing in the Hall of Fame voting? - Empire Sports Media - January 9th, 2021
- how is the calendar and when are the long weekends in the year - Explica - January 9th, 2021
- Unexpected discovery about stem cell immortality study - News - The University of Sydney - November 29th, 2020
- Dessie Hutchinson's journey from Brighton to the brink of hurling immortality with Waterford - Independent.ie - November 29th, 2020
- MLB Hall of Fame: Breaking down the 2021 ballot - Call to the Pen - November 29th, 2020
- Mythical Beasts that Simply Scream Nanjing - The Nanjinger - November 29th, 2020
- Maradonas divine goal and worthy absurdities - Mint - November 29th, 2020
- Exploring the Last Green Valley: Beauty found in December evergreens - Norwich Bulletin - November 29th, 2020
- Amazing Cultivation Simulator blends Taoist philosophy with Dwarf Fortress - PCGamesN - November 29th, 2020
- The myth of the apple - Evangelical Focus - November 29th, 2020
- Diego Maradona did 'everything better and bigger, but fell more dangerously and darker' - WDJT - November 29th, 2020
- Maradona flew and fell. It is why we loved him - The Straits Times - November 29th, 2020
- #ComicBytes: The comic book origin of Nick Fury | NewsBytes - NewsBytes - November 29th, 2020
- Never Seen Before Tolkien Works Will Be Published In 2021 - Unreserved Media - November 29th, 2020
- New Lord Of The Rings Book Announced, Will Reveal Who Can Grow Beards - GameSpot - November 29th, 2020
- Reminiscing grandmother during days of coronavirus - Hurriyet Daily News - November 29th, 2020
- Sean Connery: Bond and superstar - Frontline - November 29th, 2020
- Divock Origi has gone from unstoppable to invisible - Rousing the Kop - November 29th, 2020
- A Year of Free Comics: Immortality isnt all that it seems in LIVE FOREVER - Comics Beat - August 26th, 2020
- Under Ben Bulben: Neymar And A Saga Of Resurrection And Immortality - World Football Index - August 26th, 2020
- Rick and Morty plot hole: Rick's ride on the Whirly Dirly creates huge immortality blunder - Express - August 26th, 2020
- Sleeps With Monsters: Into the Woods With Emily Tesh and Carrie Vaughn - tor.com - August 26th, 2020
- Doom Patrol Leaves the Fate of the Whole Team Up in the Air | CBR - CBR - Comic Book Resources - August 26th, 2020
- Parenting in a pandemic? Your teen is counting on you more than ever - Your Valley - August 26th, 2020
- ALLEN IVERSON PAYS TRIBUTE TO KOBE Greatness needs company, and we needed each other. - Basketball Network - August 26th, 2020
- Lovecraft Country: Why the Sons of Adams Ritual Failed | CBR - CBR - Comic Book Resources - August 26th, 2020
- Lord of the Rings: 10 Things That Make No Sense About Orcs - Screen Rant - August 26th, 2020
- Hakuho may be on path to becoming great stablemaster if latest recruit pans out - The Japan Times - August 26th, 2020
- The Unbelievable True Story Of How The Memphis Pyramid Became A Bass Pro Shops - Forbes - August 26th, 2020
- American Horror Story: Every Immortal Character In The Show - Screen Rant - August 20th, 2020
- A look back at the faces of 170 years ago and more - Key West Florida Weekly - August 20th, 2020
- Moussa Dembele and the YouTube obsession that has Celtic icon on verge of Champions League immortality - Daily Record - August 20th, 2020
- Words from the Heart: The Message | Columnists | thesuntimes.com - Heber Springs Sun-Times - August 20th, 2020
- Eagles, the worshipped bird of prey of the ancient civilizations - Egypttoday - August 20th, 2020
- 'Burgh's Best to Wear It, No. 13: From midgets to the NFL, Dan Marino wore lucky number - TribLIVE - August 20th, 2020
- Ashton Kutcher Burned an Original Artwork to Promote a New Blockchain Marketplace Where Art Can (Kind of) Live Forever - artnet News - August 20th, 2020
- Aug. 19, 1951: Before Eddie Gaedel went to the plate, the Post-Dispatch got a heads-up - Houston Herald - August 20th, 2020
- 10 Questions We Have After Watching The Old Guard | ScreenRant - Screen Rant - August 20th, 2020
- Emotional character study 'The Truth' opens at the Ross this Friday - Daily Nebraskan - August 20th, 2020
- Astrology 2020: Message of the Day (August 20) - NewsroomPost - August 20th, 2020
- Why This Russian Billionaire Is Creating A Virtual Reality World For Music Festivals And Concerts - Forbes - August 20th, 2020
- Immortality or Bust - Film Threat - July 21st, 2020
- Keanu Reeves New Comic Book Is About An Immortal, But Its Not Autobiographical - Comic Years - July 21st, 2020
- Here's how you can win over 83 years of free Netflix service - Retail News Asia - July 21st, 2020
- Meryl Streep's Funniest Movie Characters and Their Best Moments - Showbiz Cheat Sheet - July 21st, 2020
- A Conversation With Director Gina Prince-Bythewood : 1A - NPR - July 21st, 2020
- ATEMS graduation allows Class of 2020 to rise from the ashes of a broken year - Abilene Reporter-News - July 21st, 2020
- Looking at nature, death, and immortality with a famous poet - McDonough Voice - July 17th, 2020
- The Old Guard: Why Andy Loses Her Immortality | Screen Rant - Screen Rant - July 17th, 2020
- Netflixs The Old Guard: A revolutionary, ancient gay romance - Vox.com - July 17th, 2020
- Where father, son correspond - Featured - The Island Now - July 17th, 2020
- Rockfield Studios: Where Ozzy, Oasis, Queen and Coldplay took off - BBC News - July 17th, 2020
- American Vampire by Snyder & Albuquerque returns this October with '70s setting and vibe - GamesRadar+ - July 17th, 2020
- The Old Guard ending explained and sequel news - RadioTimes - July 17th, 2020
- Fun, Guns, and Mum: New Stuff to Watch! - Omaha Reader - July 17th, 2020
- Warrior Nun Ending Explained What Happens to Ava and Adriel at the End of Warrior Nun? - Esquire - July 17th, 2020
- The 8 desires of human life and how to fulfill them - Times Now - July 17th, 2020
- Decade's best No. 1: Loyalsock's baseball team won 2013 PIAA Class AA title in one of state's most exciting finals | News, Sports, Jobs - Williamsport... - July 17th, 2020
- The only shame is that Liverpool brilliance will escape history books - Football365.com - July 17th, 2020
- The Old Guard revs up the senses with great action and fascinating story - culturemap.com - July 17th, 2020
- When There is Despair, There Will Be Hate Too. And That's Not a Bad Thing - The Wire - July 17th, 2020
- The Old Guard's New Trailer Dives Into the Painful Side of Immortality - Gizmodo UK - July 6th, 2020
- Charlize Theron in The Old Guard on Netflix: Film Review - Variety - July 6th, 2020
- Doctor Who Theory: How Rassilon Fits Into The Timeless Child Retcon - Screen Rant - July 6th, 2020
- Its Negligence: Young People Hosting Coronavirus Parties, Betting On Who Gets Infected First - CBS Pittsburgh - July 6th, 2020