Many members of the Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS) are looking forward to our international conference in Kyoto, Japan. The conference runs from August 3-6, and you can learn more about our wonderful hosts, this beautiful city, and the conference offerings by visiting the Fabrics of the East Conference Website.
On this blog, any EDIS members and conference attendees who want to join me will keep a record of this fabulous event so that those who cannot be with us in Japan can be with us virtually. As Emily Dickinson urged, we "dwell in Possibility" and are taking advantage of a medium and mode of communication that she did not have. See you in Kyoto!
--Martha Nell Smith
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5 comments:
Hi, Martha Nell --
This blog sounds like a great idea.
I'm wondering what other EDIS'ers have to say about Virginia Jackson's book, _Dickinson's Misery_. Martha Nell, I recently read your review of that book, and I find Jackson's approach interesting, too -- it raises questions that ED critics could have raised in the past, but didn't. I'm probably not the only ED critic kicking herself / himself for taking it too much on credit that Dickinson is a "lyric" poet. Jackson has got me wondering now whether ED should properly be considered a lyric poet at all, and why we, as readers, even identify writers as being "lyric." So -- have we been collectively naive in considering ED a lyric poet? Is there any advantage, critically speaking, to be gained from seeing ED instead as writing from what Jackson (and Yopie Prins) identify as the "poetess" tradition?
Regards, Jim
Good morning, Jim, and I'm delighted to see your post. Jackson's book opens up many avenues of critical inquiry, and as happens with many original, incisive, nigh-unto-genius interpretations, one reads it and says, "uh, duh, OF COURSE!"
Since the 1890s Emily Dickinson's writings have been "disciplined" in order for readers to make sense of them. This disciplining is something we need not scold: had this not happened in order to make her intelligible, it's entirely possible that her powerful literary legacy would have been lost to us. Yet some cleave to these disciplinings as if they are The Truth, the Way, as it were, to read ED's writings. That is very shortsighted, and wholly unnecessary. Jackson's view is more capacious, deepening, extending our appreciation of Dickinson's written works and of her profound enmeshment in the Poetess tradition.
I would suggest thinking not in terms of "instead" but in terms of "also." In other words, there is no need to cut ourselves off from pleasures of reading Dickinson as a "lyric" poet, but to read her as only a "lyric" poet, and impose twentieth-century conventions of reading nostalgically and anachronistically unnecessarily limits capacity for poetic, literary, intellectual, and spiritual pleasures.
In possibility,
mn
Good morning again, Jim -- I also wanted to add that good work on ED and the poetess tradition has been done by a number of our colleagues (to greater and lesser degrees, and this by no means purports to be a complete list): Paula Bennett, Joanne Dobson, Mary Loeffelholz, Elizabeth Petrino, Eliza Richards, Cheryl Walker, Emily Stipes Watts, and others. Also, Jackson, Richards, and others are involved in Laura Mandell's Poetess Archive (at http://unixgen.muohio.edu/~poetess/index.html), for which Susan Brown, Yopi Prins, and I serve as advisors.
In possibility,
mn
Hi, Martha & other EDISers!
Glad to see EDIS take on this blog, Martha. I think it will be an effective means of stimulating community within the organization. As one who has many other plans that don't include going to Japan this summer, I appreciate being kept up-to-date on EDIS happenings. Thanks for doing this! I'll plan on checking in here to share in the fun. Be sure to get some of the other members to post, too, so the burden of keeping up the blog is not all on you! And photos--we want photos! Ha.
On the first morning of the conference, from 10:40 to 11:55 am, I will be facilitating a roundtable discussion titled WHY EMILY DICKINSON IS DIFFICULT IN ENGLISH: CHALLENGES TO TEACHING DICKINSON IN ANY LANGUAGE. The speakers are MICHAEL YETMAN (USA), MASAKO TAKEDA (JAPAN), Aand GUDRUN GRABHER (AUSTRIA). I thought participants might like to know the three poems to be discussed: “I TRIED TO THINK A LONELIER THING (FR. 570),” “I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY (FR. 466),” AND “THERE’S A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT (FR. 320).” The presentations will be short to allow for ample audience participation. Hope to see you there.
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