Emily Dickinson Was a Poetess

Author(s): Elsa Greene

Source: College English , Oct., 1972, Vol. 34, No. 1, Women, Writing and Teaching (Oct.,
1972), pp. 63-70
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/375219

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ELSA GREENE

Emily Dickinson Was a Poetess

MOST PEOPLE WHO APPRECIATE Emilyto use the term "poetess" to designate
Dickinson's poetry are offended by thewomen who write "feminine poems"-
reminder that she was a "poetess." But meaning insipid, conventional verses; and
so she was during her own lifetime, andwe promote exceptional women such as
so she remains today. In the mid-nine-Emily Dickinson to the rank of "poet."
teenth century the term "poetess" ex- Our terminology still implies the nine-
pressed the general feeling that femaleteenth-century idea that femaleness limits
poetic capacity. Our practice provides
nature lacked qualities essential to the
creation of great poetry. Women-with-only that some women may be able to
transcend merely female experience and
out moral complexity or driving mental
energy-were meant to inspire poems thereby engage an audience in matters of
universal interest. As long as we feel the
rather than to write them. Emily Dick-
inson worked under the psychological need to separate a woman from her sex
in order to appreciate her poetry, we
and social handicaps imposed by that
sexist concept of her inherently limitedperpetuate analytic categories which mu-
tilate female subjects in the name of
potential as an artist. She had to sustain
her self-esteem and her will to write understanding them. For the sake of in-
against the nearly universal presumption tegrity, hers and our own, it is essential
that she would be-and ought to be-me- remember that Emily Dickinson was
to
diocre. For an almost-serious profes- a poetess.
sional audience she found one person,On the surface Emily Dickinson has
not suffered much sexist abuse in the
T. W. Higginson. Not many others
could have tried to be solemn about the hands of her critics. R. P. Blackmur once
writings of a female. Even Higginson al-got off a fairly galling crack about Emily
lowed friends to make sport of Emilyand antimacassars, but otherwise Dickin-
Dickinson as his "partially-cracked poet-son critics have published almost nothing
ess." worth mentioning on a list of terrible
Emily Dickinson's exceptionally cou-words said against women. On the con-
rageous poetic achievement might have trary, cultured, sensitive, well-disci-
taught later generations that there is noplined people-women and men-have
conflict between femaleness and serious- judged Emily Dickinson's poetry equal
ness in poetry. But most of us continue to the finest written by anyone at any
time in the United States of America.
In a general sense the criticism of Dick-
Elsa Greene is an Assistant Professor of Englishb inson's work is sexist-because the books
at Illinois State University. She presently has
in progress a manuscript about Emily Dickinson. and essays about her are informed by a
63

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64 COLLEGE ENGLISH

sexist tradition. Still, given the scholars'

rigorous questions concerning her private
high standards and good intentions, life it
and without an image of the female
may seem excessive, even ungrateful, to milieu which will alloe.w us to
cultural
identify a particular woman's ideas in
fault them for reflecting unconsciously
prejudices which everyone used to be- to the prevailing conventions for
relation
lieve were true. But exactly because
members of her class. Dickinson critics
Dickinson criticism is largely dispassion-
have managed not to confront this em-
ate and thorough by traditional stan-
barrassing cultural void by breaking their
dards, it dramatizes the irresponsible
subject into pieces which can be accom-
muddling that occurs when scholars modated
trust within existing categories. Thus,
that they can account for a female artist
Emily Dickinson the poetess becomes
by invoking a cultural heritage which
part Emily, the Woman, and part Dick-
does not provide for the possibility of the poet. Once the split is effected,
inson,
her existence.
sexist folk wisdom provides authority for
In our tradition poetesses have not ap-
understanding her life; and the male puri-
peared often enough to require anyone tan tradition-from Edwards to Emerson
to Dickinson-serves as a context for
to devise a standard rule for designating
them. Every individual must make aunderstanding
con- "its" artistic achievement.
scious decision about how to name Emily For biographical purposes it is gen-
Dickinson in the course of writing about
erally assumed that Emily Dickinson had
her. The unsettled terminology consti- "femininity"-a supra-cultural essence in-
tutes more than a trivial irritation. With-
volving emotional and intellectual as well
out support of an unquestionableas con-
sexual characteristics-which explains
vention, one cannot simply "refer"some to a of her otherwise mysterious be-
female who wrote poetry. Every possi- havior. In 1951, Richard Chase ventured
ble title for her may be taken to imply
It does not seem to me illiberal to sup-
an emotional attitude as well. "Emily" or
"Miss Dickinson" provokes taunts pose of that Emily Dickinson's mind, being
"Herman"? "Mr. Melville"? If she is so fully and finely feminine, deeply sensed
its need of possessing an ideal image such
"Emily Dickinson" over and over again, as Wadsworth as its warrant of exter-
a reader may well ask why the writer's nality, of the reality of an ordered and
sex should oblige a critic to use two consequential universe.1
words when one would clearly do. Yet
"Dickinson" sounds rude and makes no If I have deciphered Chase correctly,
Millicent Todd Bingham reiterated his
allowance for her femininity. Merely in
thought somewhat more prosaically
naming the poetess, a critic steps off into
uncharted territory somewhere between Women need something firm to hold
social conventions, which sound silly or to. Emily had her father of course. Firm
stilted dropped into scholarly prose, and he certainly was. In daily living he was
the nonexistent intellectual form of ad- the pivot around which all creation
dress for a female whom one wishes to turned. She was, as she said, "accustomed
to all through Father." But thoughts are
discuss dispassionately.
stalwart things too. In Dr. Wadsworth
As we have lacked formal rules which
provide an unquestionable place for a 1Richard Chase, Emily Dickinson (New
poetess, so we are by tradition withoutYork: William Sloan Associates, 1951), p. 80.

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 Emily Dickinson Was a Poetess 65

she found another kind of support in a leisurely grace requires a stable domestic
realm of realit in which her father was routine and the desire on the part of the
not so expert. wife to be a helpmeet. There is every
reason to believe that Edward Dickinson's
wife found quite as much happiness in the
Presumably, both Mr. Chase and Mrs.
life they thus created as he, who indeed
Bingham would be wary of singular con-
was ever ready to count his blessings.3
fidence in a masculine essence as the basis
for biographical analysis, but here they
It almost goes without saying that the
both assume that Woman's emotional and docile, submissive, and deeply religious
Mrs. Dickinson "basked in the reflected
intellectual need to experience reality
through Man is a fundamental truth glow of her husband's good name."
(p. 32)
which can deepen understanding of Em-
ily Dickinson. Allegiance to the essence of True
Trusting to their faith in a supra-socialWomenhood has led many Dickinson
female essence which finds its fulfillment scholars to unquestioning faith in the
in self-denying service to male needs,goodness of nineteenth-century marriage
Dickinson students have seen nothing conventions. Strong commitment to the
amiss in Emily Dickinson's domestic cir-
social rightness of the New England
cumstances. Emily-at-home, as sketched world as it stood has been reflected in
by Mrs. Bingham in 1955, is only a slight
the nearly universal scorn directed to-
exaggeration of what other critics takeward reformers of the day. Mrs. Bing-
to be true:
ham avoids unpleasantness by pretending
there were no dissidents such as Margaret
In Emily's day domestic activity was Fuller when Emily Dickinson was a girl.
still a full-time career for women . . .
Others know better, and they don't hesi-
To absorb small annoyances and leave the
tate to damn as neurotic destroyers those
menfolks free to carry on the constructive
mannish females who were not satisfied
work of the community was, a hundred
years ago, a woman's sufficient reasonwith
for society as they found it. Richard
being. No one questioned it, least of all
Chase's view may be taken as representa-
the women. It was not their way totive:ex- Emily Dickinson was "proof against
press likes or dislikes toward necessary
the fate of projecting her personal neu-
work. They resented it, for the most part,
no more than we resent putting onroticour difficulties into political form, as
clothes. (pp. 112-13) do the Olive Chancellors of this world."4
Later in his discussion Chase adds a liberal
modifier: "One does not of course con-
Once again Mrs. Bingham is in accord
done any of the [social] circumstances
with a distinguished male Dickinson
scholar. Thomas H. Johnson embroi-
which were actually repressive in their
dered a similar account of the Dickinson influence on Emily Dickinson." (p. 132)
home: But he believes she was not hampered by
denial of the political franchise and the
To keep such a household going with other petty limitations of a Victorian

2Millicent Todd Bingham, Emily Dickinson's3Thomas H. Johnson, Emily Dickinson: An

Home: Letters of Edward Dickinson and HisInterpretive Biography (Cambridge: Belknap
Family with Documentation and Comment Press, 1955), p. 28.
(New York: Harper, 1955), pp. 372-73. 4Chase, p. 73.

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66 COLLEGE ENGLISH

... a writer may sometimes make obser-

age. Secure in their sexist faith that
vations on the traits or values of American
normal women could find no legitimate
men, and then may generalize these as the
grounds for protesting their condition in
traits or values of the American people.
the nineteenth century, Dickinson critics
If he did this deliberately, on the theory
that since male values dominate the so-
have been well insulated against any dis-
covery that True Womanhood might ciety, they must therefore be American
values, we would have to concede that he
have been the object of Emily Dickin.-
is aware of what he is doing, even though
son's scrutiny rather than the inherent
we might question his results. But when
ruler of her psyche. he does so unconsciously, his method may
But however her critics might affirm easily lead him to assume first that since
Emily Dickinson's feminine sufficiency American
in men Are dominant, the charac-
teristics of the American men are the
private life, her sex has put them on the
characteristics of the American people,
defensive toward the general poetry- and that since women are people, the
reading audience. Hurrah as one will,
characteristics of the American people are
"feminine" has a negative connotation asthe characteristics of American women,
a term about literature. Henry W. Wells or in short, that the characteristics of
American men are the characteristics of
proposed a simple rule of thumb. When American women.7
the poetry fails it is feminine; when it
succeeds it is universal.5 Another hearty
Frequently Emily Dickinson has been de-
defender of her honor acknowledges
picted as one link in a long line of puritan
that her verse is "full of the vigor . . .
men. She comes after Jonathan Edwards,
of the American spirit" in "however
Cotton Mather, and Nathaniel Haw-
limited and feminine a way.... ,, thorne ard before Ralph Waldo Emerson,
A woman. Vicarious, timid, house-
according to Allen Tate.8 Yvor Winters
bound, tied even against her will to femi-
explains her stylistic character as "the
ninity-where does such a creature fit in
the tradition of American culture? The natural product of the New England
founded by the harsh and intrepid pio-
traditional answer is that Emily Dickin-
neers, who in order to attain salvation
son lived in and can be explained by
Emerson's mental climate. When critics trampled brutally through a world which
they were too proud and too impatient
set her in a larger context, they ignore
to understand."9
the sacred female essence which accounts
More specific circumstances of Emily
for Emily's private life, and Dickinson
Dickinson's life have also been presented
the poet becomes just one of the boys.
as if she were part of a male cultural tra-
Cultural explanations of Emily Dickinson
dition. George Frisbie Whicher sets her
support David Potter's thesis that "Amer-
in the Connecticut Valley tradition thus:
ican culture" is often unconsciously
equated with the culture of men in
America: 7David M. Potter, "American Women and
American Character," Stetson University Bul-
letin, Vol. 62, no. 1. (January, 1962), p. 2.
s Allen Tate, "Emily Dickinson," (1932), rpt.
5Henry W. Wells, "Romantic Sensibility,"' in Emily Dickinson: A Collection of Critical
(1947), rpt. in Emily Dickinson: A Collection of Essays, p. 18.
Critical Essays, ed. Richard B. Sewall (Engle- 9Yvor Winters, "Emily Dickinson and the
wood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 48. Limits of Judgment," (1938), rpt. in Emily
6Chase, p. 225. Dickinson: A Collection of Critical Essays, p. 18.

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 Emily Dickinson Was a Poetess 67

Emily Dickinson and Amherst College from participating in this institution on

grew up together. There was only nine which her family placed such high value.
years difference in their ages. The College,
Lacking an intellectual tradition which
almost as literally as she, could claim to
be a child of the Dickinson family, for her provides ways to think about a female
grandfather was one of the most zealous on her own terms, more recent critics
of its working founders and her father have continued to rely on sexist folk
and brother between them held the office
wisdom, the male literary tradition, and
of College Treasurer for sixty years. She,
asexual analysis as their sources of insight
almost as literally as the college, was an
emanation of the region. Inbred in eachinto Emily Dickinson. The social milieu
was the Calvinistic insistence on perfec- which informed her as a girl-child of her
tion by mental striving. Both college andappropriate identity is vaguely conceived
poet were nurtured in Puritan orthodoxy,and blandly assumed to have been a natu-
and both turned from beliefs that had be-
ral or at least a neutral medium. Needless
come familiar and dear to engage in un-
prejudiced and clear-eyed scrutiny of the to say, partly informed readings of Emily
world about them. It was not for nothing Dickinson shaped by unconscious ways
that Emily Dickinson was brought up in of coping with her sex don't work.
a New England college town.10 Emily Dickinson was a female. She
knew it and we know it. She did not, in
It may not have been "for nothing" that fact, inhabit the same milieu which influ-
Emily Dickinson was brought up in a enced Ralph Waldo Emerson and his
New England college town, but it cer- puritan male forebears; and it is a deadly
tainly was not to avail herself of the favor to assume she did. Emerson was
opportunities for "perfection by mental not raised to celebrate piety, purity, sub-
striving" which Amherst College offered. missiveness, and domesticity as divinely-
Whicher feels no need to mention that commanded attributes of himself. He was
these two Dickinson "children" in their
not taught that God would punish men
explorations of the "world about them"who preferred the pen (or the scalpel, or
were obliged to refrain from "unpreju-the balance sheet, or anything else) to
diced and clear-eyed scrutiny" of each broom. In simply choosing the voca-
the
other due to an old family custom con-tion of poetess, Emily Dickinson risked
cerning which parts of the world a fe-psychic and social penalties unknown to
her masculine predecessors.
male offspring should be allowed to see
To elect poetry, for example, Emily
at all. Minus the happy familial metaphor,
Emily Dickinson lived in tantalizingDickinson had to defy Emerson's defini-
proximity to an institution which was
tion of the poet as one who relives the
out of her bounds as a New Englandrole of Adam in the garden bestowing
woman. Whicher writes as if one can symbolic identity on all the objects in
weigh the effect of Amherst Collegenature.
on (Emerson's Nature is, of course,
Emily Dickinson without noting thatfeminine.) Notice the connection be-
she was excluded because of her sex tween Emerson's Adamic poet and the
theory that women need men to orient
them in reality. At bottom our tradition
10George Frisbie Whicher, This Was a Poet;
hasn't provided adequate critical tools for
A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson (Ann
analysis of female poetry because the
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1957), p.
20. tradition itself contains the moral asser-

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68 COLLEGE ENGLISH

as little as possible for herself, there was

tion that only men ought to be the cre-
ators of meaning. A woman should not no reason why she should have felt called
mean but be. upon to speak humbly in the presence of
a Harvard graduate. She had, as a matter
As a conventionally feminine creature,
Emily Dickinson might have composed of fact, received a better formal educa-
verse, but she couldn't have written
tion than commonly fell to the lot of a
poetry. To achieve poetry she hadNewto England gentlewoman at that pe-
overcome her strong conditioning in riod."12
the Emily Dickinson also wrote that
her
psychological habit of self-denial. Or, if father "buys me many Books-but
she did create poems unaware that begs
her me not to read them-because he
work challenged Emerson arid the sacred fears they joggle the Mind."'18 This has
laws (as the equation of her with male seemed a more irritating distortion be-
authors implies), then she lived in psy- cause it looks as if it might be a delib-
chotic disconnection from the conven- erate play for Higginson's sympathy at
tions of her culture. She must have been her father's expense. Thomas H. John-
a mad lady who put words together in son corrects the poetess' account with
an interesting way, and readers are re- the suspicion that "there was a recog-
lieved of the worry that she wrote about nizable twinkle in the squire's eye when
"life" at all. he presented his daughter with books
But if her works may have meaning, which he begged her not to joggle her
the Emily-Dickinson-in-pieces approach mind by reading."14
to them imposes false extra-textual limits The larger lesson in the Whicher-
on what Emily Dickinson's writings Johnson readings of the second letter to
might say. For instance, take Dickinson's Higginson is that Emily Dickinson can-
well-known second letter to T. W. Hig- not be trusted to tell us how it was. Of
ginson. When Higginson answered her course nothing any artist writes can be
first letter to him, he asked to know taken simply at face value. As critics
more about the circumstances of her life.
establish disparities between a writer's
This head-on query might have provided assertions and actual circumstances, they
later critics with invaluable information let us in on the attitudes and intentions
about how the poetess regarded herself implicit in ostensibly descriptive remarks.
in relation to the world. But EmilyThe meaning of a statement is its appar-
Dickinson's response has disappointed herent content modified by professional con-
scholars; the version of herself she pre-jecture about its intended effect. Thus,
sented Higginson has seemed both inap-Emily Dickinson's assertion that she was
propriate and exaggerated. She said, "Inot educated in Higginson's sense of the
went to school-but in your mannerphrase means either that she woefully
of the phrase-had no education."11undervalued herself (if she was trying to
Whicher points out that this estimate oftell the truth) or that she was misleading
her training displays false humility be-Higginson about her preparation so that
cause "though she was anxious to claimhe would not judge her work harshly.

11The Letters of Emily Dickinson, ed. 12Whicher, p. 39.

Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 18 The Letters of Emily Dickinson, p. 404.
1958), II, 404. 14 Johnson, p. 31.

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 Emily Dickinson Was a Poetess 69

The anecdote about her father means them; he was merely acting as a man of
she misperceived him or, more probably,
his time. Emily Dickinson intended Hig-
that she used a false image of him toginson
win to recognize her father as one of
those well-meaning, conventional men
Higginson's aid. In both cases her remarks
turn out to have no face value because who lived unaware of the absolute con-
she either can't or won't tell the truth. tradiction in his stance on female educa-
When the authorities have deduced her tion.

real feelings (and exposed her question- When one reads with a relevant milieu
able character), we might as well tossin mind, inferences about Emily Dickin-
Emily's words away. son's attitudes supplement rather than
substitute for the literal content of her
But this lesson about Emily Dickinson's
letter to Higginson. And one discovers
emotionally deceptive ways doesn't allow
for her exposure to feminist ideas and,
that the poetess' propensity for falsehood
is, in fact, her failure to fit sexist cate-
specifically, for her reading of Higgin-
son's article in The Atlantic (February
gories in the minds of her critics.
1859) entitled "Ought Women to Learn Similar problems of meaning occur
the Alphabet?" Though Dickinson's re- with Emily Dickinson's poetry. Richard
sponse to Higginson's inquiry about herChase, for instance, noted that many of
her poems deal with status. Common
training specifically alludes to a particular
definition he has attached to the word sense would suggest that if Emily Dick-
"education," Whicher assumes that the inson wrote about conflicts concerning
poetess has conjured up for herself some
rank, power, and public respect, she must
notion of what a Harvard man must mean have been interested in examining her
by that. However, having read the At- own assigned station in life. But Chase,
lantic article, Emily Dickinson had no remembering that Dickinson was "fully
need to suppose. In the context of Hig- and finely feminine," looked for bio-
ginson's essay, her answer simply means graphical evidence that her father's social
that unlike Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth status might somehow have been in jeop-
Barrett Browning, she had not received ardy. Because, being feminine, Emily
"the most solid training which the times must have been vicariously experiencing
afforded."15 That is, she had not been a male problem. Chase found some rather
educated in Higginson's sense of the thin evidence that her father's commu-
word. Her description of Edward Dick- nity standing was under assault, and he
inson also regains credibility in relation judged Emily's status poetry as interest-
to Higginson's article. The Atlantic piece ing art-derived from a very intense re-
set up an argument against the prevailing sponse to existing social circumstances.
view that women could be exposed to Chase's manner of "solving" Emily
ideas without being changed by them. Dickinson's interest in status illustrates
In 1862 there was no need for Mr. Dick- the most serious failing of unself-con-
inson to smile when he gave Emily books scious dealings with a female artist.
and expected her not to be joggled by Chase, the man who forthrightly dis-
avowed sympathy with any oppressive
circumstances which might have dam-
15T. W. Higginson, "Ought Women to Learn
aged Emily Dickinson, perpetuates a
the Alphabet?" Atlantic Monthly, 3 (February,
1859), 137-50. most oppressive analysis of her without

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70 COLLEGE ENGLISH

misgiving because he is unaware that it

derstanding of female being. Is "feminin-
might be "oppressive" to assume that
ity" of social or supra-social origins?
What is the relationship between the
women must live through men. As long
as readers evade critical consciousness Christian concept of God and female
about Emily Dickinson's sex, they remain identity? Can women think? Should
unaware of themselves as heirs to and women seek self-knowledge? Are women
human in any fully serious sense of that
practitioners of a sexist cultural heritage.
Unless Emily Dickinson's poems areword? All these are issues inherent in
approached as a woman's art based Emily
on Dickinson's awesomely coura-
female human experience, readers aregeous effort to define herself and to per-
free to avoid challenges to the cliches
ceive truthfully the milieu in which she
experienced life. The extent to which
which have long served otherwise intel-
ligent and thoughtful people as the truth
they may seem trivial, aggressive, or the
about women. Instead of filtering Dick-province of some fanatical special interest
inson's life through a field of gross cer-
group is a measure of our sexist condi-
tainties about Woman's nature, and her tioning. As long as women get de-sexed,
work through the conventions of male re-sexed, or sentimentalized in the name
of seriousness, Emily Dickinson, the po-
culture, we need to try to learn from her
writings an enriched, integrated, andetess,
at will remain an artist unknown and
the same time much more tentative un- unaccounted for.

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