Emily Dickinson in Context (Literature in Context)

Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 9/16/2013
EAN 9781107022744, ISBN10: 1107022746

Hardcover, 410 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm
Language: English

Long untouched by contemporary events, ideas and environments, Emily Dickinson's writings have been the subject of intense historical research in recent years. This volume of thirty-three essays by leading scholars offers a comprehensive introduction to the contexts most important for the study of Dickinson's writings. While providing an overview of their topic, the essays also present groundbreaking research and original arguments, treating the poet's local environments, literary influences, social, cultural, political and intellectual contexts, and reception. A resource for scholars and students of American literature and poetry in English, the collection is an indispensable contribution to the study not only of Dickinson's writings but also of the contexts for poetic production and circulation more generally in the nineteenth-century United States.

List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgments and note on the text
List of abbreviations
Chronology
Introduction Eliza Richards
Part I. Local Environments
1. Amherst Domhnall Mitchell
2. Reading in the Dickinson libraries Eleanor Elson Heginbotham
3. Education Angela Sorby
4. New England Puritan heritage Jane Donahue Eberwein
5. Nature's influence Margaret H. Freeman
Part II. Literary Contexts
Sources, Influences, Intertextual Engagements
6. The Bible Emily Seelbinder
7. Shakespeare Páraic Finnerty
8. Renaissance and eighteenth-century literature David Cody
9. British Romantic and Victorian influences Elizabeth Petrino
10. Transatlantic women writers Páraic Finnerty
11. Immediate US literary predecessors Cristanne Miller
12. US literary contemporaries
Dickinson's moderns Mary Loeffelholz
13. Periodical reading Joan Kirkby
Part III. Social, Cultural, Political, and Intellectual Contexts
14. Religion James McIntosh
15. Death and immortality Joan Kirkby
16. Gendered poetics Shira Wolosky
17. Democratic politics Paul Crumbley
18. Economics Elizabeth Hewitt
19. Law and legal discourse James Guthrie
20. Slavery and the Civil War Faith Barrett
21. Popular culture Sandra Runzo
22. Visual arts
the Pentimento Alexander Nemerov
23. Natural sciences Sabine Sielke
24. Nineteenth-century language theory and the manuscript variants Melanie Hubbard
25. 'Say some philosopher!' Jed Deppman
Part IV. Reception
26. Editorial history I
beginnings to 1955 Martha Nell Smith
27. Editorial history II
1955 to the present Alexandra Socarides
28. On materiality (and virtuality) Gabrielle Dean
29. The letters archive Cindy MacKenzie
30. Critical history I
1890 to 1955 Theo Davis
31. Critical history II
1955 to the present Magdalena Zapedowska
32. Dickinson's influence Thomas Gardner
33. Translation and international reception Domhnall Mitchell
Further reading
Index.