Scratch that- dread.
It's pretty obvious that Emily Dickinson has a reputation for being, let's just say, a little quirky. She's alternately described as reclusive, depressed, and morbid. If you recall our board full of Dickinson associations, it wasn't exactly endearing.
Suddenly, my mind has changed. I read "The Name of it is Autumn" and instantly saw past the labels and stereotypes and into a brilliant mind. Her diction somehow juxtaposes delicacy with gore, nature with the unnatural, hope with despair... Despite her ambiguous and possibly undeserved reputation, I'm relieved to be able to say that I deeply appreciate and even enjoy (gasp!) Emily. Especially because other English majors might get violent if I didn't.
Another revelation that occurred throughout our study of Emily was Ariel's comment about her reclusiveness. It's a very interesting and, in my opinion, valid assertion to point out that Dickinson is almost always labeled reclusive while her male counterparts are "outdoorsy" or "independent." Thoreau might have explicitly stated his ideas, but he still chose to withdraw from society in order to better know his mind and environment; why couldn't that have been Emily's goal as well?
Also, I think it's important to note that Dickinson was a pioneer of her era; female writers were few and far between, especially those that eventually rose to her level of success, and it's often difficult to remember that sexism ran rampant before feminism and suffragism took place. Maybe the reason we call her reclusive is because that was the label she attained back when women weren't supposed to be antisocial? Maybe our labels really are just antiquated stereotypes that have managed to stick over the years? I think it's really important to recognize these labels for what they are so that we can look at her work as its own separate and remarkable entity.
I think that Linnie's post is very interesting and is something that I also wondered--- why are women such as Dickinson called reclusive and anti-social rather than dedicated or independent like their male counterparts? It's frustrating because Emily's negative labels are still the first thoughts of most everyone, including myself, when her poetry is discussed, yet she is just as widely studied and acclaimed as Thoreau or J.D. Salinger, who are also well known recluses.
ReplyDeleteJust as we discussed in class, I don't think that Dickinson had an unnatural fascination with death or morbidity. The themes of most of her work are death, love, faith/doubt, and nature, which are things that are common to all humans. We all think about death and she chose to put her thoughts down on paper, but that shouldn't make her weird or obsessed with death.