Customer Reviews

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

If you want to read Emily Dickinson's poetry in their original form and you want to discover the incredible vitality of this poet's intellect, imagination, and artistic skill, don't buy this book. The poems in this collection are "improved" versions of the original poems which can be found in other available editions. Moreover, the selections include most of ED's least interesting work. When ED died two people selected some of her poems and prepared them for publication by adding punctuation, altering words, and even omitting words, lines, and whole stanzas so that the polite readers of her day would find ED's poems more palatable and less offensive.

I am a big fan of Emily Dickinson, I love her poetry, but this edition is thoroughly rotten. It is not Emily Dickinson's poetry, but the edited version of her poetry, significantly changed by the same editor who rejected Dickinson's poems while she was alive. This edition is changed so much from the original poems that most of Dickinson's meaning is lost. If you want to read what Emily Dickinson really wrote, I reccomed the complete poetry of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson, it is the complete and original poetry of Dickinson.

I would like to know what Higginson was thinking when he obliterated Emily's poetry. He actaully had the arrogance to think that he knew what she 'intended' to write. This is an absolute farce of a book. Compare the hacked and pieced poems in this 'book' <and I use the term loosely> to the ones you find in 'The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson' edited by Thomas H. Johnson. That is the book to get. Johnson was part of the team that maticulously read her hand-written versions and published a word for word, dash for dash version. If you want to read what the genious Emily originally wrote seek the REAL works, not this attrocious adaptation! The print speaks for itself.

This collection of poems, tho representing a fine breadth of Dickenson's works, is in final assessment a crime against the poet's great talent. As is freely admitted in the introduction, the editor, Mr. Higginson, "worked on the mechanics of the poems by smoothing out the rhymes and meter, changing the line arrangements, and rewriting the dialect of the local area." This is a free admission of the book's guilt, having adulterated Dickenson's original poems in both content and form. Gone are the nuances and passions that make Dickenson one of the best American writers. Gone are the premeditated dashed and capitalizations that add depth and intensity to the poems' meanings. And, worst of all, gone or altered are many lines that contribute to the unique vision of the artist. As Thomas H. Johnson says in the Introduction to "The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson," A representative mid-nineteenth century traditionalist was being asked to judge the work of a wholly new order of craftsman . . . which he was not equipped to estimate." Do yourself a favor and avoid this text. Instead, find one that is true to the original poems, one which preserves the intent and stylistic genius of the author, and one which will give you the full and lasting effect of Emily Dickenson.

This book may be interesting to experts who want to see how the first "editors" Todd and Higginson, alterated Dickinson's poems, "by smoothing out the rhymes and meter, changing line arrangements, and rewriting the dialect of the local area", as the introduction plainly states.
Is it naivety, stupidity or cold deliberation that this book is still sold under the innocent title of "collected poems", as if it presented the original texts? It should come with a warning.

It can be fairly said that Emily Dickinson is the most sensible American poet up to this date. Her themes range from love to death, but she prefers the latter; and her poetic artistry is far more musical than Baudelaire's, more vivid than Christina Rossetti's. In her way of writing her soul and senses in a poem, she can only be compared to Spanish Romantic, Gustavo A. Becquer; both in themes, and metaphorical pictures, although not in style. She is one true American classic. I am rating the book with nine points, not because the selection is poor or weak; rather because a selection is not enough when dealing with Dickinson. Her minor poems are her finest and, because each person has his own favorite, a title having the words "Complete Works" is more appropiate. However, it is a good start for a poetry lover, and Dickinson's Poems are esay to find.

Growing up in Amhearst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson's life appeared quite uneventful to all those around her. This collection proves however, that Miss Dickinson's inner thoughts and dreams were anything but uneventful. Subtly chronicalling her evolution from wistful girl to probing woman, "Collected Poems" allows its reader to journey side by side with Miss Dickinson in her philisophical and religious journey.

This selection of Dickinson's work provides a good
pathway into her complex poetic imagination.
She is too often thought of as a light poet of birds and bees and flowers and,yet imcompatibly, her greatest subject is Death. She perplexes us with her compressed language that seems to hint at so much meaning --meaning which tantalizes and expands our own thoughts and experiences. She teaches us a lesson in knowing when to accept that something is difficult and beautiful and not completely explainable. Well, then,what is it that keeps drawing us to her over a hundred years later? Reading the 450 poems in this book (of the 1775 she wrote) will give you an idea. But you have to have a tolerance for mystery and language that asks you to decipher it. Think of her poems as tightly-packed as a walnut, with the delicious parts inside well- worth cracking the shell for. She has been called by some America's greatest poet. So, perhaps you ought to spend some time with these poems, but be prepared to have the "top of your head" lifted off!(ED's personal test of what a true poem should do to its reader.)

No "selected poems" can do justice to the complexity of Emily Dickinson's love-long labor of writing poetry. This edition has the advantages of convenience and completeness. Its historical importance is that it stopped condescending reactions to her quirky language and off-beat sensbility in their tracks.

Poems can express feelings that you normally can't. In this book Emily expresses Love, Life, Nature, and Time and Eternity. One of my favorite poems, in this book, is: I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody too? Then there is a pair of us -- don't tell They'd banish us you know. How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell your name the livelong day To an admiring bog. In this poem I think Emily is trying to say she is nobody. I mean, she is nobody important and if you think she is important she would like her privacy. If you think poetry is not for you, please give this book a try.