Emily Dickinson's fascicles, the forty booklets comprising more than 800 of her poems that she gathered and bound together with string, had long been cast into disarray until R. W. Franklin restored them to their original state, then made them available to readers in his 1981 Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson. Many Dickinson readers believe their ordering to be random, while others have proposed that one or more of the fascicles appear to center upon some organizing principle. In this important critical study, Dorothy Huff Oberhaus demonstrates for the first time the structural principles underlying Emily Dickinson's assembling of the fascicles. Oberhaus argues that Dickinson's fortieth fascicle is a three-part meditation and the triumphant conclusion of a long lyric cycle, the account of a spiritual and poetic pilgrimage that begins with the first fascicle's first poem. The author in turn finds that the other thirty-eight fascicles are meditative gatherings of interwoven poems centering upon common themes. Discovering the structural principles underlying Dickinson's arrangement of the fascicles presents a very different poet from the one portrayed by previous critics. This careful reading of the fascicles reveals that Dickinson was capable of arranging a long, sustained major work with the most subtle and complex organization. Oberhaus also finds Dickinson to be a Christian poet for whom the Bible was not merely a source of imagery, as has long been thought; rather, the Bible is essential to Dickinson's structure and meaning and therefore an essential source for understanding her poems. Discovering the structural principles underlying Dickinson's arrangement of the fascicles presents a very different poet from the one portrayed by previous critics. This careful reading of the fascicles reveals that Dickinson was capable of arranging a long, sustained major work with the most subtle and complex organization. Oberhaus also finds Dickinson to be a Christian poet for whom the Bible was not merely a source of imagery, as has long been thought; rather, the Bible is essential to Dickinson s structure and meaning and therefore an essential source for understanding her poems.
--This text refers to the
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Editorial Reviews
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What Oberhaus has achieved will force a rereading not only of the fascicles but of the entire canon of Emily Dickinson's poetry. . . . Seldom has a scholar come to such a project so well equipped theologically and with such wide and precise knowledge of the Bible. Oberhaus's reading of the poems is sensitive and sure. She did not come to the task with preconceived notions. What she found was there all the time, waiting for the right reader. And what she found is central. --Richard B. Sewall
Oberhaus's purpose is to reveal Emily Dickinson's intended and achieved structure in these forty sequential booklets and to demonstrate that the final fascicle is the account of an Ignatian meditation, a detailed narrative of individual mystical Christian conversion and experience. . . . This is a major, iconoclastic work; it can be expected to provoke lively reactions from leading Dickinson scholars, all of whom have denied that Dickinson ever attempted or achieved a structured interrelationship among her lyrics and that she ever professed sustained religious conviction. --Jack L. Capps
In Emily Dickinson's Fascicles: Method & Meaning, Dorothy Oberhaus pays Dickinson an even higher compliment--she shows the scriptural power of the poems in the fortieth fascicle. According to Arthur Henry King, the greatest works of literature are those that came closest to approximating the power of language and truth in the scriptures. Oberhaus helps us experience power in the language and truth of this great American poet. --Cynthia L Hallen, Literature and Belief --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Oberhaus's purpose is to reveal Emily Dickinson's intended and achieved structure in these forty sequential booklets and to demonstrate that the final fascicle is the account of an Ignatian meditation, a detailed narrative of individual mystical Christian conversion and experience. . . . This is a major, iconoclastic work; it can be expected to provoke lively reactions from leading Dickinson scholars, all of whom have denied that Dickinson ever attempted or achieved a structured interrelationship among her lyrics and that she ever professed sustained religious conviction. --Jack L. Capps
In Emily Dickinson's Fascicles: Method & Meaning, Dorothy Oberhaus pays Dickinson an even higher compliment--she shows the scriptural power of the poems in the fortieth fascicle. According to Arthur Henry King, the greatest works of literature are those that came closest to approximating the power of language and truth in the scriptures. Oberhaus helps us experience power in the language and truth of this great American poet. --Cynthia L Hallen, Literature and Belief --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Dorothy Huff Oberhaus is Professor of English, Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, New York. Her articles on Emily Dickinson have appeared in The Emily Dickinson Journal, The Explicator, ESQ, American Literature, and other journals and anthologies.
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This review is from: Emily Dickinson's Fascicles: Method & Meaning (Paperback)
A thrilling look at the mind behind the poems. The author makes the poetry of Emily Dickinson more accessible to the average reader with her insights to the life and time of this enchanting woman. A must read for any lover of poetry!
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open tomb, great code, preceding fascicles, compose the fascicles, finallest occasion, furthest kernel, circumferential life, meditator recollects, implicit stanza, fascicle context, recurring diction, twelfth poem, forty fascicles, fifteenth poem, eleventh poem, meditational focus, implicit poem, tenth poem, eighth poem, saved sheep, narrow cottage, first fascicle, fifth poem, fourth poem, sixth poem Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Emily Dickinson's Fascicles, The Composition of Place, The Poems of Analysis, The Poems of Faith, Question Memory, Wert Thou, The Temple, The Summer, The Corn, The Admirations-and Contempts-of, Our Home, Experiment Toward Men, Brave Beloved, Convex-and Concave, The Gulf, Prove Myself-of, Without Delight, The Continents-were, The Dying-as, New Horizons, Till Death-is, The Housewife, The Only One, Shot Gammuts of Eternities, Day-at Summer Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
open tomb, great code, preceding fascicles, compose the fascicles, finallest occasion, furthest kernel, circumferential life, meditator recollects, implicit stanza, fascicle context, recurring diction, twelfth poem, forty fascicles, fifteenth poem, eleventh poem, meditational focus, implicit poem, tenth poem, eighth poem, saved sheep, narrow cottage, first fascicle, fifth poem, fourth poem, sixth poem Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Emily Dickinson's Fascicles, The Composition of Place, The Poems of Analysis, The Poems of Faith, Question Memory, Wert Thou, The Temple, The Summer, The Corn, The Admirations-and Contempts-of, Our Home, Experiment Toward Men, Brave Beloved, Convex-and Concave, The Gulf, Prove Myself-of, Without Delight, The Continents-were, The Dying-as, New Horizons, Till Death-is, The Housewife, The Only One, Shot Gammuts of Eternities, Day-at Summer Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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