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The Passion of Emily Dickinson

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This is one of the better books of critical interpretation of Emily Dickinson. Most of the books about her apart from biographies are so academic they have little appeal to the general reader. This one although long, does not go into literary criticism that becomes incomprehensible. Generally, it is a sensible interpretation of the meaning of Dickinson's poems through paintings of the time. Also considered are some of the references in the poems to popular Victorian literature. Poems themselves although they are emotion, are also in some sense philosophy. So, in this book, the author's exploration of general thought on a topic and then Dickinson's way of exploring it are fascinating. Farr covers some topics that are controversial here like the extent of Dickinson's relationship with Sue Gilbert Dickinson or the mystery of the identity of ''Master''. Whatever anyone's view of these topics, reading this book just to read this author's take on them is silly. This book is worthwhile to read for many other reasons. Fifty times over, this book is worth reading.

Thirty years ago, I read ED in school, a few poems chosen for high school students, scrubbed by the sensibilities of that time and rural place. My remembered impression was of a strange recluse who wrote of flowers and death. On word of friends, I came to remake her acquaintance, and found passion, unconventional explorations, and wide knowledge of her moment. That a woman so contained in space should flow out through time touches and pauses me. I should like to have known her, to have had her as my friend (by email, or chat?), and been informed of her wider, richer world distilled ever smaller until its circumference reduced me, too; a term between eternity and immortality (ED, you amaze).

Judith Farr has wrought a miracle in bringing ED to me so compellingly (thank you, Judith).

Ours is such an unpoetic age. The prevailing view that reality is only what you see and the electro-magnetic fields on which our cell phones depend make the investigations a true poet makes seem fantasies and certainly irrelevant. What is above us, the nature of the world of which we are a part, and in which any one human is only a brief, generally painful, episode, is quite unknown to most of us, and this is the world a good poet (in my opinion) tries to communicate, and this is the world Emily Dickinson took up every day. It is a dimension only understood with both mind and feeling together, it is learned about in confrontations with love, nature, suffering and eternity.

Anyway, I liked Judith Farr's book insofar as it agreed with my view of Emily Dickinson. Obviously, I love people who love Dickinson, and she clearly does. My only strong disagreement is with the idea that the Hudson River School painters could have played a very large role in the formation of her poetry, and even with the idea that there is a real similitude there. Generally speaking, Emily Dickinson is deeper than Cole, Church and the others. I like them, especially Kensett and Heade, but I've rarely felt the shock of revelation looking at one of their paintings, as I often have reading her poetry. I think probably the study of the Brontes, Brownings, Shakespeare and the Bible would reveal more of her actual source material, as would walking through fields, looking closely at flowers and listening to storms. Farr does supply a good deal of relevant literary material.

It's the type of study that is very helpful in attempting to give contexts to the poems, which can be completely opaque. A poem may be the continuation of an earlier conversation, which we can only conjecture about.

With Dickinson, you have to get what you can. We are surrounded by the unknown, the daily complacency is based on social convention and convenience, not on any understanding. It's a global self-deception. People who venture out into the unknown and report back are, in my view, the only really "distinguished" people. It's the only really worthwhile distinction.

I think anyone who is interested in Emily Dickinson will enjoy this work, but I would also recommend Helen Vendler's discussion of Emily Dickinson in "Poets Thinking"; Ted Hughes' excellent introduction to his collection of her poetry, which can be found in "Winter Pollen"; and Joyce Carol Oates' introduction in "The Essential Emily Dickinson". I would read any of those before I'd read this book again.

I came to Judith Farr's study of Emily Dickinson in the hope that I would find, in one volume, a biographical account and an investigation of the themes of the poems, to better appreciate their often-elusive meaning and to learn more about her reclusive life. In both aims, this book exceeded my expectations. "The Passion of Emily Dickinson" is wide-ranging in its approach; Farr examines the lives of Dickinson and her friends, offers various thematic approaches to poems, unearths innumerable literary allusions and aesthetic influences, and (best of all) reprints many of the most important poems (and some of the lesser-known ones), explaining both their context and their meaning.

The most valuable and fascinating sections of the book present Farr's analysis of how Dickinson's artistic milieu affected the development of the poems and their meaning, from the influence of the Bible and Shakespeare (particularly "Antony and Cleopatra") to the references to "Jane Eyre" and "Maud." Similarly, Farr's discussion of the elements and themes from the paintings of Thomas Cole and other of the Hudson River School is nothing short of groundbreaking, and it is these sections that will probably change most readers' views and appreciation of many of Dickinson's poems. Farr doesn't claim that Dickinson's verses are simply poetic manifestations of these paintings; instead she finds parallels between the themes in the poems and the subjects of this art (many of which were admired and owned by the Dickinson family members): "Nature is able to provide some of the experience of paradise," concludes Farr.

Some of Farr's book is taken up with identifying the "Master" of Dickinson's poems (she argues for Samuel Bowles) or determining which poems are directed at her sister-in-law Sue Dickinson (nee Gilbert), a close friend from their school days. (There are two appendixes listing which poems may have been written for which object of affection.) This exercise, while certain to be of interest to those inclined to favor a more strictly biographical interpretation of Dickinson's poetry, sometimes seems to limit some of the better poems by explaining them too narrowly; reading a particular poem as an erotic-tinged effusion to another man or women can overwhelm its many metaphysical and literary allusions.

Fortunately for the reader, Farr uses this approach more as an organizational device rather than as the central thesis; she has far too many other things to say about these poems. At the same time, her descriptions of the members of Dickinson's close-knit circle (including Sue and Samuel) offer a more general and thematically arranged biographical account--which is certainly useful to understanding the poetry. Readers looking for a "guide" to understanding Dickinson's poems (and her life) are certain to find this book invaluable.