My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson [Hardcover]

Alfred Habegger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2001

Emily Dickinson, probably the most loved and certainly the greatest of American poets, continues to be seen as the most elusive. One reason she has become a timeless icon of mystery for many readers is that her developmental phases have not been clarified. In this exhaustively researched biography, Alfred Habegger presents the first thorough account of Dickinson’s growth–a richly contextualized story of genius in the process of formation and then in the act of overwhelming production.

Building on the work of former and contemporary scholars, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books brings to light a wide range of new material from legal archives, congregational records, contemporary women's writing, and previously unpublished fragments of Dickinson’s own letters. Habegger discovers the best available answers to the pressing questions about the poet: Was she lesbian? Who was the person she evidently loved? Why did she refuse to publish and why was this refusal so integral an aspect of her work? Habegger also illuminates many of the essential connection sin Dickinson’s story: between the decay of doctrinal Protestantism and the emergence of her riddling lyric vision; between her father’s political isolation after the Whig Party’s collapse and her private poetic vocation; between her frustrated quest for human intimacy and the tuning of her uniquely seductive voice.

The definitive treatment of Dickinson’s life and times, and of her poetic development, My Wars Are Laid Away in Books shows how she could be both a woman of her era and a timeless creator. Although many aspects of her life and work will always elude scrutiny, her living, changing profile at least comes into focus in this meticulous and magisterial biography.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In an excellent literary biography that matches the standard set by his earlier book, The Father: A Life of Henry James, Sr., Alfred Habegger brings a modern perspective to bear on the life and art of the great American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-86) while respecting and lucidly conveying her own distinctively 19th-century views. Like the groundbreaking 1970s feminist reassessments of Dickinson, this text avoids portraying her as a quaint, ladylike homebody (the stereotypical "Belle of Amherst"), and instead stresses her powerful personality and the strategies she employed to transcend the limits placed on her by Victorian society and a domineering father. Even though as an unmarried woman she was expected to stay close to home, Dickinson opted for a life of seclusion, thereby avoiding the social responsibilities foisted upon middle-class women of her day. Habegger does not minimize the fact that Dickinson was a very peculiar woman, particularly as he chronicles the middle years during which her unconventional attitudes hardened into the mannerisms of a local "character." But his primary focus is always on the genius that transformed her personal dilemmas into art. His sensitive, acute handling of her writings, with frequent quotations and careful analysis, fulfills one of the key functions of a literary biography: it makes you want to run out and reread Emily Dickinson's poetry right away. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

Making perceptive use of feminist scholarship of the past three decades, the firsthand reports of Dickinson's intimates and careful readings of her lyrics and letters, former University of Kansas English professor Habegger creates a newly complex portrait of the poet's life (1830-86) and greatly enhances our understanding of her art. As in The Father: A Life of Henry James, Sr., Habegger analyzes his subject's experiences from a modern perspective without obscuring the very different ways in which she herself perceived them. His greatest achievement is a nuanced depiction of how Dickinson transformed the limits placed on her into choices that enabled her poetry. Kept close to home in Amherst, Mass., by her authoritarian father, she chose to become a recluse and avoid altogether the social duties laid on middle-class women. Painfully rejected more than once as a young woman because of her extreme emotional neediness, she assumed a "childish" air that allowed her far more freedom of expression than that accorded New England's adults. "The blessing and the wound became one and the same," writes Habegger. "What that seems to mean for us is that her great genius is not to be distinguished from her madness." Habegger also gives full attention to the impact of the religious revival that swept New England in Dickinson's youth, reminding us of how tough young Emily had to resist intense pressure to declare herself "saved." Habegger rejects the traditional view that Dickinson's work and life were static; "her poetry shows a striking and dramatic evolution," he declares, and his immensely satisfying narrative makes the largely interior struggles she conducted over the course of 55 years just as dramatic. This is as good as literary biography gets.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 784 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1st edition (October 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679449868
• ISBN-13: 978-0679449867
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #478,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE DEVELOPING GENIUS, November 17, 2001

By 

Edwin F. Taylor "Author" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (Hardcover)

In my opinion this is the best biography of Emily Dickinson. Habbeger integrates the most recent scholarship with independent judgment to paint a sophisticated and sympathetic picture of our elusive genius. Unusual in a biography is his clear story line that allows us to watch Dickinson's gradually developing sense of herself and her vocation against a background of deep prejudice against most kinds of accomplishment for women. "[We] should keep in mind that she was a noncitizen by force of custom and law, that many doors were closed to her, and that she left behind more good hard work than any of us." (page 504) The general reader and we amateur Dickinson freaks will find a treasure house of information, insight, and enhanced appreciation of our off-center idol.

55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Soul Selects Her Own Society--, January 12, 2002

By 

sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (Hardcover)

Miss Dickinson does not yield herself easily to the microscope of biography, as almost every would-be biographer has found. Mr. Habegger contributes a scholarly missive that requires a good pre-knowledge of Emily Dickinson and her poetry to understand and appreciate the book.

The author has steered a firm middle course and refused any idle speculation on ED's sexuality, lovers, and sanity. However, he is not afraid to make a choice or a decision or two. He thinks Miss Dickinson had two great loves, but is not willing to confirm whether these existed solely in her imagination or were, in fact, reciprocated. There are lengthy sections on ED's father and grandfather, which I found well researched and shrewdly presented.

I was disappointed in his choice of the poetry analyzed. Some was obscure even to the Dickinson devotee, and not all was first rate. Though the book is hefty, literally and figuratively, I felt ED was but a shadow throughout. There are many well-documented instances of Miss Dickinson's sharp sense of humor, but none appeared in "My Wars Are Laid Away in Books." There is no sense of the entire family's eccentricity. Brother Austin, when a pillar of the town of Amherst, left his wife to take up with his mistress who lived across town. Think what a hullabaloo this must have caused in Victorian-era New England! Sister Lavinia became more and more peculiar as her age advanced. So Emily had a good background for some unconventional behavior.

I enjoyed the Sewell biography more, though it was written in 1972 without the benefit of Mr. Habegger's advanced scholarship. I believe Emily Dickinson told us all she wanted us to know in her poems. And thus far, she has succeeded.

The soul selects her own society-
Then shuts the door-
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate-
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one-

Then close the valves of her attention--
Like stone.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars academically valid without being boring, March 6, 2002

By 

Michelle McDowell (Tacoma, WA / Quincy, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (Hardcover)

I began this book with trepidation, for I find myself slightly suspicious of literary biographies finding them to be either too sensationalized or reductive or too academic to be interesting to the average reader. This is a well-researched volume that does not read like a doctoral thesis. But Alfred Habegger manages to discover a delightful balance between scholarly research and public readability.

I adore Dickinson and was impressed with the manner in which Habegger handled his subject. He presents her with the complexity and intellectual approach toward she deserves. Emily Dickinson appears as neither the bizarre recluse nor a misunderstood sexual being of some of her previous biographies. If, as some readers have found, the poet appears a bit unresolved and incomplete, it is only because Mr. Habegger wisely chose NOT to sensationalize his book with unsubstantiated presumptions as to her personal life. I enjoyed the author's scholarly, non-sensationalist approach to Ms. Dickinson and found that it did not prevent me from "knowing her" as a person or subject.

One of Alfred Hebeggar's greatest strengths is his realization that no artist exists in a vacuum. He presents to his readers the complex outer world that inspired the poets rich inner world allowing us to draw many of our own conclusions. Meticulously researched and gently paced, the book is a journey not merely a chronicle of a single life. Instead, it is an insightful look at the entire Dickinsonian world of family, academics, and petty town politics. Habegger introduces the reader to the poet's entire extended family and the emotional movement within it. He allows the reader to truly see the social and political environment in which the poet lived. And that is fascinating in its own right.

Overall, I enjoyed the book very much and appreciate Alfred Hebeggar's unique ability to strike a balance scholarship and authorship. He is never condescending, yet he explains thoroughly. He treats the reader as an intelligent person with a mind eager for historical details and biographical accuracy and he treats his subject with respect and intellectual dignity. His book is academically valid without sacrificing the art of solid writing.