海角大神

During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson was regarded as a rare and strange creature by some of her biggest supporters. Others knew her as the brilliant recluse of Amherst, Massachusetts, who always wore white. History has repeated the view of Dickinson as a meek, inscrutable genius.

That view is incorrect, says Martha Ackmann, author of 鈥淭hese Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson.鈥� 鈥淭he conceit for this book 鈥� its focus on ten pivotal moments 鈥� originated in my teaching,鈥� she explains in the author鈥檚 note. For nearly two decades, Ackmann taught a class at the Dickinson homestead, in the very space where the poet wrote. 鈥淪itting around that seminar table, the students demonstrated that they understood Dickinson鈥檚 life and work more deeply when our conversation centered on an important moment in the poet鈥檚 life.鈥�

Ackmann conducted extensive research and relied on Dickinson鈥檚 letters to create a sense of her interior life: 鈥淔or America鈥檚 most enigmatic and mysterious poet, Emily Dickinson left a trail of clues.鈥� Ackmann weaves those clues together beautifully in prose that reads like page-turning fiction.

The opening vignette lays the groundwork and presents the first of many surprises about Dickinson. 鈥淓mily loved Sundays,鈥� Ackmann writes, because she enjoyed the visits of friends and family who stopped by in the afternoon,聽and in the evening she attended Mr. Woodman鈥檚 Singing School 鈥� 鈥渆verything about music enthralled her.鈥� What Dickinson did not enjoy was attending church. On Sunday, Aug. 3, 1845, at age 14, she stayed home and wrote a letter to her friend Abiah Root. 鈥淗er words would be nothing so bold as a manifesto or even a declaration: they would be quieter, but no less convincing. Emily wanted to tell her friend that she could see her future and was ready for the days before her.鈥�

The nine vignettes that follow develop and reinforce the idea that Dickinson was ambitious throughout her life and took a long view of her writing. Poetry would sustain and define her, she believed, despite life鈥檚 trials or what others thought of her need for quiet contemplation.

Ackmann鈥檚 prose is rich and intricate as she describes the poet鈥檚 experience at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (where she studied for 10 months), relationships that shaped her life and poems over the years, her distress about the聽Civil War, and multiple changes and losses. She captures the sights and sounds Dickinson experienced, as well as her daily duties and the simple pleasures that brightened her days,聽such as her love of botany and Carlo, her big dog. Ackmann builds slowly toward crucial moments and realizations, providing background and context along the way. She also includes wonderful insights about Dickinson鈥檚 artistic evolution.

By Section 6, when Dickinson establishes a correspondence with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an esteemed critic and crusader for women鈥檚 rights, she is 鈥渟inging鈥� 鈥� her term for writing poetry 鈥� every day. Despite that pace, Ackmann notes that Dickinson鈥檚 work is taut, intentional, and controlled. 鈥淚n many poems, a more forceful first-person voice emerged, as if she were squaring her shoulders and announcing who she was and what she believed. Often she presented herself as an outsider, especially when writing about religion, and in many poems she wore nonconformity as a badge of honor and insignificance a point of praise.鈥�

Dickinson鈥檚 interactions with Higginson,聽through letters and later two meetings at her family鈥檚 home, influenced her thoughts about her work, even when she ignored his suggestions. Such was the case when he questioned her use of pronouns in one poem. 鈥溾�榃hen I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse,鈥� she declared, 鈥榠t does not mean 鈥� me 鈥� but a supposed person.鈥� It was one of the most emphatic comments of her life.鈥�

Several of Dickinson鈥檚 pieces were published anonymously during her lifetime, likely without her knowledge. Both Higginson and Helen Hunt Jackson, a childhood friend who became an accomplished writer and poet, urged her to publish a book of poems. She refused. 鈥淗er devotion was to the work itself, not the world,鈥� Ackmann states. 鈥淚t was not so much that Emily didn鈥檛 believe in publishing. She didn鈥檛 want to engage in the advertising that went along with it.鈥�

Thus, the acclaim she deserved didn鈥檛 come until after her death in 1886. Her sister Lavinia found Emily鈥檚 cache of poems and did 鈥渘ot have the heart to burn them.鈥� A few years later, Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd 鈥� the wife of an Amherst professor 鈥� brought hundreds of her verses to a publisher.

鈥淭hese Fevered Days鈥� is a wonderful biography that illustrates the complexity of Dickinson鈥檚 life, even though she rarely left the house. Her white dresses were an outward sign of her determination to live on her own terms. Ackmann鈥檚 distinctive approach achieves something similar, allowing readers to discover Dickinson for themselves.