Product Description

In this text, students of Emily Dickinson can find a source of accurate, up-to-date information on the poet's life and works, her letters and manuscripts, the cultural climate of her times, her reception and influence, and the current state of Dickinson scholarship. Written by a distinguished group of contributors from the United States and abroad, the 22 essays in this volume reflect the many facets of the poet's "oeuvre", as well as the principal trends in Dickinson studies. Topics include Richard Sewall on Dickinson's life, Agnieszka Salska on her letters, David Porter on themes (or the lack of them) in the poetry, Judith Parr on Dickinson and the visual arts, and Roland Hagenbuchle on the poet and literary theory. Contributions from newer scholars range from Kerstin Behnke on translation and Martha Ackmann on biography to Marietta Messmer on the poet's critical reception and Paul Crumbley on her dialogic voice. Each essay presents an historical overview of the subject under scrutiny and offers detailed discussion of the most relevant issues. They should prove useful not just to beginning students, but also to established scholars looking for a review of areas of Dickinson studies with which they are less familiar.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #254218 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
"This book presents the most exhaustive and useful summary of Emily Dickinson scholarship in the 20th century-a series of short but amazingly comprehensive essays on almost every aspect of Dickinson studies, written especially for this volume by Dickinson's most formidable contemporary critics. Invaluable to the expert and novice alike, every page of this book is sheer pleasure, in a way comparable to few scholarly texts."-Virginia Quarterly Review; "The best of recent Dickinson scholarship is gathered together in the multifaceted Emily Dickinson Handbook, a collection of essays that examine Dickinson's life, poetry, poetics, and social perspective."-Booklist "Satisfies a long-standing need in 19th-century U.S. literature studies, providing a ready reference guide with essential, up-to-date material about Dickinson's life and art, her manuscripts, and the present state of research.... Highly recommended."-Choice; "A single authoritative source for information about Dickinson's historical, cultural, and biographical contexts, as well as the editing and transmission of her texts, their critical reception, and the most recent interpretive, pedagogical, and theoretical approaches within Dickinson scholarship.... This book has it all."-Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin"

Customer Reviews

Don't pass this one up! It's a gem!
THE EMILY DICKINSON HANDBOOK : Edited by Gudrun Grabher, Roland Hagenbuchle, and Cristanne Miller. 480 pp. Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. ISBN 1-55849-169-4 (hbk.)

For anyone who is seriously interested in Emily Dickinson, this is a marvelous book that provides up-to-date information about her life and works, her letters and manuscripts, the cultural climate of her age, her reception and influence, and what is going on in current Dickinson scholarship.

The book's 22 essays have been distributed in eight sections : Introduction; Biography; Historical Context; The Manuscripts; The Letters; Dickinson's Poetics; Reception and Influence; New Directions in Dickinson Scholarship.

Although I've read many critical collections, several of which were devoted exclusively to Dickinson, I can't remember ever having been so impressed. Usually an anthology will hold one or two outstanding contributions, with the rest being humdrum and of little real interest, but here pretty well all of them are outstanding, and I found only one that struck me as being both pretentious and obscure.

I was especially impressed by Robert Weisbuch's brilliant 'Prisming Dickinson, or Gathering Paradise by Letting Go,' by Josef Raab's 'The Metapoetic Element in Dickinson,' by Martha Nell Smith's 'Dickinson's Manuscripts,' by Paul Crumbley's 'Dickinson's Dialogic Voice,' by Roland Hagenbuchle's 'Dickinson and Literary Theory,' and in fact by many others. So much so that this seems to me the single most valuable book on Dickinson that I've ever seen, and the one from which I've learned most and continue to learn. It really is that good.

The book is bound in a full strong cloth, stitched, beautifully printed on excellent strong smooth ivory-tinted paper, has clearly been designed to withstand the heavy use it will be getting, and is excellent value for money. No serious student of Emily Dickinson should be without it. Weisbuch's essay, serving as it does to provide one with a whole new way of understanding ED, is pretty well worth the price of the book itself.

So don't pass this one up! It's a gem!

Do yourself a favor
If you are new to Dickinson studies, or if you simply want to read the most current thinking about the poems, The Emily Dickinson Handbook is a must. It contains essays on subjects ranging from the historical context of the poems to the poet's metapoetic sensibility. This text is also a wonderful introduction to the writings of the finest Dickinson scholars extant. Richard Sewall, Paul Crumbley, Christanne Miller, Sharon Cameron, Martha Nell Smith, and many other great thinkers offer the reader a glimpse into the realm of magic and poetry. If you love Emily Dickinson, do yourself a favor -- read this book.

An Emily Update
If you are a person like me who always has been bewitched by the poetry and legend of Emily Dickinson, but who has been busy living a life for the past 30 or 40 years and has not kept up with Dickinson criticism and scholarship, this book is for you.

The edition I bought was first published in 1998 and was slightly updated in 2005. It contains 22 new essays (including an introduction by the great Dickinson biographer Richard Sewall). The essays are the work of many of the most-published Dickinson-scholarship authors of the last few decades. All the 20- to 30-page essays are scholarly, but all but one avoid the dense impenetrability that too many other literary scholars seem to find necessary in order to get tenure. That makes this book well worth your time.

Essays range widely, including an overview of biographical studies, the poet's historical context, her manuscripts, and her letters. In addition, about half the book deals with Dickinson's poetics and her reception and influence.

The essays don't waste a lot of time chin-rubbing about Emily's possible lesbian love, or just who the "master" is. Instead, they discuss just what you want to know, including what I consider the best-ever reading of "My Life had stood - a / Loaded Gun" in an essay by Margaret H. Freeman. (Is there a Dickinson scholar who hasn't tackled that enigma?)

"The Emily Dickinson Handbook" also contains an impressive bibliography for those moved to dive into the poetry and her strange and wonderful genius. It is now (December, 2007) 121-plus years after her death. Criticism of her work has matured, especially in the last few decades, but it remains fascinating and delightfully unfinished. This is a great way to catch up.