Emily Dickinson's Poems: As She Preserved Them ed. by Cristanne Miller (review)
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The gleam of an heroic actSuch strange illumination [End Page 98] The Possible's slow fuse is litBy the Imagination
—Emily Dickinson
Despite being widely recognized as one of the most distinctive voices in the American canon, little is known about what plans Emily Dickinson had for the nearly 1800 poems she left behind in manuscript, much less the process by which she composed them. Indeed, speculation about her intentions, competing claims for how (and if) her idiosyncratic handwritten works should be translated to the printed page, and even debate about the texts' status as "poetry" have attended Dickinson's reception since Mabel Loomis Todd's 1890 edition of Poems was first published by Roberts Brothers. The history of Dickinson's manuscripts—the bulk of which were shared first among family, then entrusted to Todd, and finally divided between Amherst College and Harvard amidst bitter disagreements—and the fact that Dickinson herself did not play an active role in the anonymous publication of the ten poems that saw print in her lifetime have continued to present significant editorial challenges.
Bearing such debates and known-unknowns in mind, it is hard to overstate the significance of Cristanne Miller's new edition, Emily Dickinson's Poems: As She Preserved Them, which, almost gobsmackingly, aims to provide readers "legible access to the full complexity of Dickinson's work and her working process" (vii). If the goal of giving access to the full range of Dickinson's "work" alone is ambitious, that of disclosing Dickinson's "working process" appears at first glance utterly implausible. However, the arrangement and apparatus of this edition are what enable Dickinson's process to come into view, refracted prismatically through what we know Dickinson did with the poems. Miller's edition represents several significant "firsts" in approach to this body of work. It is the first edition to present Dickinson's own ordering of the poems in her 40 handmade booklets or "fascicles," the first to show her alternative words or phrases on the same page with the poems, the first reading edition with annotations, and the first to clearly show how the poet "used" them: which poems she kept, in what form she kept them, and which poems she sent to others (including to whom, when, and how the sent versions differed, if they do, from the printed version collected here). Miller's introduction ably describes the extant documentary evidence and its material complexities, frames the principles by which she organizes it with illustrative examples, introduces relevant debates in Dickinson scholarship, and ultimately makes a persuasive case that the resulting volume reveals, to the extent that it can be revealed, Dickinson's work and process. [End Page 99]
A leading figure in Dickinson scholarship and an experienced editor, Miller brings decades of experience to rendering a familiar poet new again. The editorial principles of genetic criticism, which "does not present a 'best' or 'the' poem but instead focuses on a moment or stage in a work's presentation or genesis," shape the text (10). Miller's edition presents the moment of Dickinson's "copying of the text that, to the best of our knowledge, she retained" (10). Throughout, Miller is generous in acknowledging past scholars and editors. She clarifies how her editorial principles locate her in relation to other leading Dickinson scholars who have advanced readings focused on the materiality of the manuscripts, like Martha Nell Smith, Susan Howe, and Marta Werner, among others. She also acknowledges the value of looking at manuscripts themselves and directs readers to a variety of online resources with images of original documents including the Dickinson Electronic Archive, Emily Dickinson's Correspondences, and the Emily Dickinson Archive.
The book is organized to be useful to, and readable by a range of very different potential readers, including scholars, students, and even general-interest readers. Miller presents the poems in five distinct sections: The Fascicles, Unbound Sheets, Loose Poems, Poems Transcribed by Others...
