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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [First Page] [39], (1) Lines: 0 to ——— -0.33849pt ——— Short Page PgEnds: TE [39], (1) c h a p t e r t w o “I read a few words since I came home John Talbot’s parting with his son, and Margaret’s with Suffolk” Reading and Performing Shakespeare, Fanny Kemble, and the Astor Place Riot I n 1864, from late April to November 21, and again in 1865, from April 1 to October, Emily Dickinson underwent a course of eye treatment with Henry W. Williams in Boston, during which she stayed in Cambridge with her cousins, Louise and Frances Norcross. Between these two visits, in March 1865, she wrote the following to Louise: “I read a few words since I came home - John Talbot’s parting with his son, and Margaret’s with Suffolk. I read them in the garret, and the rafters wept” (L304). At this time, she also told her cousins that her eyes were not worse and not better—“sometimes easy, sometimes sad” (L302). After the first sessions of this treatment, when reading was obviously difficult, it is significant that she chose to read these scenes and record the event for her cousin. Later, in her 1870 interview with Higginson, she equated being able to read Shakespeare with recovering her eyesight: it was the end of her literal and symbolic blindness. She told Higginson, “When I lost the use of my Eyes it was a comfort to think there were so few real books that I could easily find some one to read me all of them” (L342a), and he noted, “After long disuse of her eyes she read Shakespeare & thought why is any other book needed” (L342b). In this very calculated interview, her new appreciation of Shakespeare was something Dickinson wanted Higginson to know about his “Scholar.” Of course, this hints that while she was staying with her Norcross cousins they may actually have read Shakespeare’s plays for the temporarily disabled poet, causing a renewed admiration for his works as texts to be heard and read aloud.1 Fanny and Louise were greatly interested in theater, and they attended Shakespeare readings in Boston;2 thus, Dickinson acknowledges to Louise that she is feeling well enough to engage in an activity that her cousins enjoyed and had reintroduced her to. Why might the poet have chosen the garret for her solitary performance, and why did she choose these particular scenes? 39 40 c h a p t e r t w o 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 [40], (2) Lines: 21 ——— 0.0pt PgV ——— Normal P PgEnds: [40], (2) At that time, the garret, which in 1916 was converted into a third floor with three additional rooms, was the largest space in the Dickinson mansion.3 With windows at each end and stairs that led up to the cupola, it offered Dickinson complete privacy; access was through a staircase just outside her bedroom. Obviously, at a time when “snow-light offend[ed] them, and the house [was] bright” she decided to read in this darker space (L302). It may have been during the day, for the level of light coming from the garret windows would have suited sensitive eyes; or, she may have read in the evening, with the aid of a kerosene lamp. The size and acoustics of the garret transformed this space into Dickinson’s own private home auditorium, in which she could give full expression to words and emotions, making echo and resonance central to the activity of reading. Although the letter to Louise is her only reference to reading in the garret, perhaps she often chose it to read aloud in; she may also have read nondramatic texts, or even her own poems, here. Certainly, in this letter, she is less the madwoman in the attic than a quasi-actress blurring the gap between reading and performance.4 John Talbot’s parting with his son, from act IV of Henry VI, part 1, is an unusual choice, considering that this play about England...

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