Cloudy and cool, occasional sprinkles today. Took the trail  across from my unit with Wizzy for a mile, spotting bright-colored fungi on a tree trunk

and what I’d call lichen on a white quartz rock. Kathy would have known what it was. Miss her.

The real quest today is the true Emily Dickinson, represented by her homestead in Amherst about sixty miles from here.

I’d seen “A Quiet Passion” this summer in which the director, Terence Davies, took some liberties with her story to tell his own (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/terence-daviess-truthful-fictions-about-emily-dickinson). For example, in one dramatic scene Emily refuses to declare her faith in Christianity in a public ceremony at Mt Holyoke Seminary for Women. She appears to stand alone, but I found out today that

Students were organized into one of three groups: those who professed, those who hoped to and those who were without hope. Dickinson was among eighty without hope when she entered and was among twenty-nine who remained so by the end of the year.  https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/node/134

The Dickinson Museum gives guided tours of her home and  the adjacent “Evergreen,” her brother Austin’s home. Colin, our tour guide,  gave fascinating background to each room in the house, along with at least one recitation per room.

He helped me separate fact from film, as we viewed original furniture and the reproduction of her tiny (about 20″ x 20″) writing desk.  Although very social growing up, she spent much time in her latter years in her room overlooking Main Street within sight of Amherst College.

In the movie Davies made it seem like Emily might have solicited publication in the Springfield Republican, a journal that did actually publish three of her poems, edited without permission. In truth Emily never voluntarily submitted to publication, and it was only through her sister, Lavinia, that her work was finally published posthumously.  https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/publication_question

Apparently contemporary devotees of Dickinson were most upset by the the exaggerated morbid detail the film devoted to her decline and death.  She is now thought to have suffered from hypertension, rather than “Bright’s Disease,” a kidney ailment.

We toured the ground floor of “Evergreen,” Austin’s home, which is substantially untouched from its original condition. Apparently Austin, an attorney in his father’s firm, entertained lavishly any artist or musician passing through, and his house became something of a salon. So late were the revels, his father was known to appear with a lantern and nightshirt at the window to summon Emily home at an unseemly hour.  Edward Dickinson, Emily’s father, was both state and federal legislator with an impressive record, but he lacked the humor that his wife and children were famous for.                          “Evergreen”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hour tour was fascinating to me with my many false impressions of Dickinson.  Never so much enjoyed an historical home tour.

I bought a charming little book called “Envelope Poems” with photographs of envelopes she used for composition. I’ll try to reproduce a page here. Note the word “which” on the right-hand margin, intended to substitute for “that” in the text. Scholars believe she intended both alternatives to be valid versions of her poems.

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