Those who read the “Revelations”
Must not criticize
Those who read the same Edition -
With beclouded Eyes!
What frustrates me is that there is no family around Dickinson. What I mean is that you'd like to read about Dickinson more or less in an extension of her own terms. I don't expect anyone else to write in the manner or mode of Dickinson, but I expect there to be at least a book or two that has a stall in the heart or even the fringe of the same extravagant fête. Instead, everything about Dickinson is like this:
“Yet in contrast to her Holland correspondence, this hyperbolically feminized voice of (gender) conformity is here repeatedly joined to a powerfully subversive counter-voice: the voice of the poet-creator. This double-voicedness undermines any sense of a monological homogeneity of subject positions.” (Marietta Messmer)
I don't mean to single Ms. Messmer out, and even I do the same thing. I've written about this exact subject before, and am closer to figuring out various trails that lead from monological homogeneity to the “o'erlooked Balms” — but finding a friendly book would be great boon. Does anybody know of one? Would you care to divulge?
by Sean B. Palmer