Emily Dickinson's Rich Conversation: Poetry, Philosophy, Science (Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters)

Emily Dickinson's Rich Conversation is a comprehensive account of Emily Dickinson's aesthetic and intellectual life. Contrary to the image of the isolated poet, this ambitious study reveals Dickinson's agile mind developing through conversation with a community of contemporaries. "Emily Dickinson's Rich Conversation: Poetry, Philosophy, Science" accounts for Dickinson's aesthetic and intellectual life. Her dialogue with Wordsworth's 'natural methodism, ' Emerson's subject/object dynamic, Locke's rational empiricism, and Darwin's evolutionary biology substitutes faith in experience for the 'Experiential Faith' of her Anglo-American heritage. Yet her variation on realism, rather more tough-mindedly than her precursors and contemporaries in belles and bonnes lettres, keeps optimism and hope in play. Even the pre-Modern tone of her recurrent pessimism can participate in late-Romantic resilience and models survival through adaptation. Thus Dickinson speaks to all who would take heart from her watchword: 'Experiment escorts us last.' Emily Dickinson's Rich Conversation is a comprehensive account of Dickinson's aesthetic and intellectual life. Through her letters and poems, Brantley identifies Dickinson's dialogue with John Locke's rational empiricism, Charles Darwin's evolutionary biology, Wordsworth's "natural Methodism," and Emerson's idealism. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction....Pages 1-29 Front Matter....Pages 31-31 Proclaiming Empiricism....Pages 33-70 Guiding Experiment....Pages 71-100 Front Matter....Pages 101-101 Gaining Loss....Pages 103-123 Despairing Hope....Pages 125-151 Conclusion....Pages 153-173 Back Matter....Pages 175-272