Dickinson Criticism 1935-1939

Allen, Gay Wilson. American Prosody. New York: American Book Company, 1935. [The Dickinson chapter is repr. Blake & Wells.] Only eccentric line-arrangement prevents ED's verse from being very conventional. Agrees with Miles's 1925 assessment of ED's rhyme.

Blackmur, R.P. "Emily Dickinson: Notes on Prejudice and Fact." Southern Review 3 (Autumn 1937): 323-47. Repr. Blake & Wells. Meant to break down prejudices that the reader may have in favor of ED's poetry. She rebelled against poetic convention, but like Whitman, she never found a wholly satisfying form of her own. Attributes the disarray of her poetry to the disorganization of its transmission; little did Blackmur know that definitive editions would produce more disarray than before. Critiques Allen Tate's historicist reading. A central essay in Dickinson criticism.

Herbert, T. Walter. "Near-Rimes and Paraphones." Sewanee Review 45 (1937): 433-452. Explores the poetic effects that ED achieved through inexact rhyming.

Pattee, Fred Lewis. "Gentian, Not Rose: The Real Emily Dickinson." Sewanee Review 45 (1937): 180-197. Summary of publishing history and reception; negative criticism of ED's technique.

Sherrer, Grace B. "A Study of Unusual Verb Constructions in the Poems of Emily Dickinson." American Literature 7 (1935): 37-46. Notes sudden shifts of number and mood in ED's syntax; finds many odd bare-stem verb forms. Defends these eccentriticities as faithful to the spirit of actual usage.

Winters, Yvor. "Emily Dickinson and the Limits of Judgment." In Maule's Curse (1938). Repr. Blake & Wells; Sewall. Appreciation and deprecation mix in this distinctive aesthetic essay. One always knows where Winters stands; here, he stands somewhere in the middle of 1930s commentary on Dickinson.