Dickinson Criticism 1955-1959

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Dickinson Criticism 1955-1959

Adams, Richard P. "Pure Poetry: Emily Dickinson." Tulane Studies in English 7 (1957): 133-152. Kinesthesia and organic unity in ED's poetry.

Blackmur, R.P. "Emily Dickinson's Notation." Kenyon Review 18 (1956). Repr. Sewall. Review article on Johnson's 1955 edition and Johnson's interpretive biography. In Blackmur's appraisal (in part a reappraisal of his 1937 position), the text of a Dickinson poem is merely a "notation" of the possible ways a reader can experience that poem.

Bogan, Louise. "The Poet Dickinson Comes to Life." The New Yorker 31.34 (8 October 1955): 190-191. Review of the 1955 Johnson edition. "The sentimental figure built up by editors from Higginson on (with the exception of Mrs. Bingham) fades out." The same column includes reviews of new books by Elizabeth Bishop and by Adrienne Rich.

Howard, William. "Emily Dickinson's Poetic Vocabulary." PMLA 72 (1957): 225-248. ED's patterns of syntax relate her work more closely to 16th- and 17th-century English poets, and to 20th-century poets, than to her contemporaries. She uses a large number of technical and Latinate terms, though uses each one infrequently.

Leyda, Jay. [Review of The Poems of Emily Dickinson]. The New England Quarterly 29 (1956): 239-245. Technical review of Johnson's editorial decisions.

Matchett, William H. "The 'Success' by Emily Dickinson." Boston Public Library Quarterly 8 (1956): 144-147. Collation of various versions of "Success is counted sweetest."

Ransom, John Crowe. "Emily Dickinson: A Poet Restored." Perspectives USA (Spring 1956). Repr. Sewall. Reviews the 1955 edition; concludes that the autobiographical experience supposedly conveyed in the poems is largely imaginary.

Reeves. James. "Introduction to Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson." In Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson (New York: Macmillan, 1959). Repr. Sewall. Takes issue with Blackmur's contention that ED was irrational and undisciplined.

Sewall, Richard B. "A Poet All the Time." Saturday Review 41 (22 March 1958): 21. Review of the 1958 Letters. Sees ED's poetic vocation as signaled early on in her letters.

Spicer, John L. "The Poems of Emily Dickinson." 135-143. Review of the 1955 variorum.

Turner, Arlin. "Emily Dickinson Complete." South Atlantic Quarterly 55 (1956): 501-504. Repr. Ferlazzo. Positive review of the 1955 edition.

Warren, Austin. "Emily Dickinson." Sewanee Review 65 (Autumn 1957): 565-586. Repr. Sewall, Blake & Wells. Argues for a continuity in ED's poetic career, for her conscious decision to be stylistically eccentric, and for the essential firmness of her belief in God.

Willy, Margaret. Essays and Studies Collected for the English Association n.s. 10 (1957): 91-104. Compares ED with Emily Brontë and with G.M. Hopkins.