Emily Dickinson and Philosophy

This book shows how Emily Dickinson used philosophy in her poetry and anticipated later philosophical movements.

Jed Deppman (Edited by), Marianne Noble (Edited by), Gary Lee Stonum (Edited by)

9781107029415, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 August 2013

278 pages
23.9 x 15.5 x 2.5 cm, 0.52 kg

Emily Dickinson's poetry is deeply philosophical. Recognizing that conventional language limited her thought and writing, Dickinson created new poetic forms to pursue the moral and intellectual issues that mattered most to her. This collection situates Dickinson within the rapidly evolving intellectual culture of her time and explores the degree to which her groundbreaking poetry anticipated trends in twentieth-century thought. Essays aim to clarify the ideas at stake in Dickinson's poems by reading them in the context of one or more relevant philosophers, including near-contemporaries such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Hegel, and later philosophers whose methods are implied in her poetry, including Levinas, Sartre and Heidegger. The Dickinson who emerges is a curious, open-minded interpreter of how human beings make sense of the world - one for whom poetry is a component of a lifelong philosophical project.

Introduction Marianne Noble, Jed Deppman and Gary Lee Stonum
Part I. Dickinson and the Philosophy of her Time: 1. Emily Dickinson: anatomist of the mind Michael Kearns
2. Dickinson, Hume, and the common sense legacy Melanie Hubbard
3. Outgrowing genesis? Dickinson, Darwin, and the higher criticism Jane Eberwein
4. Touching the wounds: Dickinson and Christology Linda Freedman
5. Against mastery: Dickinson contra Hegel and Schlegel Daniel Fineman
6. Perfect from the pod: instant learning in Dickinson and Kierkegaard Jim von der Heydt
Part II. Dickinson and Modern Philosophy: 7. Truth and lie in Emily Dickinson and Friedrich Nietzsche Shira Wolosky
8. Emily Dickinson, pragmatism, and the conquests of mind Renee Tursi
9. Dickinson and Sartre on facing the brutality of brute existence Farhang Erfani
10. Dickinson on perception and consciousness: a dialogue with Merleau-Ponty Marianne Noble
11. The infinite in person: Levinas and Dickinson Megan Craig
12. Astonished thinking: Dickinson and Heidegger Jed Deppman
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]