Heginbotham's "Dickinson's Aesthetics and Fascicle 21"
      Heginbotham’s exploration of Dickinson’s works focuses on the two poems, “They shut me up in Prose-” (445) and “This is a Poet-” (446), from the poet’s 21st fascicle. Despite them appearing to be unrelated when read separately, Heginbotham notices many different similarities between the poems. Obviously, both of the poems concern poets and poetry. However, the poems also have similar word choice. For example, Dickinson used words like “treason”, “pound” and “captivity” in “They shut me up in Prose-” while also including corresponding words like “arrested” and “robbing” in “This is a Poet-”. Because of this evidence and more, Heginbotham has concluded that Dickinson had purposely placed these two poems together. So, with all of this in mind, Heginbotham utilizes this chapter to theorize Dickinson’s reasoning behind grouping certain poems together.        In this section, Heginbotham also discusses the origin and history of Dickinson’s fascicles. This leads to her mentioning the scholars, like Franklin, Shurr, Habegger, and others, who have also studied the famous poet’s fascicles. Every literary critic who has studied Dickinson’s fascicles have speculated the poet’s thought-process when she organized and wrote her poems. While some scholars say that Emily Dickinson had no particular way of arranging the fascicles, there are others who believe that reading the poems both closely and contextually will supply evidence that proves the poet’s method for arranging her poems.        Personally, I believe that Dickinson did have some kind of system for her fascicles. There are just too many connections between certain species of poems. All of this evidence cannot be ignored; that is why there has been so many literary critics who have debated over Dickinson’s intentions. Though, despite our numerous predictions, there are no exact ways of determining how Dickinson had meant her fascicles to be read. Because she died before they were published, the fascicles will forever remain a mystery for readers. However, this will not stop us from wondering and fantasying until the end of time.











