#heginbotham

            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.

            Heginbotham’s “Introduction: Reading Dickinson Contextually” mainly focuses on the importance of both investigating and theorizing the reasoning behind the organization of Dickinson’s fascicles.  While she does recognize how the content of the poems are significant, Heginbotham is more fascinated with the “...intentional artistry [Dickinson] used to compile these books” (ix).  For instance, Heginbotham mentioned how Dickinson had repeatedly use the same poem in multiple fascicles; it is obvious that this was not an accident.  This means that the specific arrangement of Dickinson’s fascicles ends up giving readers a peak of “...the playful and inventive mind of Emily Dickinson at her workshop” (ix).             Now, it would have been one thing if Dickinson had just wrote a lot of random and separate poems. Though, in actuality, this is not the case.  Dickinson had organized her poems in these books for a reason.  After all, there must have been numerous combinations in which Dickinson could have arranged her poetry.  And yet, she ended up deciding on one particular arrangement.  And, because of this, readers go through a certain reading experience that they would not have undergo if Dickinson had chosen a different grouping.             Also, when individual pieces of written work are intentionally grouped together, this usually means that the works have one common theme or message.  Unlike reading a “stand-alone” poem, it seems as if a book of poetry should be read as a one whole unit.  So, while readers are reading a poem from one of Dickinson’s fascicles, there is a huge chance that they will look for the connections between that poem and the rest of the poems in the book.  That is why reading a poem from a little book is so different when compared to reading a singular poem.