EMILY DICKINSON

by Richard Chase '57.American Men of Letters Series, WilliamSloane Associates, 1951, 328 pp. $4.00.

Many past critics and biographers of this very great poet have done her a considerable disservice by beclouding their estimates of her with ill-founded gossip and uncritical idolatry. This book helps clear the air.

Building on the solid basis laid by Professor Whicher's biography, This Was a Poet (1938), Professor Chase has given us a discriminating and illuminating account of Emily Dickinson and her poetry. He threads his way among the circumstances and events of her life with a cool sanity that keeps him clear of the usual pitfalls, and in treating her poetry, where this book makes a substantial advance over its predecessors, he shows both a genuine appreciation of what is truly greatest and a steady critical balance that refuses to praise her for her poetic faults.

Professor Chase traces her poetic attitudes to her Calvinist heritage and to other external influences, such as the cult of "little women," which accounts for her intermittent childish coyness. He also shows us that disappointment in love was not the principal directive force in her life, for she had already chosen the way of the recluse, for even deeper reasons, before she ever met the man she loved most. Finally, it is made plain that while her poetry flows out of the peculiar quality of her life, it has greatness and artistry that no merely biographical approach can reveal.

In two very valuable critical chapters, the author does a great deal to clarify exactly what the poet's characteristic themes are, and how they operate in the poems. He shows us that she is not a nature poet, and not primarily a love poet, but that she is the poet of the achievement of a sort of private redemption and immortal status through renunciation and suffering.

After reading this book, one can reread the poems with fresh interest and clearer insight, and can accord them a sounder appraisal.