Tuesday, January 06, 2009

News at Eleven: [Brenda] Wineapple's subtle strategy

is not to explain [Emily] Dickinson, but to remind us that she "sang to relieve a palsy". Dickinson did not specify the locus of her palsy, but Wineapple hints that it was her very selfhood--consciousness itself--that hurt. And though grateful to be "one's self & not somebody else", Dickinson could not and would not endure the keen ache of being her fathomless self alone.

from The Times Literary Supplement: Emily Dickinson and other hummingbirds

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