Networked Recluse

The image is so well known it is practically iconic: The reclusive poet, feminine and fragile, weaving verse of beguiling complexity from the room in which she kept herself sequestered from the world. The Belle of Amherst, the distinctive American voice, the singer of the soul's mysteries: Emily Dickinson.Yet that image scarcely captures the fullness and vitality of Dickinson's life, most notably her many connections--to family, to friends, to correspondents, to the literary...
More Description

The image is so well known it is practically iconic: The reclusive poet, feminine and fragile, weaving verse of beguiling complexity from the room in which she kept herself sequestered from the world. The Belle of Amherst, the distinctive American voice, the singer of the soul's mysteries: Emily Dickinson.Yet that image scarcely captures the fullness and vitality of Dickinson's life, most notably her many connections--to family, to friends, to correspondents, to the literary tastemakers of her day, even to the unnamed, and perhaps unknowable, "Master" to whom she addressed three of her most breathtaking works of prose. Although a relatively small group of items from Dickinson's vast literary remains, the exhibit demonstrates the complex ways in which these often humble objects came into conversation with other people, places, and events in the poet's life. Seeing the network of connections and influences that shaped Dickinson's life presents us with a different understanding of this most enigmatic yet elegiac poet in American letters, and allows us more fully to appreciate both her uniqueness and her humanity.The exhibit makes clear that the story of Dickinson's manuscripts, her life, and her work is still unfolding. Several items included both in the exhibit and in this volume were not known to exist until the current century. The scrap of biographical intelligence recorded by Sarah Tuthill in a Mount Holyoke catalogue, or the concern about Dickinson's salvation expressed by Abby Wood in a private letter to Abiah Root, were acquired by Amherst College in the last fifteen years. Published to accompany the Morgan Library & Museum's pathbreaking exhibit I'm Nobody! Who are You? The Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson--part of a series of exhibits at the Morgan celebrating and exploring the creative lives of significant women authors-- The Networked Recluse offers the reader an account of the exhibit itself, the materials collected and arranged for consideration by viewers, together with a series of contributions by curators, scholars of Dickinson, and poets whose own work her words have influenced.