Emily Dickinson’s Pivot of the Dao

Tom Patterson

Volume 2 Issue 2

Mar. 2021

Turn off MathJax

Article Contents

Article Navigation > International Comparative Literature > 2019 > 2(2): 224-245

Tom Patterson. Emily Dickinson’s Pivot of the Dao[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(2): 224-245.

Citation:

Tom Patterson. Emily Dickinson’s Pivot of the Dao[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(2): 224-245.

Tom Patterson. Emily Dickinson’s Pivot of the Dao[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(2): 224-245.

Citation:

Tom Patterson. Emily Dickinson’s Pivot of the Dao[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2019, 2(2): 224-245.

PDF( 19648 KB)

Emily Dickinson’s Pivot of the Dao

Tom Patterson

Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, U.S.A.

Received Date: 2018-12-12
Publish Date: 2021-03-09

Abstract

Abstract

More and more articles have been published encouraging the use of a Chinese lens on Dickinson’s poetry (e.g. Kang, Uno, Chen and Patterson). This paper will use a Daoist lens to show how her writing captures a multitude of often contradictory perspectives in a number of conceptual areas. Her embracing this wide range of perspectives, as viewed in the classic Daoist text, the Zhuangzi, reflects a search for greater knowledge. Dickinson graphically refers to this broad business of hers as“circumference.” While Emily Dickinson has been criticized by some for her“homelessness,” for her poems having no center, no whole, yet from a Daoist viewpoint this criticism can be recalibrated into words of praise. When viewed through a Daoist lens her perspectivism reveals her skepticism, and her ability to hold more than one perspective in mind at the same time, both ways of looking at the world that Daoists, as expressed in the Zhuangzi, view as characteristic of higher wisdom. From a Daoist point of view each perspective, rather than compounding contradictions, is more accurately viewed as additional spokes added to the wheel of perspectives, the circumference that she so often mentions.
- Emily Dickinson,
- perspectivism,
- circumference,
- Daoism,
- Zhuangzi

FullText(HTML)

References(85)

References

[1]	Ames,Roger T.Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi.Albany:State University of New York,1998.
[2]	Anderson,Charles Roberts.Emily Dickinson’s Poetry:Stairway of Surprise.New York:Holt,Rinehart and Winston,1960.
[3]	Bachelard,Gaston,M.Jolas,and John R.Stilgoe.The Poetics of Space.Boston:Beacon,1994.
[4]	Bloom,Harold.Genius:A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds.New York:Warner,2002.
[5]	Cameron,Sharon.Lyric Time:Dickinson and the Limits of Genre.Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press,1979.
[6]	CHEN Shudong.“Emily Dickinson,Function Words,and Dao:A Prosodic and Philosophical View from across Cultures.”
[7]	Cowrie:A Journal of Comparative Literature and Culture 1(2015):43-87.
[8]	CHONG Kim-chong.“Zhuangzi’s Cheng Xin and Its Implications for Virtue and Perspectives.” Dao 10,no.4(2011):427-
[9]	43.Web.
[10]	Connolly,Tim.“Perspectivism as a Way of Knowing in the Zhuangzi.” Dao 10,no.4(2011):487-505.Web.
[11]	Dickinson Electronic Archives.Accessed February 1,2019.http://archive.emilydickinson.org.
[12]	Dickinson,Emily.The Poems of Emily Dickinson.3 vols.Edited by R.W.Franklin.Cambridge,MA:Harvard University
[13]	Press,1998.(Citation by poem number.)
[14]	Diehl,Joanne Feit.Dickinson and the Romantic Imagination.Princeton,NJ:Princeton University Press,1981.
[15]	Eberwein,Jane Donahue.Dickinson:Strategies of Limitation.Amherst:The University of Massachusetts Press,1985.
[16]	Eliot,T.S.,Anne Hodgson,and Philip Mairet.Little Gidding.London:Faber and Faber,1942.
[17]	Epley,Nicholas,Adam Waytz,and John T.Cacioppo.“On Seeing Human:A Three-Factor Theory of Anthropomorphism.”
[18]	Psychological Review 114,no.4(2007):864-86.
[19]	Frye,Northrop.Fables of Identity:Studies in Poetic Mythology.New York:Harcourt,Brace&World,1963.
[20]	Gelpi,Albert.Emily Dickinson:The Mind of the Poet.Cambridge:Harvard University Press,1965.
[21]	Gelpi,Albert,and William Robert Sherwood.“Circumference and Circumstance:Stages in the Mind and Art of Emily
[22]	Dickinson.” American Literature 40,no.4(1969):557.Web.
[23]	Gerhardt,Christine.“‘Often Seen-but Seldom Felt’:Emily Dickinson’s Reluctant Ecology of Place.” The Emily
[24]	Dickinson Journal 15,no.1(2006):56-78.Web.
[25]	Gillespie,Robert.“A Circumference of Emily Dickinson.” The New England Quarterly 46,no.2(1973):250-71.Web.
[26]	Gould,S.J.“Can We Truly Know Sloth and Rapacity?” In Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms.New
[27]	York:Three River Press,1998,375-91.
[28]	Griffith,Clark.The Long Shadow:Emily Dickinson’s Tragic Poetry.Princeton,NJ:Princeton University Press,1964.
[29]	Hall,David L.,and Roger T.Ames.Thinking through Confucius.Albany:State University of New York,1987.
[30]	KANG Yanbin.“Dickinson’s Hummingbirds,Circumference,and Chinese Poetics.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 20,no.2
[31]	(2011):57-82.Web.
[32]	——.“Dickinson’s‘ Power to Die’ from a Transcultural Perspective.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 22,no.2(2013):
[33]	65-85.Web.
[34]	——.“Towards a Chinese Perspective on Dickinson.” Literature Compass 11,no.3(2014):149-58.Web.
[35]	——.“Dickinson’s Drunkard as an Archetypical Sage.” The Explicator 73,no.3(2015):206-9.Web.
[36]	——.“Dickinson’s Allusions to Thoreau’s East.” ANQ:A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles,Notes and Reviews 29,
[37]	no.2(2016):92-97.
[38]	——.“Emily Dickinson and Represented Buddhism in Nineteenth Century America.” English Studies:A Journal of
[39]	English Language and Literature 98,no.2(2017):1-22.
[40]	Keane,Patrick J.Emily Dickinson’s Approving God:Divine Design and the Problem of Suffering.Columbia:University of
[41]	Missouri,2008.
[42]	Kohler,Michelle.Miles of Stare:Transcendentalism and the Problem of Literary Vision in Nineteenth-Century America.
[43]	N.p.:n.p.,n.d.
[44]	Loy,David.“Zhuangzi and Nagarjuna on the Truth of No Truth.” In Essays on Skepticism,Relativism,and Ethics in the
[45]	Zhuangzi.Edited by Philip J.Ivanhoe and Paul Kjellberg.Albany:State University of New York,1996,50-67.
[46]	Lundberg,Bruce.“A Meditation on Friendship.” In Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi.Edited by Roger T.Ames.Albany:
[47]	State University of New York,1998,211-29.
[48]	Lundin,Roger.Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief.Grand Rapids,MI:William B.Eerdmans Pub.,1998.
[49]	McIntosh,James.Nimble Believing:Dickinson and the Unknown.Ann Arbor:The University of Michigan Press,2004.
[50]	McTier,Rosemary Scanlon.“An Insect View of Its Plain”:Insects,Nature and God in Thoreau,Dickinson and Muir.
[51]	Jefferson,NC:McFarland&Co.,2013.
[52]	Midgley,Mary.Animals and Why They Matter.Athens:The University of Georgia Press,1983.
[53]	Miller,Ruth,and Emily Dickinson.The Poetry of Emily Dickinson.Middletown,CT:Wesleyan University Press,1968.
[54]	Mudge,Jean McClure.Emily Dickinson&the Image of Home.Amherst:University of Massachusetts,1975.
[55]	Ostriker,Alicia.“Re-playing The Bible:My Emily Dickinson.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 2,no.2(1993):160-71.Web.
[56]	Patterson,Tom.“Emily Dickinson and the Daoist Concept of Nonaction (Wu-wei).” Cowrie:A Journal of Comparative
[57]	Literature and Culture 1(2015):88-102.
[58]	Phillips,Elizabeth.Emily Dickinson:Personae and Performance.University Park:Pennsylvania State University Press,
[59]	1988.
[60]	Porter,David T.The Art of Emily Dickinson’s Early Poetry.Cambridge:Harvard University Press,1966.
[61]	——.Dickinson:The Modern Idiom.Cambridge:Mass.,1981.
[62]	Puett,Michael,and Christine Gross-Loh.The Path:What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life.New
[63]	York:Simon&Schuster,2017.
[64]	Raab,Josef.“The Metapoetic Element in Dickinson.” In The Emily Dickinson Handbook.Edited by Gudrun Grabher,
[65]	Roland Hagenbu? chle,and Cristanne Miller.Amherst:University of Massachusetts,1998,273-95.
[66]	Shackelford,Aaron.“Dickinson’s Animals and Anthropomorphism.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 19,no.2(2010):47-66.
[67]	Sherwood,William R.Circumference and Circumstance:Stages in the Mind and Art of Emily Dickinson.New York:
[68]	Columbia University Press,1968.
[69]	Slingerland,E.“Effortless Action:The Chinese Spiritual Ideal of Wu-wei.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion
[70]	68,no.2(2000):293-328.Web.
[71]	Sturgeon,Donald.“Zhuangzi,Perspectives,and Greater Knowledge.” Philosophy East and West 65,no.3(2015):892-
[72]	917.Web.
[73]	TUAN Yi-Fu.“Epilogue:Home as Elsewhere.” In ‘Heimat’:At the Intersection of Memory and Space.Edited by
[74]	Friederike Eigler and Jens Kugele.Berlin,Boston:De Gruyter,2012,226-38.Or (n.d.):n.pag.Web.
[75]	Uno,Hiroko.“Emily Dickinson’s Encounter with the East:Chinese Museum in Boston.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 17,
[76]	no.1(2008):43-67.Web.
[77]	Weisbuch,Robert.Emily Dickinson’s Poetry.Chicago:University of Chicago,1975.
[78]	Whitman,Walt.Leaves of Grass.1st (1855) ed.New York:Penguin,2005.
[79]	White,W.“Motivation Reconsidered:The Concept of Competence.” Psychological Review 66,no.5(1959):297-333.
[80]	Wilbur,Richard.“Sumptuous Destitution.” In Emily Dickinson:A Collection of Critical Essays.Edited by Richard B.
[81]	Sewall and Englewood Cliffs.Englewood Cliffs,NJ:Prentice Hall,1963,127-36.
[82]	Zhuangzi,and Brook Ziporyn.Zhuangzi:The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries.
[83]	Indianapolis:Hackett Pub.,2009.
[84]	Ziporyn,Brook.“How Many Are the Ten Thousand Things and I?” In Hiding the World in the World.Edited by Scott
[85]	Cook.Albany:State University of New York Press,2003,33-63.