Emily Dickinson as a Second Language

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword by Cindy Dickinson Preface Introduction One. Words to Lift Your Hat To Forgotten Words and Meanings from 19th-Century America The Language of Home Victorian Flower Language Coining Her Own Words Two. New England Pictures of an Agricultural Community Feeling the Cycles of the Seasons The Railroad Comes to Town Three. The Private Poet Circumference North, South, East and West Latitude, Degree, Meridian Film Physiognomy Dickinson’s Italic Four. The Second Great Awakening Emily Dickinson’s Religious Heritage Early Struggles The Language of the Church Signs and Emblems Argument from Design Five. The King James Version Biblical Allusion, Christian Typology and a Pagan Goddess The Vail The Book of Revelation Some Very Different Crowns The Symbolic White Intimate with the Gospels Six. The Poem in Context “My Friends are my Estate” Life in Amherst The Great White Plague The American Civil War The Trove, the Herbarium and the Vault Seven. Secrets of the Temple: Specialized Vocabularies The Law, Commerce and Politics The Language of Science Eight. The Language of Intimacy It’s Like She’s Talking Directly to Me! Conversational Style The Omitted Center Words Beyond Words Nine. The Poet’s Toolbox “If no mistake you have made, losing you are” Double Duty Words A Poet’s License Sweet Torment and Sumptuous Despair A Turn at the End Afterword Appendix A Appendix B Chapter Notes Bibliography Index of First Lines General Index