/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10910944]

What makes some people think Emily Dickinson is a depressive writer?

I'm reading two books of her, Collected Letters and Complete Poems. I'm still in the beginning of both books. I did notice some change in the writing style of her letters towards 1850, but I would say he just became more "serious".

Also, I have to say I am much impressed with her writing. Even at a early age (14), it baffles me how well and clean it reads.

[Anonymous No.10910951]

>>10910944
She's great. And the answer is: their stupidity

[Anonymous No.10911061]

>>10910944
Well she did die pretty depressive.

[Anonymous No.10911252]

>>10910944

Her poems have a variety of tones. She's written some hopeful stuff, some funny ironic stuff, and some depressing stuff. I don't know how you can read "I felt a funeral in my brain" as anything other than a mental breakdown.

[Anonymous No.10912508]

>>10910944
She despairs, but she's almost never depressed. The difference is a huge one. A depressed person doesn't crack jokes in letters of grieving, for instance. But a despairing one does.
Her letters are fantastic.

[Anonymous No.10912518]

>>10911252
On the other hand she had to be absolutely jacked to get that thing down. A poet is an artist after all and she knew her value.

[Anonymous No.10912543]

I hope Emily Dickinson wasn't secretly a slut

[Anonymous No.10912826]

>>10912508
need depression for despair

[Anonymous No.10912831]

>>10912543
Sue more than once insinuated that she was. Plus, there's more than a single interesting story. She was quite a piano player....

[Anonymous No.10912933]

>>10912826
Depression has little if anything to do with either (loss of) faith or hope. Despair is defiant, and borne entirely in the mind. To depression's treatable neurologic, despair's psychotic. Theyre quite different. See Despair himself in Spenser's cave.

[Anonymous No.10914218]

>>10912831

Can I have more details on this?

[Anonymous No.10914226]

>>10910944
>he

[Anonymous No.10914227]

>>10911252
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -
this is ... not good. i can see her mechanically writing this down, yikes.

[Anonymous No.10914231]

>>10914227

[Anonymous No.10914241]

is Emily Dickinson a Schizo Rhizome writer Like Nick Land Was

>>10914227
mfw I thought the last sentence in this post was part of the poem

[Anonymous No.10914825]

>>10914227
>YYYYYYYYYYYIKES! AWKWARD~~

[Anonymous No.10915129]

>>10910944
>What makes some people think Emily Dickinson is a depressive writer?

They didn't read her, instead they read the spark notes of someone who wrote a book that didn't read her.

[Anonymous No.10915164]

>>10910944
>tfw no emily gf

[Anonymous No.10915597]

>>10914218
There's alot of good information in the Austin Dickinson/Mabel Loomis Todd literature- during their affair Austin would take her to her father's house and fuck her downstairs (once on the dining room table) while Emily sat alone in her room upstairs.. Here's an early bit from still the standard biography, Richard B. Sewall's The Life of Emily Dickinson--
>About this time Sue, as she was called in the village, began to tell me about a remarkable sister of Austin's who never went out, and saw no one who called. I heard of her also through others in town who seemed to resent, somewhat, her refusal to see themselves, who had known her in earlier years. Then came a note from this mysterious Emily's housemate, her sister Lavinia, demanding that I call 'at once, with my husband'. Sue said at that, 'You will not allow your husband to go there, I hope!' 'Why not?' I asked innocently. 'Because they have not, either of them, any idea of morality,' she replied, with a certain satisfaction in her tone. I knew that would interest my good husband, and pressing her a little farther, she added, 'I went in there one day, and in the living room I found Emily reclining in the arms of a man. What can you say to that?' I had no explanation, of course, so I let it drop, notwithstanding which I went to the ancestral mansion in which the two lived a few days later.
p.195
Make no mistake. These exceptionally bright girls did WHATEVER they wanted to do. The more one reads into the literature the more this becomes apparent. Like the Kafka myth, the Dickinson myth is every bit as bogus.

[Anonymous No.10915645]

>>10910944
Because the two of her poems they read in their high school English class didn't give them an accurate idea of Dickinson's entire corpus.

[Anonymous No.10915682]

>>10910944
People who've let their knowledge of her life and circumstances attach projected meanings on the text. Though it's obviously not upbeat work.

[Anonymous No.10916203]

>>10915597
>NEET hikki
>write poetry and letters and chill all day
>send notes out sending for random married guys around town to come fuck you

Did she lead the /lit/ lifestyle?

[Anonymous No.10916342]

>>10912831
>She was quite a piano player....
What do you mean by this? I'm not a native speaker.

[Anonymous No.10916346]

>>10915597
bummer. Not /ourgirl/

[Anonymous No.10916355]

>>10914227
>person actually is interesting and has powerful, intense feelings and ideas
>YIIIIIIIKKKKKEEES SHES CRAZY!!!!! Oh MYYYYY!!!

[Anonymous No.10916400]

>>10916203
>NEET Hikki..
Absolutely anticipates this, but spun all 'social media' out of her very physical self.
>chill all day
pretty much, but she kept busy in more than a few structured ways. she had a dog during the younger half of her Hikki existence, so she DID go out on walks at times when it was least likely that she'd be seen; she had a greenhouse which she assiduously tended; she played piano VERY well; she liked to bake (sometimes loading up a bucket with baked goods and lowering it via rope from her bedroom window to children waiting below), as well as write heady flirtatious letters to a variety of highly qualified married men, and world class poetry..
>for random married guys
as said she was highly selective, though there were almost certainly others [we] will never know about
>Did she lead the /lit/ lifestyle?
Moreso than 95% of this board does. iow's absolutely!

[Anonymous No.10916407]

>>10916342
She played piano very well.

[Anonymous No.10916416]

>>10916346
Yeats is the only poet who was truly /ourguy/.

[Anonymous No.10916421]

>>10916342
[play piano] is heard as a verb in English; what it means of course is 'to play the piano'

[Anonymous No.10916424]

>>10910944
She’s a bad writer, women don’t know know what depression is. There are no female existentialists worth anything, no female Nietzscheans, no female Heideggers, no female Baudrillards or female Diogenes. Isn’t it remarkable that women are utterly incapable of cultural criticism or advanced social commentary that doesn’t express rely on big mama bog witch screeching? really makes you think

[Anonymous No.10916453]

>>10916424
One needs exceptions to prove rules; in fact, she's one of the greatest poets, and an incredibly entertaining letterwriter.

[Anonymous No.10916528]

>>10916424

She was a great writer, probably the greatest poet from the US. Her style is densely metaphorical, and her metaphors and similes are all bold, strange, innovative: she never reheats the old food of older poets. Her style is like that of a compressed Shakespeare.

Also, if you read her poems and letter you are always aware of a high intelligence, of a mix of good humor and a terrible and merciless intelligence. She probably had some 30 IQ points more than you.

[Anonymous No.10916535]

>>10916355
My least favorite normie criticism
Just because you live a meaningless void of a life doesn't mean people can't feel things intensely

[Anonymous No.10916544]

>>10916528
>probably the greatest poet from the US

[Anonymous No.10916550]

>>10916424
their simpli inferior to us as white men

[Anonymous No.10916603]

>>10916424
But nobody needs Nietzsche in their life.

[Anonymous No.10916608]

>>10916535
I always remember kids laughing in English classes at school whenever anything remotely intense or emotional was expressed in a poem. Sad.

[Anonymous No.10916625]

>>10916453
she talked about nothing, an inhuman literati puppet
>>10916528
see above, dead eyed evil soul. thinks that pretty words are what we need
>>10916550
inferior maybe
>>10916603
they have no choice

[Anonymous No.10916668]

>>10916416
Because he was retarded?

[Anonymous No.10916736]

>>10916407
Lol, I really thought you meant she fingered herself.

[Anonymous No.10916742]

>>10916416
Why is he our guy?

[Anonymous No.10916922]

>>10916625
>she talked about nothing
that's called poetry
>an inhuman litetati puppet
that's rather poetically put, anon. even though the information it delivers is wonderfully false, i can still discern what is meant. read more poetry.