In class yesterday, we talked a little bit about Dickinson as a recluse and how scholars continue to debate her motives for pulling away from face-to-face interaction. As we were talking, I couldn’t help but picture the image from the Emily Dickinson Museum website of her small writing desk. I imagined Dickinson locking herself away to sit at that desk for hours on end and write, doing this day after day to what turned into year after year. And picturing Dickinson writing at this little desk made me think of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, where Woolf writes that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.”* 

We discussed that perhaps one reason Dickinson pulled away from the physical world was to immerse herself in poetry, in her art form. From the above quote, Woolf argues the possibility of that sentiment. We know that Dickinson was a genius, an intellectual, a constant thinker, firmly tied to the world through immersion in reading and thinking about her world. So naturally, I next consider Higginson’s words in Letter 330a when he writes, “It is hard for me to understand how you can live so alone, with thoughts of such a quality coming up in you & even the companionship of your dog withdrawn. Yet it isolates one anywhere to think beyond a certain point or have such luminous flashes as come to you – so perhaps the place does not make much difference” (198). 

Higginson’s words address the question we keep wondering of Dickinson’s motives for being a recluse. Does her genius isolate her, as Higginson wonders? Does Dickinson simply enjoy having a room to her own, at least as much as she can, to write her poetry? There are many other questions we could ask that consider Dickinson’s life in solitude, and the answers to all of them could be “Yes.” But perhaps as we dive into her poetry, it’s a mystery that will ultimately serve to add depth to her work. 

*Ebook version of Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200791.txt

“What poets, I cried aloud, as one does in the dusk, what poets they were!”

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