The Development of Dickinson's Style

Abstract

IT has become a given of Dickinson criticism that the poet's style never changed. A recent study begins: As more than one critic has observed, Emily Dickinson's poetry reaches its maturity almost immediately. Beginning with the verse valentine of i850 (P-i), she is in full possession of the technical and thematic powers that distinguish her finest lyrics.1 Most critics in the last twenty years have accepted this view; several of the most distinguished writers on Dickinson agree that her style was unchanging, including Barbara Antonina Clarke Mossberg, David Porter, and Robert Weisbuch.2 thesis that Dickinson's style never developed owes a great deal to Charles R. Anderson. In I960 Anderson wrote: The chronological arrangement of the new edition [Thomas H. Johnson's I955 variorum] has been useful in minor ways, but not for selecting or ordering the poems. There are no marked periods in her career, no significant curve of development in her artistic powers, such as might furnish the central plan for a book on Milton or Yeats.3 Hence, Anderson arranged his readings by theme, an approach that has been followed by many of Dickinson's interpreters. thematic reading of Dickinson's poetry has produced a great deal of valuable and provocative criticism; it is not my purpose to argue with the fine readings of Mossberg and Weisbuch, or to undermine the method that led to those readings. But the development of Dickinson's style deserves more critical