The Ophidian Image in Holmes and Dickinson

Abstract

A MONG literary antecedents of one of Emily Dickinson's most Vkintriguing poems, #i670 (In Winter My Room) appear to be Oliver Wendell Holmes's popular i86i novel Elsie Venner and series of papers known as Autocrat of Breakfast Table. Dickinson would have encountered Elsie Venner in Atlantic Monthly where, under title of The Professor's Story, it was serialized between January, i86o, and April, I86I. It is well-known that Dickinson family subscribed to Atlantic from its first issue (November, I857), and that Emily read magazine with such care that she retained for many years information which she found there.' She certainly knew January, i86o issue, for it contained penultimate installment of Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford's Amber Gods, a story which enthralled Dickinson.2 issue of Atlantic (February, i86o) in which Amber Gods was concluded also contained second installment of Elsie Venner; and this installment of Holmes's novel I believe to be of particular importance to an understanding of In Winter My Room. those pages, Holmes touches upon two elements which would have been of special personal interest to Dickinson. He gives a lengthy description of Northampton, Massachusetts, and of Mount Holyoke'-a landmark well-known to any student of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, school Dickinson attended in I84748. More cogently, Holmes focuses on the only animal which terri-