Interpreting the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

To the Editor:

I have a few observations on statements by Melinda T. Koyanis, copyright-and-permissions manager of Harvard University Press (Hot Type, November 17). Koyanis asserts that “authorizing” an anthology such as my Poetic Work of Emily Dickinson, a text “based on one person’s variant typographic interpretation of the poetry, aimed at a general reader, was not in the best interest of preserving or presenting the integrity of the Dickinson work.”

While Koyanis uses my way of characterizing my project -- a typographic interpretation -- she neglects to apply its sense consistently. Harvard’s forthcoming variorum typographic text is also based on “one person’s” (Ralph Franklin’s) construal of the holographs and related material. What’s more, to describe my version of selected poems as a variant typographic interpretation implies that it is somehow a deviation from a standard or authoritative typographic interpretation of Dickinson’s work.

The point of producing my collection was to offer a more satisfactory printed rendering of selected poems than is found in the currently standard typographic versions produced by Thomas H. Johnson. If Koyanis is suggesting that my collection is a variant of some authoritative printed anthology, she is mistaken, because none exists.

The typography of Poetic Work is ... based on my own handwritten interpretations of photographic facsimiles and, in some instances, the original manuscripts. (Neither the principle of selection in Poetic Work nor my approach to the problem of representing the poetry in print for the general reader was derived from any particular typographic edition. And I made no photocopies of any source materials.)

Koyanis’s statement could even give the impression that Harvard University Press is endeavoring to establish that my text is a variant of the as-yet incomplete and unpublished Franklin variorum text. ...

Also of concern is Koyanis’s response to The Chronicle’s query about whether it turned down my project in part because of the variorum edition that Ralph Franklin is preparing for them. Koyanis asserts that Harvard University Press declined my request because my text amounts merely to “another variant of the typography.” She declares, “The question is, How many competing versions do you want?” The typography? Dickinson handwrote her poetry -- she resisted the printing of verse as editors oversaw it in her day. The growing consensus among scholars in our day is that not only does no authoritative typographic text of Dickinson’s poems exist, but that no definitive typographic edition is possible.

One final point: Who is Melinda T. Koyanis (or Harvard University Press, for that matter) to decide the issue of the number of competing printed versions of Emily Dickinson’s poetry? Since when has a copyright-and-permissions manager or a university press the right to determine universal standards and rules governing such competition among interpretations? ...

Phillip Stambovsky
Associate Professor of English
Albertus Magnus College
New Haven, Conn.