Structure of the Project at a Glance

This year-long project in weekly installments aims to immerse users in a cumulative temporal experience of the atmosphere, networks, and associations for Dickinson’s writing  around 1862.

Each weekly blog post consists of four parts:

1) national/international events of the week evoked through headlines, summaries and links to major news outlets that Dickinson’s family subscribed to and often read aloud to each other

2) biographical events of the week in Dickinson’s life, domestic circle, and expanding correspondents evoked through daily events and letters

3)  literary trends of the week or time that form a backdrop for a cluster of poems written around the time and curated in relation to the first two section,  evoked through summaries of scholarship and approaches. Our goal is not to interpret poems for readers, but to provide materials that will facilitate interpretation.

4) a reflection on and response to the weekly events and writing. The nature of the reflections will vary, depending on who is reflecting. The project seeks to connect users to scholars and poets around the world who study and appreciate Dickinson’s work in order to offer diverse viewpoints through creative and critical musings.

We welcome your participation. If you would like to be a guest respondent, please contact the project editor, Ivy Schweitzer, at Ivy.Schweitzer@Dartmouth.edu.