Introduction to the Archive

As part of the public presentation of Dickinson in the 1890s, a number of her poems endured what some might see as a further affront: publication in several popular periodicals. Appearing in small type, wedged between articles, advertisements, and even riddles, Dickinson's poems appear wholly foreign in these settings. So foreign, in fact, that one might be tempted to discard these representations in an effort to get back to a more "true" rendering of the poems. Even Jerome McGann's persuasive argument for a social theory of textual editing in which "the entire history of the work is a fit subject for textual scholarship . . ." (Greetham 337) seems insufficient in a case like this. "'Final authority' for literary works," McGann writes, ". . . resides in the actual structure of the agreements" between "the author" and the "affiliated institution" (54). McGann’s argument assumes, however, that an author intends to form a collaborative relationship with the publisher. His dynamic breaks down when there is no such articulated or implied intention.  What do we do, then, with a case like Dickinson and  popular periodicals, which not only reveals no agreement between author and institution but likely a violation of Dickinson's probable intentions? The Youth's Companion, which was a "leading children's weekly" with a circulation of 480,000 (Buckingham 595), is, after all, a far cry from Dickinson's domestic productions, which entailed a highly-controlled dissemination schematic.

By presenting the poems in these forms, we are not seeking to dissolve these ambiguities but are instead hoping to make available a site that provokes further discussion of them. Showing how the author shared space on a page with moralistic tales and funny stories for children might help us consider how one of the many Dickinsons was shaped; foregrounding the text in The Youth's Companion in the edited version may lead to further consideration of how Dickinson's poems play havoc with standard editorial practices. Our particular production performance, then, presents no ideal version of the poem. We aim instead to continue raising questions about how poems are created and how authors come into being. We seek not to answer the question of where the text lies, then, but to raise it yet again.

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