http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EmilyDickinsonPoet/message/69

Hi, Dickinsonians.

Polly Longsworth, author of a biography of Emily Dickinson's
brother's steamy Amherst affair, who was not afraid to deal with
the nitty-gritty aspects of life, including sex, delivered in her biography:
*AUSTIN AND MABEL: The Amherst Affair and Love Letters of
Austin Dickinson and Mabel Loomis Todd.*

Who among the scholars and students of Dickinson quite believe
she will disappoint us in her upcoming biography?

Not I.

I have met Polly in person in Amherst, and you will not meet
a more steely-eyed level-headed shoot-from-the-hip gunslinger
of words of truth in the entire realm of writers in the world.

Sooner or later, a truthful biography will finally come to grips with
the life of Emily Dickinson as she lived it, not as some agendaed writers
supposed it. Such a truthful biography will be based on facts, and
conclusions based on those facts. Fanciful notions will become a
thing of the past. The most factual text of the biography of our
poet Emily Dickinson is by Richard Sewall and is a thousand pages
entitled *The Life of Emily Dickinson.* Enough facts are therein to
support a truthful biography but no doubt one day will be surpassed
by another, armed with new and selected facts which make a more
readable life history. Polly Longsworth was Sewall's protege.

Truth and certainty has always ruled biography, and will always rule!

That is a fair statement all scholars can agree on.

Expect Polly Longsworth to carry on Sewall's tradition, and deliver:
once again, only this time on the centerpiece of Amherst: poet and
writer Emily Dickinson, the truth of her life as she lived it.

Emily Dickinson's *Master* inspired the bulk of her poetry output,
and he cascades across her letters. So, if nearly two thousand poems
and one thousand letters have a *Master* behind them, then who he
was is a fair question: in fact, it is so central to her biography that
her biography needs a major overhaul by scholars. Of this: there
is NO question! Do Dickinsonians really think Polly Longsworth
will *skirt* the MASTER question : ) ? How can she, and deliver?

So one wonders how Polly Longsworth will deal with the telling
truth of those winter days and nights up in Emily Dickinson's
bedroom, in particular as described one winter night: in her poem
"Winter in my Room." In case you are unfamiliar with it all, it is
known as the mysterious Poem 1670 of the Johnson canon.

Poem 1670 (Johnson) is one of my top ten favorites by Emily Dickinson.
Let's refresh our minds with her poem:

Poem 1670 (Johnson), 1742 (Franklin):

In Winter in my room
I came upon a Worm
Pink lank and warm
But as he was a worm
And worms presume
Not quite with him at home
Secured him by a string
To something neighboring
And went along.

A Trifle afterward
A thing occurred
I'd not believe it if I heard
But state with creeping blood
A snake with mottles rare
Surveyed my chamber floor
In features as the worm before
But ringed with power
The very string with which
I tied him--too
When he was mean and new
That string was there--

I shrank--"How fair you are"!
Propitiation's claw--
"Afraid he hissed
Of me"?
"No Cordiality"--
He fathomed me--
Then to a Rhythm *Slim*
Secreted in his Form
As Patterns swim
Projected him.

That time I flew
Both eyes his way
Lest he pursue
Nor ever ceased to run
Till in a distant Town
Towns on from mine
I set me down
This was a dream--

--Emily Dickinson

I guess what impresses me most, as a Dickinson scholar, is the
fact IT is her most blatantly *sexual* poem. The debate *IT* has
created in Dickinson scholarship rages on. But, lest we forget, it
was created by Emily Dickinson, the American bard--Writer!

And why would she have created it if not to leave a genuine
legacy about being a normal lady, one with her awareness of the
snake in the garden of Eden, and left to defy that image she knew
would haunt her biography of the spinster nun dressed in white who
looked forlornly from an upstairs bedroom window on a world teeming
with people, sex, and normal activity in other adult bedrooms but
supposedly not hers: to have the naysayers hold court on the matter.

Trust me on this. As we journalists say: Polly Longsworth will deliver.

Probably what bothers those Dickinsonians about Poem 1670 most
is that "string" and its implications. A woman with a man on a
string is a powerful enough image, and normally not one associated
with our famous poet. But there it is around that "pink" and "lank
worm" for all its worth. My, Oh my, how that bugs Dickinsonians--a
*domineering* blatantly sexual Emily Dickinson? A woman *possessed*
by a man's "pink" and "lank worm"? A poet willing to admit and flaunt
her *sexuality* with the opposite sex? And a poet who described her
relationship *traditionally* with her feminine powers uppermost upon
the man by having him on a 'string."

And if that is not enough, God forbid! She describes how that
"pink" and "lank worm" with string attached became "A snake with
mottles rare." Whew! Enough to take one's breath away--as a reader,
of course.

But no, Emily Dickinson does not stop there. She has the "snake"
tied to her as always with that "string." Even after the "arousal"
stage: Why?

And what man in her life was dominated by this dominatrix of
"string" power as evidenced in the biographical record?

And every writer worth his/her salt KNOWS the male equivalent
is *Master*! Do not be shocked: facts have a way of paving a
path to understanding.

Maybe Polly Longswoth will have Dickinsonians finally put together
her one thousand secret love poems and myriad letters: with
a semblance of understanding. Biography has a way of doing that.

Of course, any biographer worth his salt wants to KNOW who the
"snake"-man was, and how he fit into Emily Dickinson's life? So
do Dickinsonians, scholars and students alike.

No doubt, most readers know "who" I believe that "snake"-man
was, and why: Samuel Bowles. Check out my book for a primer
on this vital question in Dickinson scholarship.

Scholars are like journalists: both must deal in what is true and
certain. In journalism it is called reporting. Reporting is separate
from commentary, which carries an element of opinion thereupon.

So: in essence, what is a report. A report is a telling of the facts:
who, what, where, when and why of people and events, anchoring
them to a historical time frame.

Then, what is a biography. A biography is a telling of the facts:
who, what, where, when and why of people and events surrounding
the central person, anchoring them to a historical time frame.

Given that: we can dismiss almost all supposed biographies which
are not factual but fraudulent supposition. It is a fraud to portray
truth and not report the facts.

What are the facts of Emily Dickinson's *Master* and why he matters
so much?

First of all, he is a he, as her pronouns throughout ALL references to him
are *masculine* without exception, in all her writings: poems and letters.

Second, he clearly in her mind as evidenced by her writings, poems and
letters, is the secret love of her life, and the secret love of her writings,
both poems and letters.

Third, scholars worldwide need to face the truth: the certainty is there,
and the evidence is clear that the *Master* was Samuel Bowles! The
evidence is certainly true that he was recipient of her love letters, and
her love poems, and he was a he, to the exclusion of a she in this matter
of who was *the Master.*

Scholarship is scholarship only if it is true and certain! Think about that
for the rest of your life if you commit to comment in the realm in any way,
shape or form.

Thus, finally, so much of what has been alleged to have been biography
about the life of Emily Dickinson must be dismissed as fraudulent. Period.

No doubt: readers of Dickinson, eventually, will get the truth and certainty.
With time, scholars will weed through the pile and separate the true grain
from the chaff.

Are YOU a Dickinson scholar, or student, who will be separated into the
grain pile,
or thrown out with the chaff?

Trust me on this. Time is on the side of truth.

As Emily Dickinson wrote, in Poem 1455, "Opinion is a flitting thing,/
But Truth, outlasts the Sun--"

We are still on square one: love :)

Bill Arnold

Bill Arnold
billarnoldfla@...
MFA, U-Mass, Amherst
Dickinson Scholar
Independent Scholar
Independent Scholar, Modern Language Association
Professor of world literature classics
Author, EMILY DICKINSON'S SECRET LOVE: Mystery "Master" Behind Poems,
230 pages, 1998.
ISBN 1-892582-00-7
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"There is magic in the web" Shakespeare (Othello, Act 3, Scene 4)

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