Dwelling in possibilities: The fascicles of Emily Dickinson

Threaded together, literally and figuratively, the fascicles are evidence of Dickinson's self-identification as a deliberate poet--and editor. This dissertation examines eight representative fascicles as inherently patterned constructs, within which each lyric gains significance by virtue of its placement in that sequence. Each of the eight contains a (near) duplicate of a poem in another fascicle, grounds to interrogate the possibilities that these duplications hold for demonstrating how the poet's own context affects the reader's understanding.;Primarily a close reading of the Franklin fascicle facsimiles, aided by an 1828 Websters, the study revisions individual poems and considers the design matrix formed by the "Poems in Their Places" (Neil Fraistat's term). Along with addressing issues of authorial intentionality, it also explores questions of Dickinson's readership, of her ambition, and her aesthetic direction.;Chapters One and Two explore Fascicles 1 and 14, both of which include "The feet of people walking home" (P.7). The first, set in an Edenic garden, reflects relatively orthodox religious beliefs; the fourteenth, in a vast, lone space reflects, at best, skepticism. Chapters Three and Four contrast two contexts for "I hide myself" (P.903) in Fascicles 3 and 40, exploring differing modalities of grief. The first half of the study thus includes the beginning and the end of Dickinson's enterprise and her interrogations of received religion and of the Civil War.;The second half includes poems which, while they have garnered wide critical attention, have rarely been surveyed within her "self-publication" (Martha Nell Smith's term). Chapters Five (on Fascicle 6) and Six (on Fascicle 10) hold divergent versions of "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" (P.216). Chapter Seven (on Fascicle 8) and Chapter Eight (on Fascicle 21), both of which declare the poet/speaker "At last, to be identified!" (P.174), complete the study. Both contain intensely self-reflexive lyrics. Those in Fascicle 8 privilege metaphors of "necromancy" and the "business" of the poet. Among much else, Fascicle 21 suggests the poet's new slant on a possible influence, Lord Kames. Its mirroring pages hold Dickinson's most explicit aesthetic statements, "They shut me up in Prose--" (P.613) and "This was a Poet--" (P.448), keys to the poet's determination to dwell in possibilities.