Dickinson Electronic Archives

The Dickinson Electronic Archives (DEA) is a website devoted to the study of Emily Dickinson, her writing practices, writings directly influencing her work, and critical and creative writings generated by her work. The DEA is produced by the Dickinson Editing Collective, with an executive editor, a general editor, two associate editors, a project manager, and a technical editor working collaboratively with one another and with numerous coeditors, staff, and users.

History

The Dickinson Electronic Archives was begun in 1994 by Emily Dickinson scholar and University of Maryland, College Park professor Martha Nell Smith. It was the first online digital repository of its kind and featured a limited number of Dickinson manuscripts and correspondences.

In 2000, the DEA received its first major overhaul. This overhaul included the additions of more manuscripts and correspondences, as well as Titanic Operas – a section highlighting the responses of contemporary poets to Emily Dickinson – and a section of the DEA dedicated to helping teachers utilize digital resources in classroom instruction.

Current

Although originally created to showcase the writings of and scholarship concerning American poet Emily Dickinson, the Dickinson Electronic Archives projects have since expanded to include as well the writings of Emily Dickinson's correspondents, many of whom were family members such as Susan Dickinson and nephew Edward (Ned) Dickinson. The DEA has also grown to feature numerous images of Dickinson’s manuscripts – both poetic manuscripts and letters – as well as detailed scholastic analysis by executive editor Martha Nell Smith and other leading Dickinson scholars.

One of the primary missions of the Dickinson Electronic Archives is to enhance knowledge surrounding Emily Dickinson, one of the United States' most admired and popular poets and beloved nineteenth-century figures, through the contextual clues of her creative process as discovered in her manuscripts. While casual biographies of Dickinson are likely to describe the poet as isolated, morbid, crazy, humorless, and a writer of "little poems," her written records suggest otherwise. Dickinson’s manuscripts and correspondences, as showcased in the Dickinson Electronic Archives, show that Emily Dickinson sometimes collaborated with another writer, that she sometimes reveled in a bawdy sense of humor, and that letter writing became an artistic form for her, one she exploited for poetic experimentation.

Citations and References

As a leader in Digital Humanities and one of the first digital literature projects, the Dickinson Electronic Archives have been at the center of critical discussion for over ten years, appearing at the center of critical discussion in hundreds of scholarly articles, journals, and books. An abbreviated compendium of DEA-related critical discussion includes:

1. Coghill, Sheila and Thom Tammaro. Visiting Emily: Poems Inspired by the Life and Works of Emily Dickinson. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000.

2. Crumbley, Paul. "The 'Purple Democrat': Emily Dickinson and the Sovereignty of Democratic Consent." In (Anti-)Americanisms, edited by Michael Draxlbauer, Astrid M. Fellner and Thomas Fröschl, 74-88: LIT, Vienna, Austria, 2004.

3. Debo, Annette. "Dickinson Manuscripts in the Undergraduate Classroom." College Literature 27, no. 3 (2000): 130-43.

4. Esdale, Logan. "Dickinson's Epistolary 'Naturalness'." Emily Dickinson Journal 14, no. 1 (2005): 1-23.

5. Figley, Marty Rhodes. "'Brown Kisses' and 'Shaggy Feet': How Carlo Illuminates Dickinson for Children." Emily Dickinson Journal 14, no. 2 (2005): 120-27.

6. Finnerty, Páraic. Emily Dickinson's Shakespeare: Amherst, MA: U of Massachusetts P, 2006.

7. Gardner, Thomas. A Door Ajar: Contemporary Writers and Emily Dickinson: New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2006.

8. Habegger, Alfred. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson. New York: Random House, 2001.

9. Heginbotham, Eleanor Elson. Reading the Fascicles of Emily Dickinson: Dwelling in Possibilities. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003.

10. Horan, Elizabeth Rosa. "Technically Outside the Law: Who Permits, Who Profits, and Why." Emily Dickinson Journal 10, no. 1 (2001): 34-54. Page 2

11. Jackson, Virginia. Dickinson's Misery: A Theory of Lyric Reading: Princeton, NJ : Princeton UP, 2005.

12. Kirk, Connie Ann. "'the Distance Would Not Haunt Me So-': Teaching Dickinson's Poetry through Distance Education." Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin 14, no. 1 (2002): 8-10.

13. ———. Emily Dickinson: A Biography: Westport, CT : Greenwood, 2004.

14. ———. "'I Will Sone Be Home': Margaret Maher, Emily Dickinson, and an Irish Trunk Full of Poems." In Ireland's Great Hunger: Silence, Memory, and Commemoration, edited by David A. Valone and Christine Kinealy: University Press of America, 2002.

15. McCormack, Jerusha Hull. “Domesticating Delphi: Emily Dickinson and the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph.” American Quarterly 55.4 (2003): 569-601. 6 November 2007 <[1]>

16. Messmer, Marieta. A Vice for Voices: Reading Emily Dickinson's Correspondence: Amherst, MA: U of Massachusetts P, 2001.

17. Miller, Cristanne. "Controversy in the Study of Emily Dickinson." Literary Imagination: The Review of the Association of. Literary Scholars and Critics 6 (2004): 25-38.

18. ———. "The Sound of Shifting Paradigms, or Hearing Dickinson in the Twenty-First Century." In A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson, edited by Vivian Pollak, 201-34: Oxford UP, Oxford, England, 2004.

19. Mitchell, Domhnall. Emily Dickinson: Monarch of Perception. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.

20. ———. "Binding Emily Dickinson." In Rebound: The American Poetry Book, edited by Michael Hinds and Stephen Matterson, 11-28: Rodopi, New York, NY, 2004.

21. ———. "The Grammar of Ornament: Emily Dickinson's Manuscripts and Their Meanings." Nineteenth Century Literature 55 (2001): 479-514.

22. ———. Measures of Possibility: Emily Dickinson's Manuscripts: Amherst, MA : U of Massachusetts P, 2005.

23. Monte, Steven. "Dickinson's Searching Philology." Emily Dickinson Journal 12, no. 2 (2003): 21-51.

24. Morse, Jonathan. "Bibliographical Essay." In A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson, edited by Vivian Pollak, 255-83: Oxford UP, Oxford, England, 2004.

25. Pollak, Vivian, ed. A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson: Oxford, England : Oxford UP, 2004.

26. Pollak, Vivian R., and Marianne Noble. "Emily Dickinson 1830-1886: A Brief Biography." In A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson, edited by Vivian Pollak, 13-63: Oxford UP, Oxford, England, 2004.

27. Smith, Martha Nell. "Computing: What's American Literary Study Got to Do with It?" American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 74, no. 4 (2002): 833-57