Table of Contents

Contents: Preface; Part 1 Hymn Culture: Tradition and Theory: 'Twas as space sat singing to herself - and men - ': situating Dickinson's relation to hymn culture; The hymn - a form of devotion?; Theorising hymnic space: language, subjectivity and re-visioning the divine. Part 2Tradition and Experience: Refiguring Dickinson's Experience of Hymn Culture: Making the sublime ridiculous: Emily Dickinson and Isaac Watts in dissent; 'The prospect oft my strength renews': spiritual transport in the hymns of Phoebe Hinsdale Brown and Eliza Lee Follen. Part 3 Experiments in Hymn Culture: Tracing Dickinson's bee imagery; 'Why floods be served to us in bowls -/I speculate no more': reading Dickinson's strategy; Index; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author

Dr Victoria N. Morgan has taught widely on English and American Literature at the University of Liverpool, UK, since 2002. She received her doctorate in 2007 and is the Co-Editor of Shaping Belief.

Reviews

'... a solid, original work of scholarship. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.' Choice '... this book offers a new way of considering some of Dickinson's visionary poems about the natural world, and it opens up the hitherto scarcely touched field of women's hymnody.' The New England Quarterly '... an engaging study...' Modern Language Review 'Victoria N. Morgan brilliantly extends the discussion of the poet's "religious speculation in poetic form"... showing that Dickinson wrestled not only with the language of science, but Christianity as well.' Times Literary Supplement 'It is a pleasure to read a book as informed, intelligent, and comfortable as Victoria N. Morgan's Emily Dickinson and Hymn Culture. Drawing on feminist theology and French theory, Morgan places Dickinson in the context of women hymn writers and describes Dickinson's positive inheritance from Isaac Watts as well as her rejection of his hierarchical relationship to the divine - accomplishing all these things in order to depict Dickinson as a writer of alternative hymns, deeply immersed in nineteenth-century hymn culture.' Emily Dickinson Journal 'This wide-ranging book focusses on the similarities between Emily Dickinson's poetic forms and the main traditions of evangelical Protestant hymnody in order to offer a full interpretation of both Dickinson's poetry and her religious convictions. Earlier scholarship had stressed the way in which Dickinson's apparently conscious use of standard hymn forms enabled her to subvert the conventional Christianity found in the hymns of main authors like Isaac Watts. Morgan argues that the relationship is much more complex. [...] because it also provides much insight concerning Dickinson's interaction with a wide range of hymns as well as concerning the resonances of her own poems against hymn traditions, patient attention is amply rewarded. [...] Even more interesting is her consideration of how the poet's work related to hymns written by female hymnists of her own day. She focuses on two of these writers, Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, whom Dickinson probably knew personally, and Eliza Lee Follen, whose Unitarian hymns were well known in the circle of Dickinson's acquaintances. [...] The book contains much more of interest, including Morgan's sensitive explanation of many Dickinson poems, including the bold "Why - do they shut me out of Heaven?/Did I sing too loud?" and her careful study of Dickinson's extensive use of images about bees, both drawn from Scripture and reversing traditional biblical interpretation.' Journal of American Studies '... a useful contribution to the historical turn in Dickinson scholarship, and [...] therefore very welcome. Morgan is a tenacious and skilful reader of both hymns and poems, and an astute compiler of relevant secondary sources about cultural contexts. ... the book's clear merits - in particular the sensitive readings of hymns by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown and Eliza Lee Follen, where Morgan reveals tensions between conventional expectations of religious and feminine humility and more individually modulated articulations of faith within domestic contexts. The chapter on bees is another highlight: Morgan shows how the gendered image of the dutiful bee in the Watts hymn (with its little insect busily making food and a home) is widened by Dickinson into an emblem of the questing writer, trying to 'gather Paradise' (212) not by turning her back on the world but by immersing herself fully in all of its experiences - imaginative, natural, playful, and sexual. It convincingly exemplifies Morgan's argument that there is a mystical approximation of Divinity in Dickinson that attempts to reconcile self, world, and God. ... offer[s] refreshed as well as informed contributions to Dickinson scholarship, adding to our understanding of the poet's many influences and purposes.' Notes and Queries