Dickinson

I am upset by the Dickinson section of this site. For the most part I'm impressed with the accuracy of the Lit. Network, but not in this area. There are inaccuacies in Dickinson's mini-bio, where it appears that rather than acually learn about her life, whoever wrote it just repeated the common misperceptions about her (like that she wrote in secret and was never published). It is also disturbing that after all of these years, people still ignore Emily's intent in her unconventional spellling, capitalization and punctuation. Original versions of Emily's poems aren't hard to come by, they've been compiled, but people still insist on referring to the "corrected" (I say mutilated) versions her family first put out. She worked and re-worked her poetry endlessly, none of her dashes or seeming "mistakes" are unintentional. No serious scholar would ever use these versions of the poems, why should this site? For that matter, who invented the titles used? Not Dickinson, I assure you. Putting fake titles on the poems only makes it harder to find the right ones.

Hello, Oddity123, welcome to the forum.
Though I think this post may belong in the 'Book Requests' section, I cannot find any more-than-amazing sites containing a decent biography of her, but an additional site I search for poetry, with all due respect to The Literature Network, I will paste:
http://jollyroger.com/classicalpoetry/
Good luck!

Hello Oddity123

Thank you for addressing your concerns as to the Dickinson information on this site.

I am sure the Administrator of this site will be interested to hear about inaccuracies of Author information, though given this medium, it is hard sometimes to verify all information as it is usually submitted by members themselves.

If you have any links to share of reputed sources? that verify accurate biographical information about Dickenson it would be greatly appreciated.

Also you, or anyone else, as usual, are most welcome to submit your own biography of Dickenson, or any other author, to Admin for possible use on the site.

This site, as are many, is a work in progress, used as a resource for countless students of literature. We value the input from members and readers and authenticity of content is of utmost importance of course and I'm sure Admin will also have some input regarding this.

Revamping the Dickinson section is one of my priorities for the next few months actually.

However, much like Shakespeare, what is published has to be mainstream. I cannot hope to cover the authorship questions surrounding Shakespeare's work, just as I cannot cover everything you have described. If, in the academic community, there is some disagreement as to the truth, then I must go with the traditional or mainstream information. This is a mainstream site, catering to students not academia.

The forum however, here you can discuss intricate details till your heart's content. Also eventually you will be able to post comments on authors as you can currently on books and if you disagree with a biography you can post your thoughts there as well.

As for the poem titles, they are staying (mostly). You think it would be harder to find with a title than without? Most students searching will search by a common title and that is what we'll use. However they will be arranged as they were when originally published.

I've uploaded some 300 odd poems from the books I believe her family put out. Criticize the books all you like, they were published books that are in the public domain and that is why they've been added.

http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/