Dickinson's Lyric Ornithology

Abstract

Abstract:This essay explores the significance of birds in Dickinson's lyric imaginary. In doing so, the essay discerns a lyric ornithology whose distinctive mark is the ease with which it blends a naturalist's observation with an allegorist's sense of human meaning. The essay unfolds in three steps. The first step looks at the small set of poems whose speakers address birds directly in lyric apostrophe. The essay's second step looks at the larger set of poems whose speakers address contemporaries and make noteworthy reference to birds. In its last section, the essay traces the abiding identification of Dickinson with birds, in literary history and scholarship, and charts a way to go on exploring their deep and manifold significance in her lyric imaginary. Drawing on the poet's scientific cast of mind, Dickinson's lyric ornithology unites close observation of birds in the natural world with an impassioned sense of their human meaning.