The Case of Johnson v. Franklin -- Part 4
If you’ve been following my “Johnson v. Franklin” blog posts (July 25, 27 and 30), you know that I’ve been comparing The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, to The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin. This all started when I found out that more than a dozen poems by Dickinson had been discovered after the 1955 publication date of Johnson’s collection, and that the missing poems were now to be found in Franklin’s anthology.
I started my appraisal of the two books a couple of weeks ago, and the most obvious difference between the Johnson and Franklin collections is the ordering and numbering of the poems (discussed in my first post on July 25). However, I was surprised to uncover many other differences in the poems as they appear in both volumes. Variations between poems (that is, a specific poem in Johnson’s book compared to the same poem in Franklin’s book) range from the negligible (with very minor differences in capitalization or punctuation) to the noteworthy (with substantial alterations to structure, lines, images and/or other elements).
Of course, as you know, my examination of the Franklin and Johnson collections began with a mystery: Why wasn’t Fly – fly – but as you fly in my “complete” volume of Emily Dickinson poetry? While I did resolve that issue, I have to relate that my investigation of the two anthologies – at least to this point – ends with yet another (and greater?) mystery: there are poems in Johnson’s 1955 volume that do NOT appear in Franklin’s book – which asserts on its back cover,
“Ralph Franklin, the foremost scholar of Dickinson’s manuscripts, has prepared an authoritative one-volume edition of all extant poems by Emily Dickinson – 1,789 poems in all, the largest number ever assembled.” If so, then why are poems from the Johnson text not included in the Franklin?
When I started this analysis, I began – very appropriately so – with the first poem in each book, Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine, J 1 and F 1. Then I turned to J 2, There is another sky, with its earliest known manuscript date noted by Johnson as 1851. However, this poem is NOT included in Franklin’s book. As a matter of fact, Franklin’s book doesn’t include any poem with a manuscript date of 1851. Both editors report 1850 as the date for the first poem, but then Franklin’s collection moves to 1852.
Much to my surprise, I soon discovered that other poems from Johnson’s volume are missing from Franklin’s collection:
• I would distil a cup, J 16
• A darting fear – a pomp – a tear, J 87
• While Asters, J 331
I don’t know why these poems are not included in the “authoritative one-volume edition of all extant poems by Emily Dickinson.” Once again, I’m confused and perplexed.
For now, I’ll keep comparing the Johnson and Franklin collections. Perhaps continued analysis of the two anthologies will get to the bottom of this new mystery. Stay tuned.
I started my appraisal of the two books a couple of weeks ago, and the most obvious difference between the Johnson and Franklin collections is the ordering and numbering of the poems (discussed in my first post on July 25). However, I was surprised to uncover many other differences in the poems as they appear in both volumes. Variations between poems (that is, a specific poem in Johnson’s book compared to the same poem in Franklin’s book) range from the negligible (with very minor differences in capitalization or punctuation) to the noteworthy (with substantial alterations to structure, lines, images and/or other elements).
Of course, as you know, my examination of the Franklin and Johnson collections began with a mystery: Why wasn’t Fly – fly – but as you fly in my “complete” volume of Emily Dickinson poetry? While I did resolve that issue, I have to relate that my investigation of the two anthologies – at least to this point – ends with yet another (and greater?) mystery: there are poems in Johnson’s 1955 volume that do NOT appear in Franklin’s book – which asserts on its back cover,
“Ralph Franklin, the foremost scholar of Dickinson’s manuscripts, has prepared an authoritative one-volume edition of all extant poems by Emily Dickinson – 1,789 poems in all, the largest number ever assembled.” If so, then why are poems from the Johnson text not included in the Franklin?
When I started this analysis, I began – very appropriately so – with the first poem in each book, Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine, J 1 and F 1. Then I turned to J 2, There is another sky, with its earliest known manuscript date noted by Johnson as 1851. However, this poem is NOT included in Franklin’s book. As a matter of fact, Franklin’s book doesn’t include any poem with a manuscript date of 1851. Both editors report 1850 as the date for the first poem, but then Franklin’s collection moves to 1852.
Much to my surprise, I soon discovered that other poems from Johnson’s volume are missing from Franklin’s collection:
• I would distil a cup, J 16
• A darting fear – a pomp – a tear, J 87
• While Asters, J 331
I don’t know why these poems are not included in the “authoritative one-volume edition of all extant poems by Emily Dickinson.” Once again, I’m confused and perplexed.
For now, I’ll keep comparing the Johnson and Franklin collections. Perhaps continued analysis of the two anthologies will get to the bottom of this new mystery. Stay tuned.
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Aug 07, 2012 10:21AM
Jim, The best source for explaining the differences between Johnson and Franklin is Franklin's introduction to the three-volume Variorum edition of Dickinson's poems.(Harvard UP, 1998.) As he says, "it was accomplished after the reconstruction of the fascicles reported in *The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson" and therefore had "a sturdier base upon which to study handwriting and assign dates" than the manuscripts Johnson relied on--many of them photostats of poems in Millicent Todd Bingham's possession at the time. Franklin studied the poet's manuscripts carefully, dating them according to the poet's handwriting, the paper she used, the way the pinholes lined up (fitting the pages together as Dickinson sewed them), and other details. Thus he produced a more accurate edition than Johnson's, although Johnson's was a great accomplishment in 1955. Franklin found both that some poems in Johnson were actually parts of two different poems, and that other poems appeared as separate mss. when they actually belonged together. Franklin's edition is now the gold standard, but further work on Dickinson's mss. continues, and more discoveries or revisions are likely in the future. Hope this helps, Susan Snively
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Susan wrote: "Jim, The best source for explaining the differences between Johnson and Franklin is Franklin's introduction to the three-volume Variorum edition of Dickinson's poems.(Harvard UP, 1998.) As he say..."Thanks for the info! One of these days I do plan to purchase Franklin's variorum edition (perhaps I'll ask Santa Claus to check into this for me this December). In the meantime, I'm having fun comparing Johnson's collection to Franklin's.
cf. Virginia Jackson's Dickinson's Misery for an insightful analysis of Johnson and Franklin's dove-tailing of Dickinson's poetry. Several of the poems in Johnson and Franklin may not be poems at all. Additionally, you should take a look at Jen Bervin and Marta Werner's recent The Gorgeous Nothings -- impressively beautiful facsimile collection of Dickinson's envelope poems as she actually composed them.
Emily Dickinson was a great poet, a genius and a lousy speller. I understand retaining how she left her poems, punctuation and format, though some of it seems capricious, but Franklin's insistence on retaining even her misspellings is idolatrous. It ain't the Bible. A big responsibility of an editor in that bygone era before spell check was to catch and correct misspelled words, and Johnson followed through. It wasn't deliberate misspelling on Dickinson's part. In Franklin some misspellings are eventually corrected. By and by Emily found a dictionary.
