The Influence of Shakespearean Theatricality on Emily Dickinson’s Lyrical Self

Abstract

Emily Dickinson was an avid reader of Shakespeare’s works, and several references to his plays and sonnets can be found both in Dickinson’s letters and in her poems. Rather than an intimidating and unsurpassable literary figure, Shakespeare was as much as a teacher, a mentor, as Higginson or Susan –her sister-in-law and friend– were to the poet. This paper considers Shakespeare’s works as a creative matrix to Dickinson’s writing, whose own theatricality is also underlined through the study of several performances of identity in the correspondence as well as in the poems. This article also tries to show how Dickinson appropriated elements of Shakespearean theatricality in her poetic work. Bearing in mind John Stuart Mill’s conception of the lyric as a genre that can only be “overheard”, and the many studies that represent Dickinson as “turning her back” on her readers, we also examine the relations between the poetic voice and her audience.

Keywords

• Emily Dickinson
• Shakespeare
• performance
• lyrical/theatrical self and voice
• “self-fashioning” (Greenblatt)