Sisters in Search: Emily Dickinson's Affinities with the Tradition of Christlike Women in Literature

Ramirez, Anne West

Ramirez, A. W. (1999). Sisters in Search: Emily Dickinson's Affinities with the Tradition of Christlike Women in Literature.

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Title	Sisters in Search: Emily Dickinson's Affinities with the Tradition of Christlike Women in Literature
Abstract	Emily Dickinson's art and life may be better understood in the context of a long literary tradition of Christlike female characters who function as guides, saviors, prophets, or role models to others within the texts and potentially to readers. A female prototype for these characters is the folktale figure of the sister who seeks and saves her brothers (Tale Type 451, recorded by Grimm as “The Twelve Brothers”). Dickinson has complex affinities with this subversive tradition of female heroism and with early Celtic Christianity and biblical feminism. Individual Dickinson poems parallel the characterizations and situations of Christlike women found in literary works by several of her predecessors and contemporaries as well as by certain twentieth-century writers. Dickinson's wide reading undoubtedly contributed to these striking similarities, even though there is little evidence indicating whether any given poem was a direct response to some other literary text. After describing the development and gradual suppression of feminist elements in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, this study examines Christlike heroines in works by Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George MacDonald, Lucy Larcom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and Mary Wilkins Freeman, noting the various thematic parallels with Emily Dickinson. Dickinson's prophetic vocation is then traced in her poems describing the speaker's dedication to her calling, her commitment to a central mystical relationship, and her reaching out to others through artistic dramatization of her spiritual quest. Finally, the continuing tradition of Christlike women in literature is explored in works by D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Thornton Wilder, Ernest Gaines, Tillie Olsen, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Dickinson is illuminated by the tradition and illuminates it for those who come after her. Her remarkable integration of life and art, of reading and writing, has profound interdisciplinary significance. Through the literary portrayals of women in search of integrity and community, the vision of female heroism has endured, facilitating revisionist rather than radical responses to social inequalities. Part of Dickinson's multifaceted genius lies in her embodiment of such a response and her creative articulation of thoughts and emotions shared by many others.
Date	1999

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Title: Sisters in Search: Emily Dickinson's Affinities with the Tradition of Christlike Women in Literature
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Subject: American literature; Womens studies
Description: Emily Dickinson's art and life may be better understood in the context of a long literary tradition of Christlike female characters who function as guides, saviors, prophets, or role models to others within the texts and potentially to readers. A female prototype for these characters is the folktale figure of the sister who seeks and saves her brothers (Tale Type 451, recorded by Grimm as “The Twelve Brothers”). Dickinson has complex affinities with this subversive tradition of female heroism and with early Celtic Christianity and biblical feminism. Individual Dickinson poems parallel the characterizations and situations of Christlike women found in literary works by several of her predecessors and contemporaries as well as by certain twentieth-century writers. Dickinson's wide reading undoubtedly contributed to these striking similarities, even though there is little evidence indicating whether any given poem was a direct response to some other literary text. After describing the development and gradual suppression of feminist elements in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, this study examines Christlike heroines in works by Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George MacDonald, Lucy Larcom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and Mary Wilkins Freeman, noting the various thematic parallels with Emily Dickinson. Dickinson's prophetic vocation is then traced in her poems describing the speaker's dedication to her calling, her commitment to a central mystical relationship, and her reaching out to others through artistic dramatization of her spiritual quest. Finally, the continuing tradition of Christlike women in literature is explored in works by D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Thornton Wilder, Ernest Gaines, Tillie Olsen, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Dickinson is illuminated by the tradition and illuminates it for those who come after her. Her remarkable integration of life and art, of reading and writing, has profound interdisciplinary significance. Through the literary portrayals of women in search of integrity and community, the vision of female heroism has endured, facilitating revisionist rather than radical responses to social inequalities. Part of Dickinson's multifaceted genius lies in her embodiment of such a response and her creative articulation of thoughts and emotions shared by many others.
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Contributor: Ramirez, Anne West (author), (Dr. Karen Dandurand) (Thesis advisor), (Thesis advisor), (Dr. David Downing) (Committee member), (Dr. Malcolm Hayward) (Committee member), Indiana University of Pennsylvania English (Degree grantor)
Date: 1999
Type: Text, Dissertation/Thesis
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Identifier: iup:90
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