EMILY DICKINSONの詩のVARIANT READINGS研究の重要性 : Johnson版に対する態度として

抄録

In his three volume edition of Emily Dickinson's poems Thomas Johnson has carefully established the correct text and provided the authoritative version for each poem from his own standard. He has also made possible the study of the variant versions and suggested changes, when they are available, written by the poet on the manuscripts. But with a few exceptions like Charles Anderson and, as to their analysis of punctuation, like John Crowe Ransom and Austin Warren, all Dickinson students have been indifferent to the variants and suggested changes, and their study of Dickinson's poetry has gone without reservation upon the Johnson "principal" texts. No close comparative study of the alternate readings and the Johnson version has ever been made. The purpose of the present essay is to enunciate the proposition that the poet's own variant versions and suggested changes involve more serious consideration from various angles and to illustrate how they improve some of the Johnson "principal" versions as Dickinson's poems. The first possibility to revise the Johnson version with the alternate readings can be sought for rhyme and metric patterns. The peculiar metrical scheme of Poem No.1142 ("The Props assist the House"), a combination of Sixes and two Short Meters which is seen only in The Bay Psalm Book (1640), supplies a good illustration for deciding the adoption of the variant stanza division. And the rhyme and metric patterns of Poem No. 214 ("I taste a liquor never brewed-") is also examined in this direction. The second possibility is discussed in reference to the biblical imagery in Dickinson's poems. The last line of Poem No. 214 again affords a good example in reference to its imagery and that of the sweet and bitter book in The Revelation (10: 9-11). Poem No. 322 ("There came a Day at Summer's full") is another illustration connected with the episode of the bride of the lamb (Rev. 21). Imagery in Shakespeare's works opens up the third possibility of the adoption of the alternate readings as in the case of Poem No. 1479 ("The Devil-had he fidelity"). And also there is much need of a detailed analysis of the dashes and capitalizations in the Johnson version as Ransom and Warren have pointed out. Thus the present author wants to set forth the problems of a reader's own text for his study of Dickinson's poetry in making a good use of her variant versions and suggested changes.