Textual Ethics: The Story behind Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is without a doubt one of the most celebrated poets of all time. After her death, more than 1800 of her diary-like poems were found by her sister Lavinia and published throughout the following years. This phenomenal post-humous super star in the literary world gained notarity and popularity not only during the initial publication of her work but continually over time.

The only glitch in the whole story was this: Emily never gave her sister permission to publish her poems. In fact, she once said that "publication is the auction of the mind" and stopped trying to publish her work after publishers tried again and again to edit her work to fit the criteria for poems at that time.

While I'm still not her biggest fan (I'm more of a Keats girl myself) I still have to argue for the rights that Emily was denied in her posthumous publication. (I'd also like to discuss the timing of her publication what that was important in her overall reception as a writer).

Discussing moral ethics and publication is a tricky business. Because we tend to place more emphasis on the work rather than on the author we often forget about the author as being more than just a name tagged on to the end of a title. For instance, there are plenty of Emily Dickinson worshippers out there (yes, worshippers) that would fight tooth and nail for Dickinson as an author, preaching her brilliance and textual genius; however, I bet very few would go as far as to say that Dickinson's works should never have been published because they respect her personally. When I asked the question on my facebook page, I received relatively the same response.

I find it incredibly interesting that Melanie (name changed) felt that the editing was "completely unethical" but the actual publication of Dickinson's work was fine, because she "value[d] the work more than [her] feelings" or regards to publication; yet, Melanie raves about her "idealized view" of Dickinson and how she is "obsessed" with her. I think it would be more correct to say that she is obsessed with the poems of Emily Dickinson, not the woman herself.

Melanie represents one of many who idealize an author, whether that be Emily Dickinson or J.K. Rowling (yes, everything does come back to Harry Potter). But somehow the actual feelings/intentions of the author are overlooked in relation to the work they produce. Think of it like a pyramid. At the bottom is the author, next up comes the produced work, and at the top is the consumer, dictating what it is they want, not what they think is moral or ethical.

In this kind of material production, the reader's desire for the text outweighs the value of the author. Is this ethical? Of course not. But questions of morality and ethics get lost in the sea of consumerism. What the public wants overshadows the author.

Concerning the publication of Dickinson's poems, much of her success is owed to the time that her poems were released to the public (at least that's what I believe). There is something incredibly enticing about reading something that was 1) never meant for you to read and 2) never going to have a follow-up publication (not including various editions of the same work). When Dickinson tried to publish her poems when she was still alive, she was met with rejection. Releasing her poems after her death was like releasing a limited edition of prized item. It was something that everyone wanted.

While efforts have been made to return Dickinson's works to their original format, I have to wonder at how editing contributes to the ethical standpoint of publication. As Melanie commented, the publication of Dickinson's work wasn't the problem, but the editing? Now that's altogether a different story. So why is this? Why do we believe that it's okay to edit something for publication if the author says "Yes, please, edit my work for publication" but it's not okay when an author's work is found in a trunk written on pieces of scrap paper. Why does aura matter so much to the intentionality of a work?

In fact, what makes these

any different from this?

The Death of the Author

“The birth of the reader must be at the death of the Author”
– Roland Barthes

I'd like to highlight some important terms in this quotation that I think play a particularly important role in the realm of textuality.

Reader vs. Author

In Roland Barthes piece on the Death of the Author he makes it quite clear that a work can only truly live once all ties with the author have been cut off. In fact, he even goes as far as to state that "writing begins" only after a "disconnection occurs" between the author and the text (142). I believe that I can say that I disagree with Barthes in a few areas.


We (the class) spend so much time discussing the importance of originality and Benjamin's aura of a work, yet we often overlook the importance of the relationship between the author and the reader. Whereas Barthes believes that giving "a text an author is to impose a limit" on the writing, I believe that it opens up entirely new doors to discovering a text (148). I also don't understand why we're so focused on our reading of the text and how we're going to interpret the writings of someone else's work. It seems to me that we focus more and more on how the elements of textness change our interaction with a novel or a painting or a song or a building (you get the point) that we lose the importance of the author in all of this. So, in fact, I absolutely disagree with Barthes.


I think that the death of the author creates a gap in the work, a void that's missing a vital component. For the most part, an author's life plays a vital factor in the work they produce. As consumers of literature, I don't see how we can sit around and say that the author doesn't matter when there wouldn't be anything to read (look at/listen to) without an author, without a producer of the work.

What would a reader be without material to read? What would an author be without an audience? The two depend on each other. The work is merely the glue that ties the two together. Text is so much more than the words on the page. To cut off the producer or the receiver of the material would be to cut away an essential piece of a text.

Instead of erasing the author as Barthes suggests, we should instead strive to build the elements of textness by infusing the author with the reader as a stepping stone to understanding the greater TEXT.

Leaves of Grass: The Text?

What is the (T/t)ext of Leaves of Grass?

The elements of text are not strictly caged in by the words or the structure of the text but consist of many more facets that make up the Text of the Work. Using Leaves of Grass as a case study, we can pick apart some of these aspects on a broader range, including: context, bitext, epitext, hypertext, and urtext.

Today's versions of Leaves of Grass are rarely if ever displayed without an introduction to Whitman and his work. This background information, whatever it may be, influences the reading of Leaves of Grass in that it changes the initial experience that the audience was meant to have as Whitman intended it. The epitext of Leaves of Grass is also a key factor in the presentation of Whitman’s work and its effect on an audience (and the changes made to its aura and instances of originality). With each new edition of Whitman’s work, whether it is printed, recited, mounted onto a website, etc. changes the nature of the text.

The text of Leaves of Grass has very little to do with the actual words (though that does constitute a part of the greater Text of the work) and much more to do with all of the surrounding elements that add to the development of the work.

Reading Aloud: Elements of "text-ness"

What's the difference between this:

Maybe I Need You by Andrea Gibson

The winter I told you I think icicles are magic

you stole an enormous icicle from a neighbors shingle

and gave it to me as a gift

I kept it in my freezer for seven months

until the day I hurt my foot

I needed something to reduce the swelling

love isn't always magic

sometimes its just melting

or its black and blue

where it hurts the most

last night I saw your ghost

pedaling a bicycle with a basket

towards a moon as full as my heavy head

and i wanted nothing more than to be sitting in that basket

like ET with my glowing heart glowing right through my chest

and my glowing finger pointing in the direction of our home

two years ago I said I never want to write our break up poem

you built me a time capsule full of big league chew

and promised to never burst my bubble

I loved you from our first date at the batting cages

when I missed 23 balls in a row

and you looked at me

like I was a home run in the ninth inning of the world series

now every time I hear the word love I think going going

the first week you were gone

I kept seeing your hand wave goodbye

like a windshield wiper in a flooding car

and the last real moment I believed the hurricane would let me out alive

yesterday i carved your name into the surface of an ice cube

then held it against my heart til it melted into my aching pores

today i cried so hard the neighbors knocked on my door

and asked if I wanted to borrow some sugar

I told them I left my sweet tooth in your belly button

love isn't always magic

but if I offered my life to the magician

if I told her to cut me in half

so tonight I could come to you whole

and ask for you back

would you listen

for this dark alley love song

for the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies

I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak

But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace

if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat

So this is my wheat field

you can have every acre love

this is my garden song

this is my fist fight

with that bitter frost

tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath

the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek

as i sang maybe i need you

off key

but in tune

maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea

maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me

give me one room to come home to

give me the palm of your hand

every strand of my hair is a kite string

and I have been blue in the face with your sky

crying a flood over Iowa so you mother will wake to Venice

lover I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest

now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible

it is the one verse you can trust

so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate

I am setting the table with bread and grace

my knees are bent

like the corner of a page

I am saving your place

and this

Andrea Gibson is known for her spoken poetry. She often performs as you can see above, on a small stage with just her voice and occasionally musical accompaniment. The first time I heard Andrea Gibson, I was sitting on my friend's bed as her steady-paced, emotional performance played from the computer speakers across the room. Now, I can't read or recite the poem without hearing Andrea's voice in my head, noting the pace of her words, the inflection in her voice, and the emotional connection to each phrase. Had I read the poem before listening to it, would my interpretation of the words be different? Absolutely.

A text is so much more than just lines on a page. There are pauses and breaths and gasps and trembling words and EMOTIONS that cannot always make their way onto a page of paper, or a computer screen, or any other visual platform. Elements of textness include more than just the written text, but the surrounding factors such as the performer, the audience, the pace at which something is recited, etc.