Word: dickinson
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...article in the Boston Globe on Nov. 24 indicated that Melinda T. Koyanis, copyright-and-permissions manager for the Harvard University Press, made a statement to The Crimson about my manuscript, Poetic Work of Emily Dickinson: A Readers' Text. I quote: "Koyanis told The Harvard Crimson that the professor's understanding of the poet was 'inaccurate' and that 'even [his] word choice was wrong...
Funny that a textual scholar of national standing and a leading authority on Dickinson should both overlook problems as fundamental as an inaccurate understanding of the poet and mistaken "word choice" on my part...
...most troubling element of Koyanis' statement is the implied attitude toward the general reader. The idea seems to be that any print version of Dickinson poems designed--like "Final Harvest?" --with the non-specialist in mind threatens the integrity of the poet's work...
...project in part because of the variorum edition that Ralph Franklin is preparing for them. Koyanis asserts that the Harvard Press declined my request because my next amounts merely to "another variant of the typography. The question is," she declares, "How many competing versions do you want?" The typography? Dickinson handwrote her poetry--resisted the printing of verse as editors oversaw it in her day. The growing consensus among scholars in our day is that not only does not authoritative typographic text of Dickinson poems exist, but that no definitive typographic edition is possible...
...final point: who is Melinda T. Koyanis (or the Harvard Press, for that matter) to decide the issue of the number of competing printed versions of Emily Dickinson's poetry? Since when has a copyright-and-permission manager or a university press the right to determine universal standards and rules governing such competition among interpretations? A copyright attorney with whom I consulted noted that while the Harvard University Press can decline to give permissions for whatever reasons it pleases, it does not follow that the Press has the authority to interfere with the publication of alternative typographic interpretations of Dickinson...