Emily Dickinson’s Instagram

Could this be Emily Dickinson today using her retro film camera for her Instagram account?

Emily Dickinson’s 19th Century
Instagram Feed

“It is sobering to contemplate the fact that her known correspondents number ninety-three.”
~The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard B. Sewell

If Emily Dickinson were alive today, she would be a master at social media with a boatload of friends on Facebook and thousands of followers on Instagram. I certainly would follow her Instagram feed as she shared her life in her gorgeous house The Homestead on 280 Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Do the math. Dickinson corresponded with ninety-three people, wrote 1,789 poems currently edited and published, and add to the equation, the recent discovery of bits and scraps of paper, receipts and envelopes that fell out of various archives marking a recent addition to her opus. We now have a whole world of newly discovered poems in various stages of composition.

This twin explosion of creativity and letter writing belies our judgment that Dickinson’s life lacked social engagement

Letter writing in the 19th century equals having a large social media presence in the 21st century. Sewell notes Lavinia Norcross Dickinson, Emily’s sister, burned all of her papers after she died and Sewell believes Emily Dickinson corresponded with more people who will remain unknown or undiscovered. Much of Dickinson’s life is redacted by her sister’s actions.

The takeaway is this—Dickinson spent a large part of her life writing people letters forging connections and relationships with at least ninety-three people. Writing letters is a social activity. She was not a lonely, shy and reclusive, but reached out using the social media of her day, also known as writing letters, a labor intensive process.

Her 19th century social engagement has a 21st century counterpart. We do not have to leave our houses to be connected with the world and neither did Dickinson. We communicate in a virtual world and can live a life without ever seeing one person except though Zoom. Our self-imposed isolation facilitated by technology is applauded and accepted, while her retreat is demonized.

Why the relentless harsh judgment of Dickinson’s choice to live a more insular life? Did she really have time to have tea and gossip with the women of a small New England town? Wasn’t her time better spent writing her poetry? Obviously, she found her cohort and companionship through letter writing.

Really, tell the truth and don’t tell it slant. How many Facebook friends are truly friends? Is a like on Instagram equal to having coffee with a friend in person? Can our engagement with social media yield the kind of closeness and kinship that comes though years and years of correspondence?

It’s not hard to construct an imaginary trajectory of Emily Dickinson’s Facebook posts, Instagram feeds or blogposts.

Let me riff a bit.

Imagine Dickinson sharing her recipes for black cake, gingerbread and currant wine.

Imagine pics of Emily Dickinson gardening and sharing her tips on how to propagate day lilies.

Imagine Dickinson sharing what is currently in bloom in her perennial garden: foxgloves, trailing arbutus, asters and morning glories.

Imagine Dickinson baking pies from apples picked from the orchard on 14 acres of the family property.

Imagine Dickinson sharing her favorite poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Or any other literary discovery she encountered her family’s library of 2,500 volumes.

For example, I was shocked when reading one of her poems that she knew the Hope Diamond was mined in Golconda, India. She could write a blogpost sharing this information. I had to Google it. Golconda is an island off the coast of India.

Imagine Dickinson sharing pages from her herbarium.

Imagine Dickinson posting a poem-a-day on Facebook, just like many poets do today.

Imagine a post explaining her writing process and defending her radical theory on the use of punctuation.

I would love a series of pics of Dickinson taking envelopes out of her pockets and writing a poem on it as she went about managing the household for her family, which, by the way, was a full-time job in the 19th century.

Imagine Dickinson sharing the daily escapades of Lavinia’s many cats including Drummydoodles, Tabby, Buffy and Toostie. Every savvy social media guru knows posts of cats would increase her followers.

Imagine Dickinson sharing her observations of the natural world as she was dialed into nature with an intensity that rivaled Thoreau, but used poetry to share her experiences.

Imagine Dickinson sharing her experiences falling in love as she desired many people.

I would love to see the dresses in her closet because that emblematic white dress we all think she wore all the time is only a duster, a sort of apron, or lab coat that she wore when she gardened, according to the docent at the Emily Dickinson house. The white dress, a common gardening uniform, was easier to wash than any other item of clothing. Personally, the white dress annoys me.

Just what was her fashion sense? Casual or formal? Frilly or classic? I would love to know her sense of style.

For me, its time to dispense with the brand that Dickinson was a shrinking violet, a lonely spinster and the New England Nun. My imagined Emily Dickinson’s Instagram feed tells of a complex, creative, inventive and hyper-engaged-with-the-world life. Anyone who writes letters to ninety-three people is never alone.