The Wayward Nun of Amherst: Emily Dickinson and Medieval Mystical Women (Studies in Major Literary Authors)

This study explores the intriguing correspondences between Emily Dickinson's life and work and those of visionary women of the Middle Ages. Though she could not have been influenced directly by these women's largely "lost" works, her choices about her life and themes are remarkably similar, suggesting that personal circumstances and cultural context directed her in the same way as these earlier female writers. This comparison helps explain why Dickinson would choose reclusion and white clothes, and explains the literary advantages that accrue by pursuing mystical union. Following strategies set down by the medieval women that equate their voices with the revelation of the Divine, Dickinson transforms enclosure to freedom, chastity into eroticism, and total obedience into literary license.