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I dont in any way say its the authoritative version.
Whats your impression of the show?Id call it extravagantly and wildly anachronistic.
But thats obviously very conscious.
I think Smith wants to blend the past and present.
Shes celebrating Dickinson the badass, as it were.
It fights against gender constraints and depicts her among people, which I really like.
Both of them put her identity and her work as a writer at the forefront of her story.
As long as nobody thinks theyre getting Dickinsons biography, I like its playfulness.
My partner said, Thats Jane Krakowski!
And I said, What in the world would Jane Krakowski be doing here?
And sure enough, it was.
At the end of thefifth episode, Sue gets a letter from Austin and from Emily.
The letter from Emily says, Open me carefully.
I actually know what that real letter said.
She says, Why cant I be a delegate to the great Whig convention?
Dont I know all about Daniel Webster and the tariffs and the law?
Then, Susie, I could see you during a pause in the session.
But I dont like this country at all and I shant stay here any longer.
Very few would now say thats not true.
And many have been unearthing that Dickinson was bold and committed to her art.
I think other artists are waking up to that.
Shes furious that her brother doesnt have to do it.
Did she rail against gender norms in her own family in that way?I do think she did.
She may not have said, Thats bullshit, but maybe she did!
She did feel, very acutely, the gender constraints.
Shell sometimes make cracks in her correspondence with Austin about him being a man and her being a woman.
Maggie Maher, the maid, wasnt in the household until 1869.
But I give something like this much more leeway.
This isnt Ken Burns.
That said, I dont know that Emily was the reason that they got a maid.
I dont know that she complained.
I do know that she already knew how to bake bread by the time Maggie came on the scene.
She won a prize for that.
Her mother, played by Jane Krakowski, is very resentful of her.
And was a genius.
Her father has a very conflicted relationship with Emilys genius.
He says that women who seek literary fame are no better than whores.
I think he both encouraged her reading and writing, and was conflicted about it.
But hewasknown to be very overbearing and powerful.
Theres a joke about her father in one photo, hes staring into the camera and isnt smiling.
The joke is that the photographer said, Can you smile, Mr. Dickinson?
And he said, Iamsmiling.
He was very stern.
But at the same time, the Dickinsons were hospitable.
They held the Amherst College commencement party every year.
They were entertainers, though Susan and Austin eventually took up that mantle.
Would you characterize him as proud of Emily?I think so.
But I dont think he had any idea how much she was writing.
Lavinia may have, and I know Susan was aware of it.
Emily says, Why did you publish poems for our father, but not for me?
Did she actually publish poetry under Austins name?
Or any mans name?No, that is not accurate.
Did she really meetLouisa May Alcott?No.
Louisas father spoke in Amherst in 1878, nearly two decades after this series is set.
But I havent seen any evidence that she was entertained in the Dickinson houses in the 1850s.
She never met Thoreau either.
Did Emily actually loveWaldenthat much?Im not so sure about that.
Hold on a minute, let me walk over to a shelf.
[Checks notes.]
So I can see why the series would use that.
In one of the later episodes, Emily says to Susan, Its metaphor.
And I thought, Is that a message from the creators to the viewers?
Thats something thats gotten attached to her.
She was surrounded by death.
These days, were occasionally with our family members when they die.
But in the 19th century, that happened a lot.
Theyd often be in the presence of somebody dying.
Lets talk about her relationship with Sue.
I know this is your particular area of expertise.
Later, Ben Newton is introduced as a law clerk of her fathers.
And Emily says to Susan, I love Ben almost as much as I love you.
She still puts her love for Sue above that.
That rang very true to me.
I also like how, inWild Nights,Sue says, Youre the one who writes the poems!
In other words, shes worried theyll be found out.
I spilled the dew but took the morn, I chose the single star … Sue forevermore!
Besides naming her beloved Sue, shes linking Sue to the order of the cosmos.
Sue is the star whos chosen from many.
What about their sexual relationship?
Can I prove that they actually had sex?
But it doesnt bother me thatWild NightsandDickinsonboth assert that they did.
Yet, darling, you know it all then why do I seek to tell you?
I do not know.
Shes so passionately in love with Susan.
That suggests, to me, erotic attachment.
She also wrote, We are the only poets, and everyone else is prose.
She sent more poems, letters, and letter-poems to Susan than to any other correspondent.
Everyone thought, Theyre sisters, theyre very close.
Thats how their relationship was received by others.
Its a very intimate thing.
I think people had a sense of how completely devoted to one another they were.
None of the Dickinson family went.
Why?Thats a good question.
Susans aunt hosted it.
And is completely dedicated to her art.
And she sees her calling as a poet as a holy calling.
Even though she really didnt believe in God?Yes, even though she was an agnostic.
Despite the conflict over Sue, she and Austin are depicted as good friends.
InWild Nights, she did absolutely refuse to meet Mabel Loomis Todd, his mistress.
And, of course, shes in love with Susan.
The Lavinia inDickinsonis younger and does capture what I know about her.
She was very flirtatious.
Why is this here?
Opium was used as a painkiller and all of that.
Whether George Gould brought some to Emily to take at a party?
I think thats true.
Lavinia gets fingered at the dinner table, and Austin and Sue have premarital sex.
The whole thing at the dinner table?
I dont think so.
I think its hilarious, but thats an example of playing somewhat fast and loose.
Was there any evidence that Emily and George were romantically involved?They were friends.
He was a very good friend of her brothers, an Amherst college classmate.
Thats really his connection to the Dickinsons, as far as I know.
I seriously doubt they were engaged for a number of reasons.
But you dont believe that?I think the Master Letters were epistolary exercise, fiction.
She was surrounded by that kind of fiction.
That has some basis in somebodys record.
But she was also very social and people liked her.
But thats according to Mabel.
What about the dead baby that Austin digs up in the graveyard?[Laughs.
]That was weird!
Austin and Susan are buried in Wildwood Cemetery, a little outside of Amherst.
Theyre not buried where Edward and Emily Senior and Lavinia are buried.
Might Emily have had a Shakespeare Club?That rings true to me.
She basically employed Susan to go tell her story.
This story is being told, its being retold, and it needs to be told again and again.
Im also so happy to see it recognized that the love of her life was Susan Dickinson.
It brings to the surface and celebrates a powerful love story.
If you read Dickinsons letters, youve got to see that its there.
And that its there in the poetry.
