Science in Emily Dickinson: Uncovering Circumference

English

Beckham, Aly

Manheim, Daniel (Mentor)

English

During Dickinson’s lifetime in the mid-19th century, as Fred White says, science was transforming the world, and the conception of humanity’s place in it. Scientific pursuits and findings were becoming society’s new “Holy Grail in the quest for certainty.” The new emphasis on empiricism, or the belief that knowledge can only be verified by observation or experience and not thought or logic, characterized scientific thinking, and epistemological questions of what constitutes knowledge permeated intellectual circles. The nineteenth century saw an evolution in science’s definition to mean, as J.A.V. Chapple says, “the systematic study of the material and natural universe.” This affected Dickinson’s writing and her thinking on the nature of fact and truth. Through the investigations conducted in her poems, Dickinson studies the world around her. Dickinson, however, is concerned with capturing the unknowable nature of the phenomena she examines, content to leave many questions open-ended.