Why a Lexicon for Dickinsons Poems?
An Emily Dickinson lexicon will enable us to translate the complete poems of Emily Dickinson into as many languages as possible; will provide a searchable database that can enhance scholarly research in literary and linguistic forums; will create a concise tool that documents the semantic complexity of Dickinson’s usage; will facilitate the slow reading and philological interpretation of individual poems for readers of Dickinson; will train students in the art and science of lexicography through a hands-on real world apprenticeship. Just as there are tools for Shakespeare studies (Murray’s 1930 Oxford English Dictionary; Schmidt’s 1902 Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary; Spevack’s 1973 Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare), we need tools for Dickinson studies: • Rosenbaum’s 1964 Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. • McKenzie & Gilbert’s 2001 Concordance to the Letters of Emily Dickinson. University Press of Colorado. • Webste
