The Possibility of Happiness in Emily Dickinson's Writings

This study investigates how Emily Dickinson's writings challenged major representations of happiness in nineteenth-century America, such as theological, sentimental, and transcendental. Although the pursuit of happiness, or a life worth living, has been a global concern for millennia, with roots in numerous cultural and religious traditions, its definition remains - and may always remain - elusive. Happiness, however, was declared a right to be pursued by all citizens in the Declaration of Independence. In the nineteenth century, the classical concept of eudaimonia had transformed and evolved into a sentimental concept in which happiness was reified either as a reward in the future or as a positive emotion in the present. Likewise, this idea was grounded in the literary tradition of the trial narrative which, simultaneously, was influenced by, or rooted in, theological interpretations of the notion. Despite the fact that these conceptions of happiness have largely shaped interpretations and judgements of Dickinson's work, I argue that the poet's views on a life worth living were more akin to pre-Socratic tragic interpretations of the idea, since the poet's writings valued the contingency of life, the gift of mortality, and the possibility of happiness in this life. By placing the poet's writings in conversation with her nineteenth-century broader context, this study aims to identify some of the strategies that Dickinson used to dismiss nineteenth-century's reified representations of happiness. This study is thus rooted in the belief that Dickinson's ways of writing, thinking, and living may provide a new perspective on the path to a better understanding of what it means to live a life worth living.