Writing for posterity: Editing, evidence, and sequence in Dickinson's composition and circulation of poems

The evidence of Dickinson's extant manuscripts and the apparent sequence in which she copied poems to retain or circulate indicate that Dickinson wrote poetry not primarily to communicate with particular individuals but for posterity-or because such copying satisfied both her need to write and a desire that her poems survive their immediate context. This essay bases its conclusions on an examination of the sequence of her composition, copying, and circulation of poems, to the extent that we can know it, and the misleading implications of Ralph W. Franklin's choice always to print a poem as circulated before that poem's retained version, when sequence is not clear. It also examines Dickinson's changing use of the fascicle booklets to include alternatives and revisions as significant to understanding her composition process. Together, this evidence suggests that for the vast majority of her poems circulation is not an intermediary stage in her composition (before copying a poem to retain) or her primary impetus for writing. For Dickinson, writing poetry was essential to her thinking and living in a vibrantly interesting and conflict-riven world. The typical sequence of her recording and circulating poems indicates that her most important audiences for the poems generally (albeit not for every individual poem) are, first, herself and then the future "Hands she cannot see" addressed in her "letter to the World."