Are you -- Nobody -- Too?

Daguerreotype at Mount Holyoke, 1846-1847.

I have no idea of how to say this without sounding small-minded, which means I have to force myself.

Last night, while watching on Youtube a documentary about Emily Dickinson, I realized that I have no interest in her private life; instead, I want to read her images, metaphors, and phrases:

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you -- Nobody -- Too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!

Dickinson is only one among several. I have biographies of Bacon, Keats, Bierce, de la Mare, of so many others, but I never seem drawn to these books as I am drawn to their books; and while someone like Thomas Browne must have lived in a fascinating world, I would rather focus on his perceptions of that world.

People say, "How terrible that we know so little about Shakespeare, about Webster," but the truth is, we know exactly what we need to know, because we have their plays.

I would never deny that the circumstances of a writer's life can illuminate the work, but they can also distract. By the time the sun goes down and the snow hits, what matters are not the small details of a writer's day to day, but the larger patterns of a writer's words.