Three Ladies and a Gentleman on the Frontier: Emily Dickinson, Willa Cather, Edith Warton, and Henry James

Joe Medlicott

Wednesdays, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
September 28 - November 16, 2005
D.O.C. House

"Frontier" is an ambiguous word. It can mean a physical, moral, intellectual, social, or literary boundary. Each writer in this course (pioneers of sorts) addresses this boundary line in ways that will test our imaginations. The reading will range from the rugged open spaces of the western American frontier to the claustrophobic mansions of the privileged in New York city to the pioneering mind of a New England genius who explored the boundary between her own verse and that of her contemporaries — and thus revolutionized the poetic imagination in America.

The readings: Selected Dickinson poems, Cather’s My Antonia and A Lost Lady, Wharton’s The House of Mirth, and Henry James’s Washington Square.

Plan to spend adequate time to read and consider these works with care.

Class is limited to 20 members.

Joe Medlicott is a Dartmouth graduate, with an M.A. from Trinity College and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. He has taught English at several universities; prior to his retirement he was Master of English at Deerfield Academy.