SOURCE: "Emily Dickinson: A Poet Restored," in Emily Dickinson: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Richard B. Sewell, Prentice Hall, 1963, pp. 88-100.

In the following essay, originally published in 1956, Ransom provides a general overview of twentieth-century criticism of Dickinson's poetry, noting in particular the impact of Thomas H. Johnson's 1955 edition of Dickinson's verse, as well as the characteristics and major themes of her poetry.

We would have to go a good way back into the present century to find the peak of that furious energy which produced our biggest and most whirling flood of verse in this country. So it is not too foolhardy to make a proposal to the literary historian: Will he not see if the principal literary event of these last twenty years or so has not been the restoration just now of an old poet? Emily Dickinson's life was spanned by the years...