April is National Poetry Month, and in the spring 2018 semester, Elizabethtown College had a special focus on the great American poet Emily Dickinson.
Last month, March 15, the College held an Emily Dickinson concert in Zug Recital Hall.
March 15 also marked the opening of an Emily Dickinson exhibit in the High Library, entitled “A Certain Slant of Light: Envisioning the Works of Emily Dickinson!” The exhibit is open until April 19.
Most recently, April 5, the High Library, the English Department, the Music Department and Sigma Tau Delta sponsored an Emily Dickinson movie night. From 5 – 7p.m. in Gibble auditorium, they screened the film “A Quiet Passion” starring Cynthia Nixon.
Sigma Tau Delta is an international English honor society in which members must have a 3.6 cumulative grade point average, have a major GPA of 3.0, and have taken at least two English courses at Etown beyond their Power of Language requirement.
The motto of the society is “Truth, Sincerity, Design.” Throughout the year, Sigma Tau Delta sponsors community-building events for students.
Instruction and outreach librarian Josh Cohen introduced the film before it began. Having seen it before, he offered his own opinions, then read selections from reviews of the film.
One review called the movie hilarious, to which Cohen jokingly replied, “I would not go that far.”
Regardless, “A Quiet Passion,” written and directed by Terence Davies and released in 2016, received largely positive reviews. It was rated 6.6/10 by IMDb, received 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and 77% on Metacritic.
First-year Noah Munn appreciated the cinematography in the film, especially one scene which expressed the passage of time by aging the characters as they sat for portraits.
However, there were other elements of the film that he was not as pleased with.
“I disliked how every time the character Vryling Buffum came on screen, she became the most interesting character, which is poor storytelling,” Munn said. “Emily is the main character, so you should have the viewer have interest in her, and not the character you’re not telling a story about, and that’s unfortunate because Vryling’s interactions with Dickinson were purely fictional, so they would have been completely avoidable.”
Cohen shared a fact before the film began. In actuality, Miss Buffum was friends with Dickinson’s sister and no evidence of a close relationship with Emily exists. Cohen also disliked the influence over Dickinson that the film portrayed Buffum as having, due to this exaggeration of relationship.
“The organization of the story was atrocious,“ Munn said. “It seemed like I was watching many vignettes of Emily’s life without transitions. There was no main conflict, or sense of rising action. It overall wasn’t very engrossing storytelling.”
Even with flaws in presentation and historical exaggerations, the film acts as one of few biographical films about the life and works of Emily Dickinson.
Junior and Sigma Tau Delta president Elizabeth McIlhenney shared her personal opinion on the film. McIlhenney appreciated the feminist perspective offered by the film’s Dickinson, especially since it was an unpopular perspective to offer at the time. Additionally, she thought the film had other important elements.
“I thought it was interesting, the discussion of beauty. Emily suffers low self-esteem, which many women can relate to,” McIlhenney said.
For any students still looking to celebrate National Poetry Month, there is a display at the High Library, as well as a raffle for a poetry book. To enter, students filled out a slip of paper with their name, as well as their favorite poet or poem.
