Wichita State English professor Adam Scheffler is an Emily Dickinson superfan. But he thinks that’s a bit ironic since Dickinson cherished anonymity, not popularity. He explains in today’s Why Should I Read This?
Surprisingly, being a nobody is often a good thing in literature. Odysseus told the Cyclops that his name was “Nobody” to escape being eaten, and James Gatz would have lived longer if he’d never become the Great Gatsby. But Emily Dickinson’s 1861 poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” shows us that, beyond being better for our long-term health prospects, being a Nobody also allows for clandestine, intimate connections with others, as Dickinson follows up her opening question by whispering hopefully into our ear, “Are you - Nobody too?” Then, to coax us further away from fame, she ends with what reads like a prophetic smackdown of social media influencers, written 150 years before Instagram: “How dreary - to be - Somebody! / How public - like a Frog / To tell your name - the livelong June -/ To an admiring Bog!”
