Anne Edwards’ novel about Emily Dickinson contains several Shakespeare references. The first few are to Shakespeare himself. The story is a love story between Emily Dickinson and Otis Lord, a man much older than her. Edwards writes, “And the memories of the days he had walked with her beneath the apple trees and introduced her to Shakespeare remained his most vivid” (p. 4). A little later Edward writes: “‘So much. There’s Shakespeare. Or rather, the wise owl who introduced us.’ She leaned forward. ‘I could never forget, Otis, our walks when I was still a girl, and how you had memorized so much Shakespeare and recited it to me’” (p. 14). Edwards has Emily mention that again: “‘Remember how you read Shakespeare to me in Boston,’ she said” (p. 17). There is also a reference to Julius Caesar. Emily is watching the court trial of two brothers, Charles and Dwight, accused of murdering their father, and mentions that she read “that it was possible that Brutus had been Caesar’s son” (p. 177). She then goes on to say, “Perhaps it was something like ‘And you, too, Dwight’,” a play on Caesar’s line, “Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar.” There is also a reference to Sonnet 88: “He came to her then and took her in his arms. ‘Such is my love,’ he recited, ‘to thee I so belong, that for thy right myself will bear all wrong… Shakespeare,’ he added and tilted her chin and leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips” (p. 181). The lines Otis has quoted are the last two of the sonnet. The last reference is to Shakespeare again, with Edwards writing: “Emily, Emily – I’ve brought you Shakespeare” (p. 184).
The Hesitant Heart was published in 1974. The copy I read was a hardcover, though I’m not sure if it was a First Edition.
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