Abstract
Focusing on poems that observe her own mandate to “Deal with the soul / As with Algebra!” (Fr240), I will analyze some of the ways in which Dickinson uses specific mathematical principles to account for mysteries like death, wonder, the relation of self to God, and the limits of human knowledge. […] in her poetry she brings “circumference” to bear on subjects as diverse as intense physical suffering (“Pain – expands the Time – / Ages coil within / The minute Circumference / Of a single Brain” [Fr833]), the mesmerizing flight of a butterfly (“Her pretty Parasol […] to Nowhere – seemed to go / In purposeless Circumference” [Fr610]), and the spectacle of nightfall (“An ignorance a Sunset / Confer opon the Eye – / Of territory – Color – / Circumference – Decay” [Fr669]).