Milli mála - 2019, Blaðsíða 90

90 Milli mála 11/2019
GILDED CR EATUR ES STR A INING A N D DY ING
These persistent tensions and ambiguities in Dickinson’s poetic
treatment of whiteness take on a new dimension when we consider
some of the alliances between whiteness and blondness in mid nine-
teenth-century American culture. There are various ways to approach
such alliances, but focusing on the Jenny Lind phenomenon draws
attention to one of the paramount ideals at the core of them, feminine
purity, ethereality, and innocence.6 As numerous critics and historians
have discussed, blondness carries longstanding feminized connota-
tions of purity, angelic innocence, ethereality, and youth.7 Some crit-
ics have gestured towards a link between Dickinson’s constructions of
whiteness and these associations of blondness, albeit in passing. For
example, Gilbert and Gubar discuss Dickinson’s engagement with
the most famous icon of whiteness in Victorian society, the “angel in
the house,” a persona that has traditionally been a paragon of visual
whiteness on several levels—not only does she typically wear white
clothing, but she is also usually depicted as having pink cheeks and
“celestially golden hair, as if to relate her further to the whiteness of
heaven” (616). Domhnall Mitchell and Judith Pascoe bring a different
angle to this connection through their discussions of Dickinson’s at-
tendance at the Jenny Lind concert. Mitchell argues that part of the
reason Dickinson attended the concert is that Lind personified an
aggregate of symbolizations grounded on notions of purity and vir-
tue, which revolved around light-coloured clothing, racialized white-
ness, and a Northern European heritage—a “social as well as aes-
thetic alignment” (78) in the mid nineteenth-century that appealed
to a certain class of Americans (especially those who feared rising
levels of immigration from areas outside of Northern Europe). Pascoe
also raises these ideas, stating that Lind’s popularity was based
partly on her reputation for feminine purity and virtue, a stature that
was coded through her clothing and appearance, which enabled her
to embody “whiteness beyond reproach” (9). Indeed, no doubt part of
6 Lind truly was a phenomenon, arriving in America in 1850 amid extensive media coverage and
mass enthusiasm. As Pascoe discusses, it would be difficult to overestimate the scope and reach of
her popularity in America: “To attempt to envision the frenzy created by Lind’s tour of America,
it may be necessary to imagine a contemporary Beatles tour with John Lennon restored to life” (2).
Pascoe proceeds to argue that “Jenny Lind, as the most public of public women, served for
Dickinson as both an intriguing and troubling example of the female artist in the marketplace,”
producing a “complex and enduring impact on her conception of herself as an artist” (2).
7 See for example Gelbart (209), Wendy Cooper, Pitman, Joncus (559), and Gitter.