Meaning of fame in the 1850s is still the same
Show probes central theme of Dickinson’s work in new season
Since the debut of “Dickinson,” Apple TV+’s quirky and audacious coming-of-age tale featuring 19th century poet Emily Dickinson, creator and showrunner Alena Smith has said her goal with the anachronistic, sometimes hallucinogenic, comedy is to play with the details of Dickinson’s life, and the themes that emerged in her writings, to reflect on the realities of today. The events of 2020, she said, had an influence on season three, which was largely written during the summer and fall. But for now, the show is focused on stardom.
The series, which features Hailee Steinfeld as the literary figure in her 20s, spent much of the first season exploring how patriarchy stifled Emily’s aspirations to become a published writer. The second season considers how Emily’s ambivalence about fame may also have been a factor in why the majority of her work was largely unpublished in her lifetime.
This interview with Smith has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: The thrust of the new season is Dickinson’s struggle with the idea of notoriety.
A: We wrote about fame in this season because it is a central theme of Emily Dickinson’s work. I am approaching Dickinson much more from a literary theory perspective than a biography. From a literary theory perspective, you can ask the question: What does her body of work have to say about fame? And what do the strategies that she used as a writer, which are often a complex blend of showing up and hiding, what does that mean for that to be the drive of someone? Many, many, many stories have been told that are like: “I’m a young artist, and I’m going to go to the big city and make it.” And in a way, this is our version of that story for this character of Emily Dickinson. And it’s funny because, in a way, the big city is just Sue and Austin’s house next door and all the VIPs.
Emily is torn in both directions. She’s not just this figure of externalized ambition — “I’m gonna go to the big city and make it and put my name out there.” She wants to do all that, but at the same time that can also become her worst nightmare, and she wants to run all the way back to her bedroom and shut the door and not be seen by anybody. To me, that’s the tension that makes her such a fascinating figure, both biographically and in her body of work.
What fame meant to Emily in the 1850s is the same, in certain ways, as what it means to us now. All of us right now experience these issues about visibility and being seen and broadcasting our own lives on steroids. And now the pandemic has kicked that up by a million because now we only exist online, we only exist in the projections that we put out of ourselves. But, also, it has felt as if there has been a flattening of the curve. We’ve all gotten used to seeing celebrities on Zoom. It’s an interesting time to be looking at a figure like Emily — biographically, but also the character that Hailee plays in our show. She is wrestling with this question of fame and asking: What’s wrong with being a nobody? In fact, is there power in anonymity? Is there power in invisibility?
Q: The nature of Dickinson’s relationship with Sue Gilbert, her childhood best friend who later married her brother, has been the source of much scholarly intrigue. In “Dickinson,” the romance between the pair is hardly vague, but nevertheless remains complicated.
A: Here we have a real historical relationship. If people want spoilers: Spoiler, they lived next door to each other for their entire lives, and Emily wrote unbelievable love poems to her. …
It always challenges the meaning of what does it mean to have a happy ending? What does it mean to end up with someone? Even in a marriage, there’s oscillating times of closeness and distance. I’ll also quote our wonderful director, Silas Howard, who directed four episodes in season two and is coming (on) to be our producing director in season three. He said, “If you want unrequited love, you can’t do better than falling in love with your brother’s wife.” (Emily and Sue) are the most amazing combination of utterly doomed and tragic, but also, you can’t get a happier ending — I love you, you inspire me, and we get to always live next door to each other and write to each other and take
care of each other, and we’re family.
Q: You spent much of last year working on the third season, conducting a writers room over Zoom.
A: There’s definitely been so many uncanny ways in which the premise of this show, which uses the 19th century in America to look at where we are today, has just become, at times, overwhelmingly, painfully acute. Certainly, when we were in our writers room of season three, which was over the summer, that was during the significant protests and uprisings around the death of George Floyd.
I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about, and living with the ways that America has not successfully confronted the trauma of the past and that is what “Dickinson” is about. When I pitched the show, we knew that it was leading up to the Civil War. I guess I would say the central theme of season three is: If you can’t look honestly at your past, you cannot go to a better future. And that feels like that’s what’s true about our country right now and that’s the whole reason for doing a kind of experimental period show.
Q: Do you expect to end the series after next season?
A: When there was this three-season plan in the pitch, it was to assure Apple that like, yes, there were three seasons’ worth of story about Emily Dickinson (to tell) because that’s not necessarily something that anyone would believe. I think that I’ve designed season three so that it would, I think, be a satisfying conclusion. But I think in this world, you never know. … And there’s more to tell because Emily is such a rich well of important and relevant themes. But I will also say that I’m looking forward to making a show that’s not about Emily Dickinson. Listen, I love this so much, but I think there was definitely also a perception that I wrote the show only because I was an Emily Dickinson person and that’s totally not true. I would like to write something that’s not period and not biographical. We’ll see.