This wide-ranging book focusses on the similarities between Emily Dickinson's poetic forms and the main traditions of evangelical Protestant hymnody in order to offer a full interpretation of both Dickinson's poetry and her religious convictions. Earlier scholarship had stressed the way in which Dickinson's apparently conscious use of standard hymn forms enabled her to subvert the conventional Christianity found in the hymns of main authors like Isaac Watts. Morgan argues that the relationship is much more complex. In her view there is more commonality between Dickinson's and Watts's intentions, more parallels between Dickinson and women hymn writers of her own generation, more self-conscious reformulation of theology in Dickinson's “hymnic poems,” and more deep connections between Dickinson's use (and parody) of standard hymn forms and her self-conception as a poet. The book is sometimes heavy going because of the author's use of in-group jargon (e.g. “heterologous space,” “articulating jouissance,” “Lacanian psychoanalytic theories of subject formation”), and the claim that Dickinson created “spaces” to promote her own opinions is never entirely clear. Yet because it also provides much insight concerning Dickinson's interaction with a wide range of hymns as well as concerning the resonances of her own poems against hymn traditions, patient attention is amply rewarded.

While acknowledging that Dickinson mostly rejected the theological vision that inspired Isaac Watts, Morgan makes a convincing case for Dickinson seeking in her work what Watts sought in his. Just as Watts's hymns were composed as a protest against the standard worship forms of his day and emphasized “autonomy, choice and accessibility,” so “Dickinson's poems articulate dissent and autonomy in relation to representations of the divine within orthodox religion” (83). To be sure, on specific matters like attitudes toward Scripture, there are considerable differences: where Watts treated the Bible as an unquestioned authority, Dickinson wrote ironically that “The Bible is an antique Volume – / Written by faded men” (115). Yet Morgan speculates plausibly that Dickinson drew from Watts inspiration for her own challenge to the religious conventions of her day.

Even more interesting is her consideration of how the poet's work related to hymns written by female hymnists of her own day. She focuses on two of these writers, Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, whom Dickinson probably knew personally, and Eliza Lee Follen, whose Unitarian hymns were well known in the circle of Dickinson's acquaintances. A particularly good discussion examines how Brown's much-reprinted hymn “I love to steal away” was abridged by contemporary editors to obscure the hymn writer's protest against the drudgery of conventional female livelihood. Stanza's cut from the era's hymnbooks included Brown's plaintive lament “I love to steal awhile away/From little ones and care/And spend the hours of setting day/In gratitude and prayer.” Morgan finds much in Dickinson's work that mounts a similar but more extreme protest against domestic and religious conventions. The book contains much more of interest, including Morgan's sensitive explanation of many Dickinson poems, including the bold “Why – do they shut me out of Heaven?/Did I sing too loud?” and her careful study of Dickinson's extensive use of images about bees, both drawn from Scripture and reversing traditional biblical interpretation.