My Wars are laid away in Books--
I have one Battle more--
A Foe whom I have never seen
But oft has scanned me o'er--
And hesitated me between
And others at my side,
But chose the best-- Neglecting me-- till
All the rest have died--
How sweet if I am not forgot
By Chums that passed away--
Since Playmates at threescore and ten
Are such a scarcity--
(F 1578)
This poem is a good example of the unexpected reversals found in Dickinson's work. The poem begins rather vaguely, about wars "laid away in books," using the enigmatic language that either has the reader intrigued or utterly confused (or both). The reader is told that this final war is between the speaker and a foe that chose others while leaving her behind. All signs point to death as this foe, a sort of grim reaper in contrast to other poems which personify death as a gentleman. Death in this poem is random or calculating, a separating force. There is a sense of respect for death, for the speaker claims that death has previously "chose best" in selecting others to take.
The unexpected reversal comes in the second part of this poem, when the persona claims in lines 9-12 that it will be "sweet" if s/he is not forgotten by those who have already passed away because playmates are so hard to find in older age. Typically the reader would think of the person still living, such as the speaker, as the person who would remember those who have passed on. In the second half of this poem Dickinson inverts this expectation. Here, the speaker longs for the dead playmates to remember him or her.
Dickinson, through her speaker, expresses the loneliness of being the survivor. Rather than feeling that the deceased are lonely in their graves or perhaps missing the companionship of a lost friend, this speaker feels personal loneliness and expressed a desire to be united in friendship beyond death again. Perhaps Dickinson is implying that this final war the speaker must face-- the war with death-- is already won because there is no fear or regret in the speaker's mind?
Showing posts with label isolation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label isolation. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Did We abolish Frost
Did We abolish Frost
The Summer would not cease--
If Seasons perish or prevail
Is optional with Us--
(F 1024)
Yet another of Dickinson's briefest of poems, and one that doesn't really rhyme. This particular poem can be interpreted as the desire to control nature, and by proxy the passage or progression of time. If people were to do away with the cold frost, the summer could linger on. There is a desire for control, to dominate that which people cannot rule-- seasons and time. Dickinson draws on this universal desire, the desire to control what is beyond controlling, to create a point at which her audience can connect with the poem. People do not care about the seasons, they don't care for change. They certainly don't care for the things which the frost represents, namely the archetype of death. The frost may also represent an entombment, isolation and a prison keeping one from contact with the outside world.
Ironically, the endurance or end of a season is not optional for anyone. The poem unveils the fallacy of thinking that control is possible. In the first two lines Dickinson uses the familiar desire to resist change as the familiar point for her reader. In the last lines, however, a careful reading reveals the unexpected reversal-- people have no option but to accept the seasons. The speaker does not overtly state this, but rather uses a fallacy to set up the reader into suddenly remembering that the seaons will never be controlled by humans, and therefore humans are forever subject to its fullness, both in life and light of summer and the dark, death, and isolation of winter.
The Summer would not cease--
If Seasons perish or prevail
Is optional with Us--
(F 1024)
Yet another of Dickinson's briefest of poems, and one that doesn't really rhyme. This particular poem can be interpreted as the desire to control nature, and by proxy the passage or progression of time. If people were to do away with the cold frost, the summer could linger on. There is a desire for control, to dominate that which people cannot rule-- seasons and time. Dickinson draws on this universal desire, the desire to control what is beyond controlling, to create a point at which her audience can connect with the poem. People do not care about the seasons, they don't care for change. They certainly don't care for the things which the frost represents, namely the archetype of death. The frost may also represent an entombment, isolation and a prison keeping one from contact with the outside world.
Ironically, the endurance or end of a season is not optional for anyone. The poem unveils the fallacy of thinking that control is possible. In the first two lines Dickinson uses the familiar desire to resist change as the familiar point for her reader. In the last lines, however, a careful reading reveals the unexpected reversal-- people have no option but to accept the seasons. The speaker does not overtly state this, but rather uses a fallacy to set up the reader into suddenly remembering that the seaons will never be controlled by humans, and therefore humans are forever subject to its fullness, both in life and light of summer and the dark, death, and isolation of winter.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
There's a certain Slant of light
One of Dickinson's great gifts in writing poetry is her ability to find language to recreate an experience for the reader. Through word choice and metaphor she creates not merely a description of emotion and the human condition, but she forces the reader to remember-- very literally the reader re-members. Breaking down remember to its elements: "re", as in doing again like repeating or retrail; combined with "member" or actively involving in something. Thus, the audience is transported from reader to actor as Dickinson uses words to cause the audience to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel the very core of emotions-- often at their most raw:
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
But internal difference--
Where the Meanings, are--
None may teach it-- Any--
'Tis the Seal Despair--
An imperial affliction
Sent of us the Air--
When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Shadows-- hold their breath--
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death
(F 320)
Through this poem, Dickinson creates the experience of depression (and argueably of Seasonal Affective Disorder). She uses strong verbs like "oppresses" and nouns like 'heft", "hurt", "scar" "Despair" and "affliction" to create a stark picture of the soul-wearying, exhausting trial of depression. In this case, the depression renders the speaker incapacitated, which Dickinson describes through synesthesia in the first stanza: "There's a certain slant of light, / ... That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes" (1, 3-4). This is yet another example of Dickinson's skill in bending language as mere light, ironically which one would expect to be physically light or not wearying, oppresses like the weight of a pipe organ, or the "Cathedral Tunes". Dickinson blends nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs through metaphor into a super-charged metaphor of crushing power, and all this in just the first stanza.
I'll probably take up this poem again later, too. I know I'm saying that a lot, but I will get back to it.
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
But internal difference--
Where the Meanings, are--
None may teach it-- Any--
'Tis the Seal Despair--
An imperial affliction
Sent of us the Air--
When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Shadows-- hold their breath--
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death
(F 320)
Through this poem, Dickinson creates the experience of depression (and argueably of Seasonal Affective Disorder). She uses strong verbs like "oppresses" and nouns like 'heft", "hurt", "scar" "Despair" and "affliction" to create a stark picture of the soul-wearying, exhausting trial of depression. In this case, the depression renders the speaker incapacitated, which Dickinson describes through synesthesia in the first stanza: "There's a certain slant of light, / ... That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes" (1, 3-4). This is yet another example of Dickinson's skill in bending language as mere light, ironically which one would expect to be physically light or not wearying, oppresses like the weight of a pipe organ, or the "Cathedral Tunes". Dickinson blends nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs through metaphor into a super-charged metaphor of crushing power, and all this in just the first stanza.
I'll probably take up this poem again later, too. I know I'm saying that a lot, but I will get back to it.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Fame is a bee
I'm not sure what Dickinson's thing with bees was. I think I saw an article about it, possibly entitled "In the name of the Bee," which is the title of one of her poems. At any rate, bees are a common theme, symbolizing in today's poem the nature of the insect as industrious, menacing, and fleeting:
Fame is a bee.
It has a song--
It has a sting--
Ah, too, it has a wing.
(F 1788)
Just the other day I read an article on AOL news about one of the American Idols, and the article suggested this former idol was trying to escape the fall from interest that former contestants like Fantasia Barion and Rueben Studdard have endured. Overall, our interest in celebs tends to follow trends. I doubt that in more than a few years that quasi-celebs like Octomom or Jon and Kate Gosselin will be much heard from.
Dickinson's poem is ardently true in both the cases of Nadya Suleman and the Gosselins. All found fame under what seemed a song. In Suleman's case, this was the birth of surviving octuplets. In the case of the Gosselins, it was their family of eight-- twins and then sextuplets-- and their struggles and successes in raising the children. And quickly with Suleman, the sting of fame made itself known as the circumstances around the conception of the children, all invitro including her six previous children, were made known. Recently the sting of fame has hit the Gosselin family, too, as Jon and Kate are seeking divorce. Both Suleman and the Gosselins have become almost daily fodder for gossip magazines, and neither they nor any of their children seem to be able to find any privacy from the constant attention from paparazzi.
It seems perfectly logical that the "wing" of fame may soon make itself known. As soon as Suleman and the Gosselins fail to make the photogs and writers money, their five minutes of fame will end. They will be relegated to the history pages, the scandal or intrigue long gone.
Perhaps this is again why Dickinson so shyed away from public life. Part of me wants to believe that she knew how brilliant she was, that she understood she had a great gift. And maybe she chose her life of semi-isolation as her own buffer, to protect herself against the sting and the wing of fame. If left alone, the bee will produce something exceptionally better than a sting-- namely honey. By stepping back from fame and letting it flitter past, Dickinson achieved far greater rewards, a longer lasting and sweeter legacy (even if her poems can still often contain sting that would rival the bee's).
Fame is a bee.
It has a song--
It has a sting--
Ah, too, it has a wing.
(F 1788)
Just the other day I read an article on AOL news about one of the American Idols, and the article suggested this former idol was trying to escape the fall from interest that former contestants like Fantasia Barion and Rueben Studdard have endured. Overall, our interest in celebs tends to follow trends. I doubt that in more than a few years that quasi-celebs like Octomom or Jon and Kate Gosselin will be much heard from.
Dickinson's poem is ardently true in both the cases of Nadya Suleman and the Gosselins. All found fame under what seemed a song. In Suleman's case, this was the birth of surviving octuplets. In the case of the Gosselins, it was their family of eight-- twins and then sextuplets-- and their struggles and successes in raising the children. And quickly with Suleman, the sting of fame made itself known as the circumstances around the conception of the children, all invitro including her six previous children, were made known. Recently the sting of fame has hit the Gosselin family, too, as Jon and Kate are seeking divorce. Both Suleman and the Gosselins have become almost daily fodder for gossip magazines, and neither they nor any of their children seem to be able to find any privacy from the constant attention from paparazzi.
It seems perfectly logical that the "wing" of fame may soon make itself known. As soon as Suleman and the Gosselins fail to make the photogs and writers money, their five minutes of fame will end. They will be relegated to the history pages, the scandal or intrigue long gone.
Perhaps this is again why Dickinson so shyed away from public life. Part of me wants to believe that she knew how brilliant she was, that she understood she had a great gift. And maybe she chose her life of semi-isolation as her own buffer, to protect herself against the sting and the wing of fame. If left alone, the bee will produce something exceptionally better than a sting-- namely honey. By stepping back from fame and letting it flitter past, Dickinson achieved far greater rewards, a longer lasting and sweeter legacy (even if her poems can still often contain sting that would rival the bee's).
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The going from a world we know
Death is a common topic in Dickinson's poetry. In his Dickinson biography My Wars are Laid Away in Books Alfred Habegger recounts many incidents of Dickinson's childhood where death was prominent. Child mortality rates were much higher, and the Dickinsons were often cautioned to keep careful watch over their children, often keeping a young Emily and at times their youngest child, Lavinia, from school for fear of the slightest illness. It is known that Emily Dickinson witnessed the death of a child when she was still young, and it seems to have made a strong imprint upon her mind.
The mystery of the journey between life and what lies beyond seems to fascinate the poet, and much of her writing muses upon possibilities. Sometimes it is a carriage ride, sometimes darker. But always it is a trek into the unknown and unfamiliar, and the poems pose far more questions than any solace they seek to create:
The going from a world we know
To one a wonder still
Is like a child's adversity
Whose vista is a hill,
Behind the hill is sorcery
And everything unknown,
But will the secret compensate
For climbing it alone?
(F 1662)
"Sorcery" is a loaded image in this poem, indicating that the appearance of the world might not match reality. It implies there is misleading, possibly with malicious intent. Again, I can't help but wonder if this is Dickinson's way of snubbing religion, suggesting that "heaven" might to be all that the Bible leads the reader to believe. There are tones of doubt that are cleverly disguised with one of Dickinson's most stable and most interlocking rhyme schemes (ABCBCDED). A consistent and more direct rhyme lend the poem and sing-song rhythm that puts the reader at ease and lowers his or her guard.
In fact, it should only amplify the reader's suspicions that perhaps the final two lines really indicate that nothing in this manipulated and illusory world that exists over the hill or just beyond life is really worth the pain of separation and isolation in climbing the hill alone. What started as a similie that seems to be offered in comfort-- facing death is like spying the hill and wondering what lies beyond-- has terminated in distrust and uncertainty. Are the risks of deception worth the separation? Dickinson's tone indicates that the risks are not worth it, but she and the unknown speaker leave this final conclusion for the reader to decide.
I do wonder, though, if this poem could also be viewed as the soul considering entering the world, pre-birth. Looking at the poem as a soul pre-incarnate it could be viewed as a play off of William Blake's The Book of Thel, considering whether it is good to remain as is, in heaven and innocent, or whether to risk the toils and pains of earth and to be born into a human body. I wish I could discuss this with Dickinson. Possibly she meant the poem to read as I have previously interpreted it-- as the person considering death and what might lie beyond-- but I still wonder if maybe she was aiming for the pre-incarnate soul as well.
The mystery of the journey between life and what lies beyond seems to fascinate the poet, and much of her writing muses upon possibilities. Sometimes it is a carriage ride, sometimes darker. But always it is a trek into the unknown and unfamiliar, and the poems pose far more questions than any solace they seek to create:
The going from a world we know
To one a wonder still
Is like a child's adversity
Whose vista is a hill,
Behind the hill is sorcery
And everything unknown,
But will the secret compensate
For climbing it alone?
(F 1662)
"Sorcery" is a loaded image in this poem, indicating that the appearance of the world might not match reality. It implies there is misleading, possibly with malicious intent. Again, I can't help but wonder if this is Dickinson's way of snubbing religion, suggesting that "heaven" might to be all that the Bible leads the reader to believe. There are tones of doubt that are cleverly disguised with one of Dickinson's most stable and most interlocking rhyme schemes (ABCBCDED). A consistent and more direct rhyme lend the poem and sing-song rhythm that puts the reader at ease and lowers his or her guard.
In fact, it should only amplify the reader's suspicions that perhaps the final two lines really indicate that nothing in this manipulated and illusory world that exists over the hill or just beyond life is really worth the pain of separation and isolation in climbing the hill alone. What started as a similie that seems to be offered in comfort-- facing death is like spying the hill and wondering what lies beyond-- has terminated in distrust and uncertainty. Are the risks of deception worth the separation? Dickinson's tone indicates that the risks are not worth it, but she and the unknown speaker leave this final conclusion for the reader to decide.
I do wonder, though, if this poem could also be viewed as the soul considering entering the world, pre-birth. Looking at the poem as a soul pre-incarnate it could be viewed as a play off of William Blake's The Book of Thel, considering whether it is good to remain as is, in heaven and innocent, or whether to risk the toils and pains of earth and to be born into a human body. I wish I could discuss this with Dickinson. Possibly she meant the poem to read as I have previously interpreted it-- as the person considering death and what might lie beyond-- but I still wonder if maybe she was aiming for the pre-incarnate soul as well.
Monday, August 24, 2009
I stepped from Plank to Plank
I stepped from Plank to Plank
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea--
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch--
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience--
(F 926)
The trouble with so many parts of life is that we can learn and learn, but the time come when we must step out into our own experience. Some people are bold and jump "plank to plank," while others take the "slow and cautious way," feeling out the path before them. It would be all well and good if the planks remained steady and sure and predictable. Life, however, is anything but steady and sure and predictable.
Dickinson's acute observations about the harrowing aspects of experience show her ability to tap into fears and distill them into a single poem. In eight lines she perfectly describes the uncertainty that we all face when we step into the unfamiliar-- whether the unfamiliar is going off on our own into world, being left to fully master a new skill, or even face the risk that is love. Every part of life requires risk. There is the chance the next step will not be there, that the persona will fall on his or her face. Trips and stumbles and free-falls happen. But life cannot happen without risk.
No matter how much Dickinson may have seemed to be isolated in her home in Amherst and distanced from the world, even she realizes that risk is necessary. That the "precarious Gait" is innate in the human experience called life. We stumble and fumble and trip along our way. And maybe someday we learn and risk enough to run.
A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
About my Feet the Sea--
I knew not but the next
Would be my final inch--
This gave me that precarious Gait
Some call Experience--
(F 926)
The trouble with so many parts of life is that we can learn and learn, but the time come when we must step out into our own experience. Some people are bold and jump "plank to plank," while others take the "slow and cautious way," feeling out the path before them. It would be all well and good if the planks remained steady and sure and predictable. Life, however, is anything but steady and sure and predictable.
Dickinson's acute observations about the harrowing aspects of experience show her ability to tap into fears and distill them into a single poem. In eight lines she perfectly describes the uncertainty that we all face when we step into the unfamiliar-- whether the unfamiliar is going off on our own into world, being left to fully master a new skill, or even face the risk that is love. Every part of life requires risk. There is the chance the next step will not be there, that the persona will fall on his or her face. Trips and stumbles and free-falls happen. But life cannot happen without risk.
No matter how much Dickinson may have seemed to be isolated in her home in Amherst and distanced from the world, even she realizes that risk is necessary. That the "precarious Gait" is innate in the human experience called life. We stumble and fumble and trip along our way. And maybe someday we learn and risk enough to run.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
To put this World down, like a Bundle--
Emily Dickinson's seclusion has become one of the most readily remembered parts of her life. To a certain degree, I believe she chose it as a way of protecting her gift. It gave her time to cultivate her talents in ways that could not happen if she had been more engaged in public life. And yet, she took it to an extreme.
To put this World down, like a Bundle--
And walk steady, away,
Requires Energy-- possibly Agony--
'Tis the Scarlet way
Trodden with straight renunciation
By the Son of God--
Later, his faint Confederates
Justify the Road--
Flavors of that old Crucifixion--
Filaments of Bloom, Pontius Pilate sowed--
Strong Clusters, from Barabbas' Tomb--
Sacraments, Saints took before us--
Patent, every drop,
With the Brand of the Gentile Drinker
Who indorsed the Cup--
(F 404)
In a typical Dickinson paradox, the world is a "bundle" to be put down, like a burden, and at the same time it holds a sacred value of sacrament. The common and the eternal are united, bonded with pain and perseverance. Perhaps this is an indication that Dickinson saw her vocation and isolation as a poet to be sacred and to be her own crucifixion. That again takes the poem into the category of autobiography. No doubt much of her views and attitudes leak into her poems, but perhaps the poem itself extends far beyond the shades of biography.
The world and its demands are often a burden. Ironically the allusion to Christ only complicates this comparison. His delight was to do the will of the father that he was assigned, as he often mentions in the Bible. And yet, the story of his turmoil in the Garden of Gethsemane certain shows the extreme burden that the world created.
Such a comparison between struggles of others and the struggls of Christ make the reader wonder exactly what Dickinson may be implying about religion in this poem. She refers to the "Gentile Drinker / Who indorsed the cup", which seems to come into conflict with the sacrament of Communion, which is traditionally seen as instituted by Christ and later taken up by Paul, both Jews. Perhaps she did mean to imply that the burdens of the world were imposed on others and not originally meant to be religious. Taken in this context, the burdens might be those very things that we impose upon ourselves and the things that others impose upon us.
Certainly Dickinson was no stranger to burdens, having to deal with her mother's poor health, the complicated issues with her brother and his mistress, and even the passing of her beloved nephew, Gib. Heartache, pain, and burdens were no stranger to her, and it seems that Dickinson felt all these things very deeply and intensely. Life was fragile, and this attitude is reflected in much of her poetry and in her letters as she writes "In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well, lest one stumble upon one's hopes in a pile of broken crockery" (Wineapple 66). Like so much else, her exact meanings remain nebulous and attempts to reconcile her writing with definite meanings and explanations are difficult.
To put this World down, like a Bundle--
And walk steady, away,
Requires Energy-- possibly Agony--
'Tis the Scarlet way
Trodden with straight renunciation
By the Son of God--
Later, his faint Confederates
Justify the Road--
Flavors of that old Crucifixion--
Filaments of Bloom, Pontius Pilate sowed--
Strong Clusters, from Barabbas' Tomb--
Sacraments, Saints took before us--
Patent, every drop,
With the Brand of the Gentile Drinker
Who indorsed the Cup--
(F 404)
In a typical Dickinson paradox, the world is a "bundle" to be put down, like a burden, and at the same time it holds a sacred value of sacrament. The common and the eternal are united, bonded with pain and perseverance. Perhaps this is an indication that Dickinson saw her vocation and isolation as a poet to be sacred and to be her own crucifixion. That again takes the poem into the category of autobiography. No doubt much of her views and attitudes leak into her poems, but perhaps the poem itself extends far beyond the shades of biography.
The world and its demands are often a burden. Ironically the allusion to Christ only complicates this comparison. His delight was to do the will of the father that he was assigned, as he often mentions in the Bible. And yet, the story of his turmoil in the Garden of Gethsemane certain shows the extreme burden that the world created.
Such a comparison between struggles of others and the struggls of Christ make the reader wonder exactly what Dickinson may be implying about religion in this poem. She refers to the "Gentile Drinker / Who indorsed the cup", which seems to come into conflict with the sacrament of Communion, which is traditionally seen as instituted by Christ and later taken up by Paul, both Jews. Perhaps she did mean to imply that the burdens of the world were imposed on others and not originally meant to be religious. Taken in this context, the burdens might be those very things that we impose upon ourselves and the things that others impose upon us.
Certainly Dickinson was no stranger to burdens, having to deal with her mother's poor health, the complicated issues with her brother and his mistress, and even the passing of her beloved nephew, Gib. Heartache, pain, and burdens were no stranger to her, and it seems that Dickinson felt all these things very deeply and intensely. Life was fragile, and this attitude is reflected in much of her poetry and in her letters as she writes "In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well, lest one stumble upon one's hopes in a pile of broken crockery" (Wineapple 66). Like so much else, her exact meanings remain nebulous and attempts to reconcile her writing with definite meanings and explanations are difficult.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Riddle that we guess
One of the fascinating things, to me, about Emily Dickinson is the fact that so little is actually known about her. She did not leave much besides her poetry and a great air of mystery and myth. Her family was prominent in Amherst, particularly her grandfather who founded Amherst College, as well as her father, both of whom were prominent figures in the community. And yet for the family's involvement in public affairs, Emily Dickinson chose a smaller audience. She did not completely seclude herself within the family homestead. She was a person of letters, and the sheer volume of mail that she put out shows she was not a recluse. She certainly selected her own society-- a quientessential Dickinson phrase often quoted in reference to her limited contact with others outside of her home.
Much speculation rests on her poetry, and it seems in her letters to Higginson, Dickinson warned against making her poetry autobiographical. It's a trap that many readers and scholars fall into-- wanting to make her writing a literal explanation for her life. And yet I'm about to do that same thing. Sometimes I wonder if the following poem wasn't her own little inside joke on everyone that may read her work:
The Riddle we can guess
We speedily despise--
Not anything is stale so long
As Yesterday's Surprise.
(F 1180)
Anything easily explained is quickly dismissed as common and menial. We crave mystery and riddles, wanting to understand or make up motivations and explanations for everything around us. Reality shows and "inside" celebrity exposes gain great ratings because we are extremely curious people (sometimes morbidly so). Great mysteries keep our attention-- what happened to the Russian princess Anastasia? Did Amelia Earhart disappear in the Bermuda triangle or was she killed or did she die? What is really kept in Area 51? Why did John F. Kennedy, Jr's plane crash? Who killed Jon Benet Ramsey? Did O.J. Simpson really kill Nicole Brown Simpson? And the list could go on and on. These things, along with other unknowns draw our attention to them because they are not easy.
There is great truth in the phrase "Not anything is stale so long / As Yesterday's surprise," and I wonder if maybe that was part of why Dickinson remained a mystery within even her neighborhood. Certainly I think she generated a lot of gossip simply by her notorious seclusion and unique dress (she dressed in white). I believe she chose her isolation to protect her insights and to keep herself in the space she needed to be able to nurture her poetry. After reading excerpts of Haebegger's biography of Dickinson, My Wars are Laid away in Books, it seems that she was a sensitive child and was highly influenced by events in her childhood. Some of her isolation was, I believe, because of her family's belief that she was, as a female, frail and fragile and to be protected.
At any rate, both Dickinson and her poetry remain a perpetual surprise-- a surprise that for someone limited to such an insular part of the world, she shows phenomenal awareness of human nature and insight into life and the human condition. That her poetry survived her instructions for her sister to destroy her papers is a surprise (although it's not completely clear to me if those instructions meant solely letters or included her poems). And it is a surprise that her poetry survived in its original form after the changes made to her work when published, words and even entire stanzas altered or deleted because her family who published her works felt some parts were not in line with accepted faith and religion.
Dickinson will always hold equal intrigue for me, because no matter how much I learn, I will still have more to learn and more to wonder or infer. As Brenda Wineapple writes in her book White Heat, "For all people, [Emily Dickinson] is the biographied par excellence: elusive, inexplicable, inscrutable, like the light that exsists in spring: 'It passes and we stay--' " (35).
Much speculation rests on her poetry, and it seems in her letters to Higginson, Dickinson warned against making her poetry autobiographical. It's a trap that many readers and scholars fall into-- wanting to make her writing a literal explanation for her life. And yet I'm about to do that same thing. Sometimes I wonder if the following poem wasn't her own little inside joke on everyone that may read her work:
The Riddle we can guess
We speedily despise--
Not anything is stale so long
As Yesterday's Surprise.
(F 1180)
Anything easily explained is quickly dismissed as common and menial. We crave mystery and riddles, wanting to understand or make up motivations and explanations for everything around us. Reality shows and "inside" celebrity exposes gain great ratings because we are extremely curious people (sometimes morbidly so). Great mysteries keep our attention-- what happened to the Russian princess Anastasia? Did Amelia Earhart disappear in the Bermuda triangle or was she killed or did she die? What is really kept in Area 51? Why did John F. Kennedy, Jr's plane crash? Who killed Jon Benet Ramsey? Did O.J. Simpson really kill Nicole Brown Simpson? And the list could go on and on. These things, along with other unknowns draw our attention to them because they are not easy.
There is great truth in the phrase "Not anything is stale so long / As Yesterday's surprise," and I wonder if maybe that was part of why Dickinson remained a mystery within even her neighborhood. Certainly I think she generated a lot of gossip simply by her notorious seclusion and unique dress (she dressed in white). I believe she chose her isolation to protect her insights and to keep herself in the space she needed to be able to nurture her poetry. After reading excerpts of Haebegger's biography of Dickinson, My Wars are Laid away in Books, it seems that she was a sensitive child and was highly influenced by events in her childhood. Some of her isolation was, I believe, because of her family's belief that she was, as a female, frail and fragile and to be protected.
At any rate, both Dickinson and her poetry remain a perpetual surprise-- a surprise that for someone limited to such an insular part of the world, she shows phenomenal awareness of human nature and insight into life and the human condition. That her poetry survived her instructions for her sister to destroy her papers is a surprise (although it's not completely clear to me if those instructions meant solely letters or included her poems). And it is a surprise that her poetry survived in its original form after the changes made to her work when published, words and even entire stanzas altered or deleted because her family who published her works felt some parts were not in line with accepted faith and religion.
Dickinson will always hold equal intrigue for me, because no matter how much I learn, I will still have more to learn and more to wonder or infer. As Brenda Wineapple writes in her book White Heat, "For all people, [Emily Dickinson] is the biographied par excellence: elusive, inexplicable, inscrutable, like the light that exsists in spring: 'It passes and we stay--' " (35).
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