This is where it gets a little personal... An old friend of mine, in every sense of the word, passed away earlier this week. I was surprised, because I had not heard news of her in a while. Lucy was like another grandmother to me as a child, and she was always so sweet and hilariously funny. Tomorrow is her funeral, but I'm glad she passed. She was 91, and although it seemed like she had been around for forever and would always be there, her health had very rapidly declined in the last month or two. It was her time, and I believe she was at peace with death and eternity.
I have no idea if Lucy ever read Dickinson's poetry, but I think she would have liked the poem "This World is not conclusion." Lucy had very definite feelings about eternity, and I think she would have liked the poem. So in memory of my good friend Lucy, I dedicate this:
This World is not conclusion.
A Species stands beyond--
Invisible, as Music--
But positive, as Sound--
It beckons, and it baffles--
Philosophy, dont know--
And through a Ridde, at the last--
Sagacity, must go--
To guess it, puzzles scholars--
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown--
Faith slips-- and laughs, and rallies--
Blushes, if any see--
Plucks at twigs of Evidence--
And asks a Vane, the way--
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit--
Strong Hallelujahs roll--
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth--
That nibbles at the soul--
(F 373)
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Nobody knows this little Rose
Nobody knows this little Rose--
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it--
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey--
On it's breast to lie--
Only a Bird will wonder-
Only a Breeze will sigh--
Ah Little Rose-- how easy
For such as thee to die!
(F 11)
This is yet another of the many poems Dickinson writes that seems sweet in tone and in the objects mentioned, while the poem actually contains a darker content. It reads much like William Blake's poem "The Lamb", while containing echoes of the "The Tyger". Dickinson chooses for her subject the "little rose," a seeming young bud just coming into bloom and picked before its time.
The speaker in this poem seeks to assure the rose through a recounting of the supposedly few that will actually miss this young rose. Dickinson's use of "only" in lines five, six, nine, and ten are meant by the speaker to smooth over the many that will miss the rose. The repetition, however, is Dickinson's way of illustrating just how much this seemingly expendible rose will be missed. The repetition of "only" follows a pattern of three, an extremely common number of repetitions in writing, plus an additional echo of "only" that greater magnifies the loss of the rose.
Dickinson draws out the theme of expendibility in this poem, and the reader can't help but wonder if the real subject of death is a rose or a person. Certainly the metaphor can be drawn to include all life. The final lines conclude "Ah Little Rose-- how easy / For such as thee to die!", which begs the question: is any death easy? Even the most benign small roselet clearly has a place in the world and is missed by bee, butterfly, bird, and breeze (the alliteration Dickinson employs also heightens the impact of the repetition and enforces the ties the rose has to more than itself). Isn't all life interconnected? And therefore, each small loss would affect life on a much larger scale.
more on this poem and the theme of control in the future...
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it--
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey--
On it's breast to lie--
Only a Bird will wonder-
Only a Breeze will sigh--
Ah Little Rose-- how easy
For such as thee to die!
(F 11)
This is yet another of the many poems Dickinson writes that seems sweet in tone and in the objects mentioned, while the poem actually contains a darker content. It reads much like William Blake's poem "The Lamb", while containing echoes of the "The Tyger". Dickinson chooses for her subject the "little rose," a seeming young bud just coming into bloom and picked before its time.
The speaker in this poem seeks to assure the rose through a recounting of the supposedly few that will actually miss this young rose. Dickinson's use of "only" in lines five, six, nine, and ten are meant by the speaker to smooth over the many that will miss the rose. The repetition, however, is Dickinson's way of illustrating just how much this seemingly expendible rose will be missed. The repetition of "only" follows a pattern of three, an extremely common number of repetitions in writing, plus an additional echo of "only" that greater magnifies the loss of the rose.
Dickinson draws out the theme of expendibility in this poem, and the reader can't help but wonder if the real subject of death is a rose or a person. Certainly the metaphor can be drawn to include all life. The final lines conclude "Ah Little Rose-- how easy / For such as thee to die!", which begs the question: is any death easy? Even the most benign small roselet clearly has a place in the world and is missed by bee, butterfly, bird, and breeze (the alliteration Dickinson employs also heightens the impact of the repetition and enforces the ties the rose has to more than itself). Isn't all life interconnected? And therefore, each small loss would affect life on a much larger scale.
more on this poem and the theme of control in the future...
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Surgeons must be very careful
Maybe I'm particularly interested in it because I've been reading a lot of fiction lately that involves medical drama, or maybe I've just watched too many television episodes, but I can't help but find this Dickinson poem to be highly ironic:
Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit-- Life!
(F 156)
This poem is an excellent example of Dickinson's earlier work and its signature paradox written with great irony. The first two lines seem rather ridiculous, for what surgeon would take up the knife without great care? Certainly the Hippocratic Oath has been around for thousands of years, and no good surgeon would take up the delicate and potential lethal tools of the trade without caution. It's a typical Dickinson ploy-- lull the reader into a sense of something common or make the reader feel superior, wondering why on earth a poet or her speaker would bother with such an obvious caution.
Dickinson's strike comes in the last two lines, though. Too quick of a reading could cause one to miss the vital word "culprit" in the fourth line, which would render the second half of the poem as seemingly pointless as the first line-- for of course life exists underneath the incisions. Dickinson's poetry demands careful readings, and skipping that single word in line four completely derails any paradox or irony.
What the poet is pointing out, in her own witty way, is the paradox of the relationship between injury and healing, between disease and restoration. There are at least two paradoxes in the final lines, possibly more: the incision the surgeon makes will cause minor injury but is necessary to enable a true restoration of life; and while the surgeon's attentions might help the body to eventually recover, the body has been restores only to face yet another injury or disease yet again. The life of a virus can cause the death of a person, and the life of one person can plot the downfall and death of another.
The poem seems so innocuous at first glance, but peeling back layers of meaning only compounds the list of paradoxes. All is never as it seems in Dickinson's poetry.
Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit-- Life!
(F 156)
This poem is an excellent example of Dickinson's earlier work and its signature paradox written with great irony. The first two lines seem rather ridiculous, for what surgeon would take up the knife without great care? Certainly the Hippocratic Oath has been around for thousands of years, and no good surgeon would take up the delicate and potential lethal tools of the trade without caution. It's a typical Dickinson ploy-- lull the reader into a sense of something common or make the reader feel superior, wondering why on earth a poet or her speaker would bother with such an obvious caution.
Dickinson's strike comes in the last two lines, though. Too quick of a reading could cause one to miss the vital word "culprit" in the fourth line, which would render the second half of the poem as seemingly pointless as the first line-- for of course life exists underneath the incisions. Dickinson's poetry demands careful readings, and skipping that single word in line four completely derails any paradox or irony.
What the poet is pointing out, in her own witty way, is the paradox of the relationship between injury and healing, between disease and restoration. There are at least two paradoxes in the final lines, possibly more: the incision the surgeon makes will cause minor injury but is necessary to enable a true restoration of life; and while the surgeon's attentions might help the body to eventually recover, the body has been restores only to face yet another injury or disease yet again. The life of a virus can cause the death of a person, and the life of one person can plot the downfall and death of another.
The poem seems so innocuous at first glance, but peeling back layers of meaning only compounds the list of paradoxes. All is never as it seems in Dickinson's poetry.
enigma
I want to keep this blog for at least a solid year. My goal is to write every single day-- at least to post something. That's probably almost impossible, but it's a goal at least. Some of what I write will be like today's entry, which is mostly reflection.
By the end of this year I hope to have 365 entries to draw on, which will be a lot of writing and reflect a lot of reading about Emily Dickinson. In the past I have been drawn to other celebrities, but never blogged about it and never read so extensively. So far, I've only read more biographies of Katharine Hepburn than I have of Dickinson, but that will soon change.
Hepburn, though, wrote her own autobiography and granted some rare interviews, and she also spent an extensive amount of time in her later years with writer A. Scott Berg, helping him to write a final biography, which was posted after her death, called Kate Remembered. Dickinson did no such thing. Absolutely none of her writings were to written as biography. Her letters give us hints, and the recollections of her family and writings of other friends and family give small hints at who the poet might have been. These are only peeks at a personality that cannot really be captured, and all of these stories and reflections of others are given with layers of opinion and bias.
By the end of this year I will not know Dickinson personally, nor will I really have more of a handle on her poetry. But I hope to discover new insights into her poems, maybe find some new approaches toward understanding her world as I read biographies and articles. And I think that, above all, I'll learn a lot about myself. This year definitely holds a lot of possibility, and I look forward to the challenges of time and mystery that I will face when learning more about the poet. I may not know who she was, but I hope to have a more rounded or faceted view of how Dickinson is perceived and the impact of her work.
By the end of this year I hope to have 365 entries to draw on, which will be a lot of writing and reflect a lot of reading about Emily Dickinson. In the past I have been drawn to other celebrities, but never blogged about it and never read so extensively. So far, I've only read more biographies of Katharine Hepburn than I have of Dickinson, but that will soon change.
Hepburn, though, wrote her own autobiography and granted some rare interviews, and she also spent an extensive amount of time in her later years with writer A. Scott Berg, helping him to write a final biography, which was posted after her death, called Kate Remembered. Dickinson did no such thing. Absolutely none of her writings were to written as biography. Her letters give us hints, and the recollections of her family and writings of other friends and family give small hints at who the poet might have been. These are only peeks at a personality that cannot really be captured, and all of these stories and reflections of others are given with layers of opinion and bias.
By the end of this year I will not know Dickinson personally, nor will I really have more of a handle on her poetry. But I hope to discover new insights into her poems, maybe find some new approaches toward understanding her world as I read biographies and articles. And I think that, above all, I'll learn a lot about myself. This year definitely holds a lot of possibility, and I look forward to the challenges of time and mystery that I will face when learning more about the poet. I may not know who she was, but I hope to have a more rounded or faceted view of how Dickinson is perceived and the impact of her work.
Monday, September 7, 2009
obituary
Supposedly the obituary of Emily Dickinson. I have no idea how reliable the site is, but it's from http://www.venexia.com/clarkcon/dickinson3.html and it is said to have been written by Dickinson's sister-in-law, Susan Dickinson.
From The Springfield Republican, May 18, 1886 -- on the editorial page, an unsigned obituary (written by Susan Dickinson, Emily's sister-in-law):
Very few in the village, except among the older inhabitants, knew Miss Emily personally, although the facts of her seclusion and her intellectual brilliancy were familiar Amherst traditions. There are many houses among all classes into which her treasures of fruit and flowers and ambrosial dishes for the sick and well were constantly sent, that will forever miss those evidences of her unselfish consideration, and mourn afresh that she screened herself from close acquaintance.... Not disappointed with the world, not an invalid until within the past two years, not from any lack of sympathy, not because she was insufficient for any mental work or social career -- her endowments being so exceptional -- but the "mesh of her soul," as Browning calls the body, was too rare, and the sacred quiet of her own house proved the fit atmosphere for her worth and work. All that must be inviolate....
Her talk and her writings were like no one's else, and although she never published a line, now and then some enthusiastic literary friend would turn love to larceny, and cause a few verses surreptitiously obtained to be printed. Thus, and through other natural ways, many saw and admired her verses.... A Damascus blade gleaming and glancing in the sun was her wit. Her swift poetic rapture was like the long glistening note of a bird one hears in the June woods at high noon, but can never see. Like a magician she caught the shadowy apparitions of her brain and tossed them in startling picturesqueness to her friends, who charmed with their simplicity and homeliness as well as profundity, fretted that she so easily made palpable the tantalizing fancies forever eluding their bungling, fettered grasp. So intimate and passionate was her love of Nature, she seemed herself a part of the high March sky, the summer day and bird-call. Quick as the electric spark in her intuitions and analyses, she seized the kernal instantly, almost impatient of the fewest words, by which she must make her revelation. To her life was rich, and all aglow with God and immortality. With no creed, no formulate faith, hardly knowing the names of dogmas, she walked this life with the gentleness and reverence of old saints, with the firm steps of martyrs who sing while they suffer.
From The Springfield Republican, May 18, 1886 -- on the editorial page, an unsigned obituary (written by Susan Dickinson, Emily's sister-in-law):
Very few in the village, except among the older inhabitants, knew Miss Emily personally, although the facts of her seclusion and her intellectual brilliancy were familiar Amherst traditions. There are many houses among all classes into which her treasures of fruit and flowers and ambrosial dishes for the sick and well were constantly sent, that will forever miss those evidences of her unselfish consideration, and mourn afresh that she screened herself from close acquaintance.... Not disappointed with the world, not an invalid until within the past two years, not from any lack of sympathy, not because she was insufficient for any mental work or social career -- her endowments being so exceptional -- but the "mesh of her soul," as Browning calls the body, was too rare, and the sacred quiet of her own house proved the fit atmosphere for her worth and work. All that must be inviolate....
Her talk and her writings were like no one's else, and although she never published a line, now and then some enthusiastic literary friend would turn love to larceny, and cause a few verses surreptitiously obtained to be printed. Thus, and through other natural ways, many saw and admired her verses.... A Damascus blade gleaming and glancing in the sun was her wit. Her swift poetic rapture was like the long glistening note of a bird one hears in the June woods at high noon, but can never see. Like a magician she caught the shadowy apparitions of her brain and tossed them in startling picturesqueness to her friends, who charmed with their simplicity and homeliness as well as profundity, fretted that she so easily made palpable the tantalizing fancies forever eluding their bungling, fettered grasp. So intimate and passionate was her love of Nature, she seemed herself a part of the high March sky, the summer day and bird-call. Quick as the electric spark in her intuitions and analyses, she seized the kernal instantly, almost impatient of the fewest words, by which she must make her revelation. To her life was rich, and all aglow with God and immortality. With no creed, no formulate faith, hardly knowing the names of dogmas, she walked this life with the gentleness and reverence of old saints, with the firm steps of martyrs who sing while they suffer.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
New feet within my garden go
New feet within my garden go--
New fingers stir the sod--
A Troubadour opon the Elm
Betrays the solitude.
New Children play opon the green--
New Weary sleep below--
And still the pensive Spring returns--
And still the punctual snow!
(F 79)
It's really so strange how we can suffer a loss or even a long series of changes in our personal life, and it seems like the whole world should stop moving. And yet everyone else's life goes on the same as ever, as though nothing happened. The season continue, and the earth still turns. Life doesn't stop, even when we think that it should.
It's interesting, to me, how Dickinson personifies spring and snow as "pensive" and "punctual", respectively. Spring is full of thought and consideration as it returns, heavily weighing the decision to bring new life again. Curious enough, while spring considers its return carefully, snow arrives promptly. As with so many of these poems, I'm not sure what this means in the overall context of the poem, but I know Dickinson had a deliberate point in writing it this way.
New fingers stir the sod--
A Troubadour opon the Elm
Betrays the solitude.
New Children play opon the green--
New Weary sleep below--
And still the pensive Spring returns--
And still the punctual snow!
(F 79)
It's really so strange how we can suffer a loss or even a long series of changes in our personal life, and it seems like the whole world should stop moving. And yet everyone else's life goes on the same as ever, as though nothing happened. The season continue, and the earth still turns. Life doesn't stop, even when we think that it should.
It's interesting, to me, how Dickinson personifies spring and snow as "pensive" and "punctual", respectively. Spring is full of thought and consideration as it returns, heavily weighing the decision to bring new life again. Curious enough, while spring considers its return carefully, snow arrives promptly. As with so many of these poems, I'm not sure what this means in the overall context of the poem, but I know Dickinson had a deliberate point in writing it this way.
Friday, September 4, 2009
I'm sorry for the Dead-- Today
Emily Dickinson has so much amazing empathy, and her seemingly limitless imagination allows her to reach into ideas that other writers could never begin to consider. Many writers might miss the dead or think of how a coffin might seem during the afterlife. And yet few can craft a poem like Dickinson who not only imagines what the coffin and eternity therein might be like, but she goes a step further to the idea of living dead or conscious thoughts of the dead, aware of a world above that they have no way of reaching.
On some level, I also wonder if this poem might be intended, at least subconsciously, to be a commentary on Dickinson's mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson. Her mother spent a great deal of time sick and Dickinson was frequently the one to care for her. Or perhaps this could be hint of reflection on Dickinson's own isolation, though she did warn not to mistake her poetry for autobiography. At any rate, this poem displays Dickinsons craft with language, her use of voice, and her vast empathetic abilities. Interestingly enough, I wonder if Robert Frost's poem about fences makes me curious if he might have been influenced to write it from reading Dickinson's poetry.
I'm sorry for the Dead-- Today--
It's such congenial times
Old neighbors have at fences--
It's time o' year for Hay,
And Broad-- Sunburned Acquiantance
Discourse between the Toil--
And laugh, a homely species
That makes the Fences smile--
It seems so straight to lie away
From all the noise of Fields--
The Busy Carts-- the fragrant Cocks--
The Mower's metre--Steals
A Trouble lest they're homesick--
Those Farmers-- and their Wives--
Set spearate from the Farming--
And all the Neighbor's lives--
A Wonder if the Sepulchre
Dont feel a lonesome way--
When Men-- and Boys-- and Cars-- and June,
Go down the Fields to "Hay"--
(F 582)
On some level, I also wonder if this poem might be intended, at least subconsciously, to be a commentary on Dickinson's mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson. Her mother spent a great deal of time sick and Dickinson was frequently the one to care for her. Or perhaps this could be hint of reflection on Dickinson's own isolation, though she did warn not to mistake her poetry for autobiography. At any rate, this poem displays Dickinsons craft with language, her use of voice, and her vast empathetic abilities. Interestingly enough, I wonder if Robert Frost's poem about fences makes me curious if he might have been influenced to write it from reading Dickinson's poetry.
I'm sorry for the Dead-- Today--
It's such congenial times
Old neighbors have at fences--
It's time o' year for Hay,
And Broad-- Sunburned Acquiantance
Discourse between the Toil--
And laugh, a homely species
That makes the Fences smile--
It seems so straight to lie away
From all the noise of Fields--
The Busy Carts-- the fragrant Cocks--
The Mower's metre--Steals
A Trouble lest they're homesick--
Those Farmers-- and their Wives--
Set spearate from the Farming--
And all the Neighbor's lives--
A Wonder if the Sepulchre
Dont feel a lonesome way--
When Men-- and Boys-- and Cars-- and June,
Go down the Fields to "Hay"--
(F 582)
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Now I lay thee down to Sleep
Now I lay thee down to Sleep--
I pray the Lord thy Dust to keep--
And if thou live before thou wake--
I pray the Lord thy Soul to make--
(F 1575)
This poem strikes me as rather sordid-- an example of Dickinson's ability to take the familiar and twist it. It seems to have gothic overtones, though it is not overtly gothic, and it reminds me strongly of something that William Blake might have penned.
She plays off of the children's prayer, which evidently must date back to at least the 1800s and is still used widely today:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
It's a simple prayer to memorize, though no doubt the archaic language leave many children mindlessly reciting something of which they have no understanding. The simplistic and highly consistent rhyme give it a sort of deceptive effect. It seems to soothe and lull in tone, but the language derails and leaves the reader in a far different place than he or she expected. Rather than going to sleep for the night, it opens with what the reader infers must be a death. The first line is only altered from the children's rhyme by the pronoun "thee," making the reader suspect something is amiss but likely thinking little of it until reaching the next line with the strange "dust to keep."
It's interesting that Dickinson inverts the language of the original prayer. The child in the original "Now I lay me down to sleep" willingly offers up the mortal part, formed of the dust of the earth in the biblical tradition, in exchange for safekeeping of the immortal soul. In this strange new version of the prayer, the speaker begs for the preservation of the mortal body and an incarnation of the soul. I still am not sure what to make of the final line and what conclusion Dickinson or the speaker lead the reader to draw. It's something I hope to return to.
I pray the Lord thy Dust to keep--
And if thou live before thou wake--
I pray the Lord thy Soul to make--
(F 1575)
This poem strikes me as rather sordid-- an example of Dickinson's ability to take the familiar and twist it. It seems to have gothic overtones, though it is not overtly gothic, and it reminds me strongly of something that William Blake might have penned.
She plays off of the children's prayer, which evidently must date back to at least the 1800s and is still used widely today:
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
It's a simple prayer to memorize, though no doubt the archaic language leave many children mindlessly reciting something of which they have no understanding. The simplistic and highly consistent rhyme give it a sort of deceptive effect. It seems to soothe and lull in tone, but the language derails and leaves the reader in a far different place than he or she expected. Rather than going to sleep for the night, it opens with what the reader infers must be a death. The first line is only altered from the children's rhyme by the pronoun "thee," making the reader suspect something is amiss but likely thinking little of it until reaching the next line with the strange "dust to keep."
It's interesting that Dickinson inverts the language of the original prayer. The child in the original "Now I lay me down to sleep" willingly offers up the mortal part, formed of the dust of the earth in the biblical tradition, in exchange for safekeeping of the immortal soul. In this strange new version of the prayer, the speaker begs for the preservation of the mortal body and an incarnation of the soul. I still am not sure what to make of the final line and what conclusion Dickinson or the speaker lead the reader to draw. It's something I hope to return to.
We learn in the Retreating
We learn in the Retreating
How vast a one
Was recently among us--
A Perished Sun
Endear in the departure
How doubly more
Than all the Golden presence
It was-- before--
(F 1045)
This poem is yet another of Dickinson's that I have never read until I just happened to turn the page and find it. So much of her 1789+ poems have never really been discussed or read beyond those who actually created the anthology or transcribed her scrawlings from original writing to print.
Anyway... there is a distinct play on words here, and Dickinsons thrives on bending language, as my lit professor, Dr Smokewood, likes to call Dickinson's ability to reform language and test its limits. On a very literal level, this poem could be read as a speaker reflecting upon the suddenness of a sunset and how quickly the light passes below the horizon, another day ending abruptly. By extended metaphor, it also describes the sudden loss of one very dear.
It is strange to think that Dickinson wrote this poem in 1865, according to Franklin's dating, which was a full five years before the birth of her beloved nephew, Gib, and thirteen years before his death of typhoid fever at the age of 8 (Wineapple 243-244). In light of the tragedy and suddeness of Gib's death, this poem seems a particularly macabre portent. For Emily Dickinson's brother, Austin, Gib was his dearest child, the "Golden presence" of line seven. Certainly there was a great sense of shock when the child passed, who had been perfectly well and playing in a mud hole with a friend just days before (Wineapple 244).
Dickinson's language describes the acute and stunning weight of grief. There is the perpetual question of "why?", particularly when dealing with unexpected deaths. And certainly, too, sudden death leaves a strong impression of the goodness that does seem to "endear in the departure." This poem represents a strong example of Dickinson's ability to connect with the deeper and often darker human experiences-- her ability not only to put these experiences into words but to recreate, through language, the experience itself.
How vast a one
Was recently among us--
A Perished Sun
Endear in the departure
How doubly more
Than all the Golden presence
It was-- before--
(F 1045)
This poem is yet another of Dickinson's that I have never read until I just happened to turn the page and find it. So much of her 1789+ poems have never really been discussed or read beyond those who actually created the anthology or transcribed her scrawlings from original writing to print.
Anyway... there is a distinct play on words here, and Dickinsons thrives on bending language, as my lit professor, Dr Smokewood, likes to call Dickinson's ability to reform language and test its limits. On a very literal level, this poem could be read as a speaker reflecting upon the suddenness of a sunset and how quickly the light passes below the horizon, another day ending abruptly. By extended metaphor, it also describes the sudden loss of one very dear.
It is strange to think that Dickinson wrote this poem in 1865, according to Franklin's dating, which was a full five years before the birth of her beloved nephew, Gib, and thirteen years before his death of typhoid fever at the age of 8 (Wineapple 243-244). In light of the tragedy and suddeness of Gib's death, this poem seems a particularly macabre portent. For Emily Dickinson's brother, Austin, Gib was his dearest child, the "Golden presence" of line seven. Certainly there was a great sense of shock when the child passed, who had been perfectly well and playing in a mud hole with a friend just days before (Wineapple 244).
Dickinson's language describes the acute and stunning weight of grief. There is the perpetual question of "why?", particularly when dealing with unexpected deaths. And certainly, too, sudden death leaves a strong impression of the goodness that does seem to "endear in the departure." This poem represents a strong example of Dickinson's ability to connect with the deeper and often darker human experiences-- her ability not only to put these experiences into words but to recreate, through language, the experience itself.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
They say that "Time assuages"
They say that "Time assuages"--
Time never did assuage--
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, wih Age--
Time is a Test of Trouble--
But not a Remedy--
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady-
(F 861)
This poem carries a lot of parable elements to it. It plays upon the familiar adage "Time heals all wounds," but changing the saying perceptibly. Rather than time healing, it instead strengthens the body to stand against the wound. There is a subtle distinction in the phrase "an actual suffering", and I think this was Dickinson toying with double or layered meanings.
On one hand, the speaker could be implying that any injury that is inflicted is only significant if time cannot heal it. In other words, pain that one quickly recovers from is perhaps not truly pain. And perhaps "an actual suffering strengthens" can mean that pain can continue to grow and build throughout life, possibly that pain can even be nourished by those who suffer it. Certainly both interpretations could be equally valid.
The final stanza is intriguing because it lacks any real conclusion. The reader must decide for him or herself what to make of the parting words. In this stanza the speaker seems to say that time is the ultimate test, but the test does not conclude or cure the suffering or pain. And the final lines seem to imply that if a cure is found, then there was no real hurt to begin with.
Overall, the poem could be much like a description of broken bones. In time, the break never goes away. It heals over, stronger than before, reinforced better than the bone originally was. And yet the little extra calcium will always be there. Without that bit of extra bone where the break healed, a broken bone would never have existed.
Time never did assuage--
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, wih Age--
Time is a Test of Trouble--
But not a Remedy--
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady-
(F 861)
This poem carries a lot of parable elements to it. It plays upon the familiar adage "Time heals all wounds," but changing the saying perceptibly. Rather than time healing, it instead strengthens the body to stand against the wound. There is a subtle distinction in the phrase "an actual suffering", and I think this was Dickinson toying with double or layered meanings.
On one hand, the speaker could be implying that any injury that is inflicted is only significant if time cannot heal it. In other words, pain that one quickly recovers from is perhaps not truly pain. And perhaps "an actual suffering strengthens" can mean that pain can continue to grow and build throughout life, possibly that pain can even be nourished by those who suffer it. Certainly both interpretations could be equally valid.
The final stanza is intriguing because it lacks any real conclusion. The reader must decide for him or herself what to make of the parting words. In this stanza the speaker seems to say that time is the ultimate test, but the test does not conclude or cure the suffering or pain. And the final lines seem to imply that if a cure is found, then there was no real hurt to begin with.
Overall, the poem could be much like a description of broken bones. In time, the break never goes away. It heals over, stronger than before, reinforced better than the bone originally was. And yet the little extra calcium will always be there. Without that bit of extra bone where the break healed, a broken bone would never have existed.
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