The poems slated for discussion on July 17th are:
Circumference thou Bride of Awe
I saw no way
Two butterflies went out at Noon
I saw no way
Two butterflies went out at Noon
Two
butterflies went out at Noon is an especially interesting poem from
the point of view of the poet's artistic development over time. She wrote it in
1862 or 63, her most productive period, and returned to it as late as 1878 to
revise. The early version is in Fascicle 25 (H 86). Johnson chose this version
for his Reader Edition
Two butterflies went out at Noon --
And waltzed upon a Farm --
Then stepped straight through the Firmament
And rested, on a Beam --
And then -- together bore away
Upon a shining Sea --
Though never yet, in any Port --
Their coming, mentioned -- be --
If spoken by the distant Bird --
If met in Ether Sea
By Frigate, or by Merchantman --
No notice -- was -- to me --
-J533/Fr571/M260
Ralph Franklin
calls the later manuscript “a clean copy made from a previous draft.” The
variant word choices on this “clean copy” cover the entire verso and are squeezed
in whatever available space ED could find on the recto - see image below.. A thorough and
exhaustive study of this manuscript by Wm. H Matchett yielded the version
below, which Franklin chose
1 Two
butterflies went out at Noon
2 And waltzed upon a Farm -
3 And then espied Circumference
4 And caught a ride with him –
5 Then lost themselves and found themselves
6 In eddies of the sun
7 Till Gravitation missed them –
8 And both were wrecked in Noon –
9 To all surviving Butterflies
10 Be this Fatuity
11 Example – and monition
12 To entomology
- Fr571/M610
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/3sFKZd4HyEc ]
2 And waltzed upon a Farm -
3 And then espied Circumference
4 And caught a ride with him –
5 Then lost themselves and found themselves
6 In eddies of the sun
7 Till Gravitation missed them –
8 And both were wrecked in Noon –
9 To all surviving Butterflies
10 Be this Fatuity
11 Example – and monition
12 To entomology
- Fr571/M610
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/3sFKZd4HyEc ]
Friom: Matchett, William H.
"Dickinson's Revision of 'Two Butterflies Went out at Noon'." PMLA:
Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 77.4 (1962):
436-41
The J533 is vague on immortality. The
speaker doesn't know what happens to the butterflies.
In Fr571the butterflies’ fates is are
longer ambiguous; they were wrecked and this "Fatuity," this
stupidity or senselessness should be an example to all butterflies and a
warning to the science of butterflies.
Line seven is the heart of the
redactor's problems, as the second stanza was for the poet. All but three of
the suggested alternative readings pertain to the second stanza.
"Circumference," and important word with Dickinson, is first, in this
poem, that which surrounds the center, "The Farm." It is a wider
prospect, a larger insight, or knowledge, or understanding, a move out from the
provincial center of the self. ("My business is Circumference."
“Though Dickinson’s dashes often seem erratic,
the dash following “example” does serve a syntactical purpose, warning that the
following conjunction introduces a new, elliptical clause and does not merely
link two nouns.
Discussion members found the manuscript and differing versions so interesting that we decided, after reading the Franklin version, return to the Johnson version on our next meeting in September.
The butterflies seem to be on a kind of reckless joyride, like unwise teenagers. It reminded one member of teenagers in love, which can also be rocky and even dangerous, at least to the heart. Another member, considering the warning that ends the poem, if ED wrote any other poems with a moral. It was agreed that the poem is humorous, and no serious moral is intended.
It was also observed that the word "Gravitation" can be read in the sense of "gravitas." "monition to entomology" is simply a warning to bugs. You have to smile.
Dickinson replaces the Romantic impulse toward transcendence with an alternative concept of knowledge within the limits of experience. She situates her poetry on the boundary of human discourse, simultaneously pushing outward toward an unattainable sublime [Heaven is what I cannot reach] within the symbolic order of language and circumscribing what can be known of the sublime within the symbolic order of language.
That which lies within this boundary is the symbolic order of language and sensory experience, the region of the individual consciousness that the Romantic poet seeks to expand into the infinte beyond. That which lies outside remains untouchable. The point of conjunction, the vanishing point of experience, is Circumference.
Like poetry, death is liminal, situated on the dividing line between the known and the unknown. [J943/Fr890 A Coffin – is a small Domain, ][
- Laura Gribbin "Emily Dickinson's Circumference," Emily Dickinson Journal,Vol .2 No. 1, 1993
And, paraphrasing.
Dickinson's Circumference is expandable toward eternity, but can never go reach it, nor can she know what lies beyond her Circumference. She associates this threshold with awe.
Circumference thou Bride of Awe
Possessing thou shalt be
Possessed by every hallowed Knight
That dares to covet thee
- J1620/Fr1636M648
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to Listen to this poem at https://youtu.be/UQI0bfE6eEA ]
Circumference, situated on the threshold between conscious experience and the unknown, is wedded in the poet’s mind to Awe. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” we are commanded. The knight covets Circumference, the Bride of Awe. He possesses her and she possesses him, but he has not transcended her to reach Awe. Circumference stands between them.
All seemed to agree that the Knight has in some way transgressed, through coveting, but that he is to be lauded for doing so, because he has the courage to dare. This is, after all, a hallowed knight The figure of the Knight also calls up images of King Arthur, valor, and bravery. A member observed that each knight had to find his own way out ot the woods; there was no path, no map;
I Saw no Way - the Heavens were stitched -
Discussion members found the manuscript and differing versions so interesting that we decided, after reading the Franklin version, return to the Johnson version on our next meeting in September.
The butterflies seem to be on a kind of reckless joyride, like unwise teenagers. It reminded one member of teenagers in love, which can also be rocky and even dangerous, at least to the heart. Another member, considering the warning that ends the poem, if ED wrote any other poems with a moral. It was agreed that the poem is humorous, and no serious moral is intended.
It was also observed that the word "Gravitation" can be read in the sense of "gravitas." "monition to entomology" is simply a warning to bugs. You have to smile.
Circumference thou Bride of Awe
Dickinson replaces the Romantic impulse toward transcendence with an alternative concept of knowledge within the limits of experience. She situates her poetry on the boundary of human discourse, simultaneously pushing outward toward an unattainable sublime [Heaven is what I cannot reach] within the symbolic order of language and circumscribing what can be known of the sublime within the symbolic order of language.
That which lies within this boundary is the symbolic order of language and sensory experience, the region of the individual consciousness that the Romantic poet seeks to expand into the infinte beyond. That which lies outside remains untouchable. The point of conjunction, the vanishing point of experience, is Circumference.
Like poetry, death is liminal, situated on the dividing line between the known and the unknown. [J943/Fr890 A Coffin – is a small Domain, ][
- Laura Gribbin "Emily Dickinson's Circumference," Emily Dickinson Journal,Vol .2 No. 1, 1993
And, paraphrasing.
Dickinson's Circumference is expandable toward eternity, but can never go reach it, nor can she know what lies beyond her Circumference. She associates this threshold with awe.
Circumference thou Bride of Awe
Possessing thou shalt be
Possessed by every hallowed Knight
That dares to covet thee
- J1620/Fr1636M648
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to Listen to this poem at https://youtu.be/UQI0bfE6eEA ]
Circumference, situated on the threshold between conscious experience and the unknown, is wedded in the poet’s mind to Awe. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” we are commanded. The knight covets Circumference, the Bride of Awe. He possesses her and she possesses him, but he has not transcended her to reach Awe. Circumference stands between them.
All seemed to agree that the Knight has in some way transgressed, through coveting, but that he is to be lauded for doing so, because he has the courage to dare. This is, after all, a hallowed knight The figure of the Knight also calls up images of King Arthur, valor, and bravery. A member observed that each knight had to find his own way out ot the woods; there was no path, no map;
I Saw no Way - the Heavens were stitched -
Now here's a Dickinson poem that sends me right back to a comment of David Porter: "Typically, Emily Dickinson creates a recognizable emotion in the poem without any clear reference to the fostering experience."
I saw no Way - The Heavens were stitched -
I felt the Columns close -
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres -
I touched the Universe -
And back it slid - and I alone -
A Speck upon a Ball -
Went out upon Circumference -
Beyond the Dip of Bell -
-J378/Fr633/M320
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/3LhrZwoeCcs ]
"I am the way, the truth and the life," Jesus said (John 14:26), but the speaker of this poem doesn't find it. Heaven is stitched, closed to her. When she says she feels the columns of heaven's portico close, we feel it, too. Earth's poles reverse! In another, humorous poem, Arcturus is his other name (Fr117) she writes,
What if the poles sh'd frisk about
And stand opon their heads!
I hope I'm ready for "the worst" -
Whatever prank betides!
In the poem under consideration, the worst seems to have arrived. Helen Vendler writes, "When Dickinson is following the convolutions of consciousness very closely, her metaphors tend to create this sort of nearly unintelligible cascade,which, once understood, makes the reader a participant in the sort of vertigo transcribed in the poem. (Dickinson, p 277
These poems were chosen for discussion because they all contain the word Circumference. And the speaker in this poem has gone out opon circumference of her own volition. Somehow - with her art? - she touches the universe and back it slides, like the roof of a domed stadium, and out she goes, having made her own way. The poem leaves this reader with a feeling of triumph.
Some felt that the poet is isolated and alone at the end of the poem, and hear a bleak tone. Others find it triumphant.. One member felt that she had simply reached her limit and could go no further. In any case, she has somehow gotten through a very difficult time. We all seemed to read "the dip of bell" as referring metaphorically to the village church bell of Dickinson's provincial life, She is beyond the confines symbolized by the bell now.
I saw no Way - The Heavens were stitched -
I felt the Columns close -
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres -
I touched the Universe -
And back it slid - and I alone -
A Speck upon a Ball -
Went out upon Circumference -
Beyond the Dip of Bell -
-J378/Fr633/M320
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/3LhrZwoeCcs ]
"I am the way, the truth and the life," Jesus said (John 14:26), but the speaker of this poem doesn't find it. Heaven is stitched, closed to her. When she says she feels the columns of heaven's portico close, we feel it, too. Earth's poles reverse! In another, humorous poem, Arcturus is his other name (Fr117) she writes,
What if the poles sh'd frisk about
And stand opon their heads!
I hope I'm ready for "the worst" -
Whatever prank betides!
In the poem under consideration, the worst seems to have arrived. Helen Vendler writes, "When Dickinson is following the convolutions of consciousness very closely, her metaphors tend to create this sort of nearly unintelligible cascade,which, once understood, makes the reader a participant in the sort of vertigo transcribed in the poem. (Dickinson, p 277
These poems were chosen for discussion because they all contain the word Circumference. And the speaker in this poem has gone out opon circumference of her own volition. Somehow - with her art? - she touches the universe and back it slides, like the roof of a domed stadium, and out she goes, having made her own way. The poem leaves this reader with a feeling of triumph.
Some felt that the poet is isolated and alone at the end of the poem, and hear a bleak tone. Others find it triumphant.. One member felt that she had simply reached her limit and could go no further. In any case, she has somehow gotten through a very difficult time. We all seemed to read "the dip of bell" as referring metaphorically to the village church bell of Dickinson's provincial life, She is beyond the confines symbolized by the bell now.
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