EDIS- Amherst Massachusetts Chapter 04Mar2016

Emily Dickinson International Society – Amherst Massachusetts Chapter 04 March 2016
Facilitator: Lois Kackley
Theme: The Treatment of Wealth or Riches in Dickinson

Lois. Some argue that the fat on the fire of 2016 election dynamics is economic, public and private. Dickinson, while she did not make money for herself, has become a literary and now cinematic kingmaker in the emerging market of her poetry and her person, Dickinson looked straight into the face of one “Too hungry to be borne,” which is a line out of the first poem that we’ll talk about, and also at “misers,” who wring their hands in the second poem, and finally she appropriates the fleshly joy of feeling “it” to poetry in the last one.
            I guess the first thing we notice in these poems is the interplay between tangible and intangible riches. As with love, some people are lucky and some are not. So it is with the ability to write poetry. I’ve been reading Emily Dickinson’s Shakespeare by Páraic Finnerty, which I’m, enjoying very much. There are a couple of passages in here for launching us into our discussion. Paraic points out that there’s actually only one poem where Dickinson names Shakespeare. Now, others have speculated on other poems being responses to or rewrites of certain Shakespearean themes. She discusses him frequently in the letters. So, while we’re looking at these poems to see what they have to say to us about the experience, possession, or however you want to think of it towards your personal economics or, in this election year, the economics of the country and the world. One of the things I thought was interesting on that theme that I read recently was that Páraic says, referring to Henry the Fifth, says that “When Henry, disguised as a commoner,  declares, ‘I think the king is but a man as I am. The violet smells to him as it does to me. All his senses have but human  condition.’ And then Páraic takes the position that Dickinson would not have agreed with this particular critic who says, ‘Shakespeare’s ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man. Of course, such ideas are the antithesis of what many of Dickinson’s poems propose. Usually her speakers rise within monarchical divine hierarchy to be finally and deservedly crowned. Her girls are disguised earls, and her rustic speakers are revealed to be queens. So it’s very interesting to contemplate the different applications that Dickinson applied to the idea of hierarchy and wealth.

Judith. Lois, just for clarification, is it that in one case one is born a king and in the other one learns that distinction?

Lois. Well, you might save that thought for one of the poems. It may be that we find that idea , but in the quote that I just read is  a reference to  – Shakespeare started to be read in the nineteenth century in America – a lot of the critics and religious people were not thrilled with Shakespeare. They objected to the way he portrayed the hierarchical order of people. The servant class are more often treated as lowly and the aristocracy are treated with more prestige. Páraic has taken the position that Dickinson would not have been in line with that criticism. I think she actually adopted a lot of it.
            ”If Dickinson had read this critic is unlikely that she would have approved of his view. She probably admired Shakespeare for the very reasons this other critic abhorred him. Not only did she read and perhaps choose to identify with the sorrows of Talbott and Queen Margaret, her writings appropriate a Shakespearean vocabulary of hierarchies, crowns, jewels, earls, kings and queens and court,” a language that in viewpoints of her day was inappropriate for America.

Victoria. Not democratic enough?

Greg. Well, there was a real hostility to anything that smacked of aristocracy in colonial times and later.

Lois. Right. So, as we look at these poems today, which really do not – I didn’t bring this up to illustrate our poems, it’s just that so often we read of wealth and riches in the context of that hierarchy.

Greg reads.
I play at Riches — to appease
The Clamoring for Gold —
It kept me from a Thief, I think,
For often, overbold

With Want, and Opportunity —
I could have done a Sin
And been Myself that easy Thing
An independent Man —

But often as my lot displays
Too hungry to be borne
I deem Myself what I would be —
And novel Comforting

My Poverty and I derive —
We question if the Man —
Who own — Esteem the Opulence —
As We — Who never Can —

Should ever these exploring Hands
Chance Sovereign on a Mine —
Or in the long — uneven term
To win, become their turn —

How fitter they will be — for Want —
Enlightening so well —
I know not which, Desire, or Grant —
Be wholly beautiful —
                      -J801/Fr856/M393

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/HdRV7cn9-Uk ]

It looks like she made the word Sovereign into a verb.

Lois. If it’s a verb, what’s she saying?

Jeff. I read it as meaning “owner, essentially.”

Greg. Yes.

Lois. It almost sounds like a gambler

Greg. Chance

Lois. Chancing a sovereign on a mine. Well, lets go back to the beginning because I’ve always been struck by those last two lines in the second verse. First of all, I play at Riches, as if it were an easy thing. Somebody’s got to make a living, so I play at it. I don’t take it too seriously, there’ll always be enough. I’m one of those people. But, it was better to be occupied in earning a living – at least kept me off the street. For often, overbold/ With Want, and Opportunity – now then we switch. Or do we?

Greg. OK, I play at Riches, as in We play at paste/ Till qualified for Pearl. She’s just pretending that she’s rich, she’s not really earning money. Playing princess, and she does that to appease that  clamoring. Appease some desire just by pretending. I do it all the time. [laughter]

Lois. She’s taken a really strong first person pronoun here. This poem is about my relationship with gold, riches, thievery, want. My relationship ..

Victoria. I play, I could have done, I deem myself, I derive, I, I , I

Lois. As I read it, if forces me to think about whether this is my experience. Do I play at riches? I either have to own these expressions or read it as a poem about somebody else.

JoAnn. It sounds like it’s about her.

Lois. Well, but we do read it, right? There are poems where she puts it at a distance, such as “There are those who play at riches.” That’s not the effort in this poem I don’t think… but that ‘s a minor thing. There’s some contradiction here, and there’s also some playful language. If I play at riches …

JoAnn. That keeps her from being a thief.

Lois. Isn’t the thought here that this is someone who is gainfully employed, but is not particularly committed to the job. I play at it. And it could also be as Greg said. There’s this poet, using her poetic imagination to imagine what it would be like to have her own riches Is that what you meant?

Greg. Yes, and that makes it consistent with when she’s tempted she doesn’t steal – I wonder what it would be like. my lot displays/ Too hungry to be borne? Doesn’t sound like someone gainfully employed.

Lois. Exactly, exactly.

JoAnn. It sounds like a stay-at-home mother trying to decide whether to stay home or go to work. [laughter] I’m perfectly comfortable right here at home, but …

Lois. But don’t you think that’s hysterical that you can think of independence as an easy thing?

Greg. She’s saying that when she’s been in difficulty there have been opportunities to steal by being dishonest, but that would have been the easy way out, and that’s why it would have been the easy thing.

Lois. So it’s a follow-up to I could have done a Sin.

Greg. Yeah.

Jeff. I read An independent Man as a wealthy man. It’s a much easier thing that having to trudge off to work every day to keep going. That’s the easy thing. That’s why everyone wants to be rich, because it’s easy.

JoAnn. Yeah, you can run for president. You can do all kinds of stuff.

Victoria. So in stead of the hard work she did writing that poetry, she could have had an easy life being the daughter of a provincial squire. In stead, she chose the hard way.

Lois. That’s interesting. We’re seeing the contrast here between accepting social responsibility for who I am, and all the uncertainty of it, while you’re surrounded by comfort.

Jeff. There’s a lot of tentativeness in this poem. The verbs are tentative. I could have, I would have. And I know not which. I think it’s interesting because in this poem  - There’s an ambivalence about this poem. Usually she says, “Oh, it’s much better to be spare and austere and without,” and “The wounded deer leaps highest,”  [?] to be the one that’s lost out. That’s usually presented by her as superior, but here she’s saying I know not which be wholly beautiful.

Lois. I think that’s what makes it A REALLY RICH POEM! And again, the universality of the experience is why we regard her so highly.

Arianna. And, she says, even if you don’t have all of this wealth, you can imagine what it would be like, and you could appreciate it more than the person who has it. That person that owns it, does he or she appreciate all that as we who never can.

Lois. Yes, and I think that points out the complexity of the poem. You can see it as a comment on the pros and cons of being comfortable, but what you’re seeing there is not only the ambivalence of the poem, but ambivalence toward the people who do experience opulence.

Greg. “Success is counted sweetest”

Several. Yeah. That is her point of view a lot.

Jeff. I’m interested in the first line of the fourth stanza - and I derive – I’m not comfortable fitting and I derive in. It seems like a little particle there that’s hanging. I don’t understand how to read it. I deem Myself what I would be. And novel Comforting My Poverty and I - We question if the Man. I can read it like that, but and I derive -  she’s introducing a whole new clause there.

Greg. I’m reading that she derives a novel comforting.

Lois. Right.

Victoria. It goes back. It’s a circular thing.

Greg. It’s a funny word, there are some strange words in here – sovereign – but syntactically it’s OK.

Lois. My poverty and I derive a novel comforting in imagining what I would be, right?

Several. Yeah.

Jeff. OK, yes.

Adrianna reads
A Mine there is no Man would own
But must it be conferred,
Demeaning by exclusive wealth
A Universe beside -

Potosi never to be spent
But hoarded in the mind
What Misers wring their hands tonight
For Indies in the Ground!
                      - J1117/Fr1162/M705

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/URHxMd6BX4Y ]

Victoria. Potosi, in Bolivia, one of the highest mountains in the world, 15,400 feet, the location of a Spanish colonial mint. There’s silver there.

Lois. It was a big town. Potosi became the capital in 1865. Maybe that was in the news. The accent is on the last syllable.

Greg. Yes, that name appears in more than one poem – kind of a synonym for great riches.

JoAnn. To me the word demeans is very strong. It sounds like the man who owns the mine is looking down on everybody else.

Jeff. I think it’s the mine that demeans, not the man. There’s a mine that nobody would be able to own, it has to be conferred, and it’s such exclusive wealth it makes ever

Victoria. That’s where the poems come from. The poetic gift is granted, or the poems are bestowed upon her.

Lois. Well the topic of the poem is the mind and then the rest of the poem describes it, right? It’s something that can’t be bought. It’s so rich that everything else appears demeaned compared to it.

Jeff. There’s something that comes only by divine grace, you could say. But line six puzzles me. But hoarded in the mind. Hoarding, I guess is associated with Miser, but she’s talking about this exclusive wealth that is only conferred on you by grace, if you will but then she’s saying that it’s hoarded, as if once you have it you grasp it and you won’t let it go. Hoarding is greedy. Hoarders are people who are insecure. They hold it all and won’t let anything go. That’s not what you would associate with Emily Dickinson feeling that she had the grace and wisdom that had been given to her – revelation and enlightenment.

Greg. She wrote, ” It was given to me by the Gods/ When I was a little Girl  ...  I kept it in my Hand/ I never putit down/ I did not dare to eat—or sleep/ For fear it would be gone.” It’s this precious thing that she …

Victoria. In her lexicon, was hording always something negative the way we contemporary readers would see that word. Hoarding was holding on to and possessing and keeping that gift in her mind. You can spend silver and the tangible stuff that would come from a silver mine, but this is a different kind.

Lois. So, to get away from Emily Dickinson for a bit, would it be possible for someone to hoard something valuable that they could not really share with anybody else in the way that we share money or share tangible resources?  What could you have that you did not earn, but you discover that you have something.

Jeff. It was given to me by the Gods. Greg’s right on it with 455. I suggest we all turn there.

Lois. After a while, Dickinson’s appropriation of words that have negative connotations in daily parlance become less surprising. That’s why I don’t really blame the hoarding something in the mind. This poem just points out that the poetry that we enjoy is the outcome, or the result of what she hoards in the mind. We don’t come close to her mind, we just get the result.

Greg. Yes, when we first read it in sounds like she’s contradicting the fact that she shared her writing with so many people. What are these last two lines? What are these Indies in the Ground and who are the Misers?

Jeff. To me there’s a complete change of tones in those last two lines. They’re sort of a throwaway to make it a complete couplet or something.  She’s devoted the first six lines to this high statement about this wonderful thing that we can have, if we’re lucky, and then the last two lines are almost a trivial thing. Those conventional misers are wishing that they could have  - well, the Indies is another symbol for wealth, but it sort of hangs, to me, on the first six lines without really belonging there.

Lois. I don’t know – those last two lines, she’s sort of put the topic at a distance, unlike the I – I – I of he other poem. A Mine there is is kind of putting things at a distance, saying to the reader, “This might have been a truth that I experienced, but it’s also just a truth, that there is a kind of wealth that must be conferred; it can’t be earned.

Greg. And that’s the top of the hierarchy.

Lois. Mm. And the word demeaning also puts things at the other extreme, however you choose to interpret. And to me those last two lines are necessary. As you say, it’s kind of a wrap. Who wouldn’t wring their hands, who wouldn’t covet having a bottomless source of riches in your person?

JoAnn. But why is she hoarding her riches?

Jeff. Would you mind if I read 455? I think it answers that question:

It was  it given to me by the Gods—

When I was a little Girl—

They give us Presents most—you know—

When we are new—and small.

I kept it in my Hand—

I never put it down—

I did not dare to eat—or sleep—

For fear it would be gone—

I heard such words as "Rich"—

When hurrying to school—

From lips at Corners of the Streets—

And wrestled with a smile.

Rich! 'Twas Myself—was rich—

To take the name of Gold—

And Gold to own—in solid Bars—

The Difference—made me bold—
                           J454/Fr455/M228

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/3wAJez3iwwY ]

I think that’s what she means by hoarding. It isn’t the sense of stinginess. It’s the sense of “Oh boy, I’ve got this. I’m going to hold onto it. I cannot let this go, it’s something so marvelous.

Victoria. I have always loved this other poem, 1091
To own the Art within the Soul
The Soul to entertain
With Silence as a Company
And Festival maintain

Is an unfurnished Circumstance
Possession is to One
As an Estate perpetual
Or a reduceless Mine.
                 - J855/Fr1091/M488

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/5CpLFb0RZEI ]

Lois. Reduceless  Mine.

Victoria. Yeah, so that reduceless mine …

Greg. Bottomless cup of coffee. [laughter]

Victoria. an Estate perpetual – it’s always - the wealth beyond. But it’s in her soul. She uses that word twice in this poem And she entertains it in that silence. That’s another vision that I have of her which could be how she holds it inside of herself.

JoAnn. To me, hoarding is keeping stuff and not doing anything with it, which she would definitely not be positive about.

Lois. But it’s a poetic application of a negative word in order to get this shock value of what is being described as a very private experience.

Greg. I’ve heard artists, sometimes, musicians and writers, a fear of losing this inspiration. For some people it comes and goes. You could wake up tomorrow and you won’t be able to do it anymore. You don’t know where it comes from. It’s just this gift.

Jeff. Creative people experience that sometimes, it doesn’t come.

JoAnn. Like writer’s block.

Several. Yeah.

Lois. Let’s read the next poem

JoAnn reads.
I'll clutch — and clutch —
Next — One — Might be the golden touch —
Could take it —
Diamonds — Wait —
I'm diving — just a little late —
But stars — go slow — for night —

I'll string you — in fine Necklace —
Tiaras — make — of some —
Wear you on Hem —
Loop up a Countess — with you —
Make — a Diadem — and mend my old One —
Count — Hoard — then lose —
And doubt that you are mine —
To have the joy of feeling it — again —

I'll show you at the Court —
Bear you — for Ornament
Where Women breathe —
That every sigh — may lift you
Just as high — as I —

And — when I die —
In meek array — display you —
Still to show — how rich I go —
Lest Skies impeach a wealth so wonderful —
And banish me —
                 -J427/Fr385/M205

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/okr4dnuqLbQ  ]

Lois. You read that beautifully. It really has the feel of a conversation, doesn’t it? One side of the conversation, certainly, but

JoAnn. And there’s that word hoard.

Lois. [laughs] Right. And this one, more than any we’ve read really pulls up all of these shared images of wealth and opulence. I don’t know that we even need to know who you  is but if anybody would like to venture out on that limb. [laughter]. Braggadocio, right? Bit the way JoAnn read it with the little pauses was more conversational. She’s pausing for the other person to respond.

Jeff. I’m tempted to read it as someone hopelessly involved, and realizing how unrealistic it is.

JoAnn. It’s very romantic and [?]

Lois. The language of romance I’m sure. Like so many other poems, is about her poetry, and it also reinforces what several of you were saying about the fear of losing he inspiration.  And doubt that you are mine? Count — Hoard — then lose /And doubt that you are mine?  Although, if this is written to us, an imaginary public, that she hopes will inherit her work, it could be that she’s hording the idea of that, of having a legacy, and then to lose the hope – thwarted and lose the hope..

[ On this poem, David Porter wrote:
   "Emily presents the reader with a metaphor of herself diving for pearls. The next one might be a beauty. She could take this one to add to her collection, and then wait for other diamonds, as she is diving late in the day, even though the stars are slow to bring in the night.
   What can she do with her collection of pearls? She can make them into
necklaces, tiaras, and diadems that would adorn a Countess. Like Silas Marner, she can count them, and then lose them to have the joy of finding them again. She could wear them at Court, on her breast so that they are lifted high as she breathes.        And when she dies, she could display them to the saints in the skies, but meekly, so that she is not accused of taking too much wealth there and consequently banished." ]