Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group 18Mar2016

Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group

Facilitated by Harrison Gregg

Satire in Dickinson

Harrison. I’d like to quote, since we’re in the Robert Frost library, a short  poem by Frost, which I’m sure you’re familiar with.
“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.”

[laughter]

Something aphoristic as well you’ll see in the first poem on our list here.

Jule reads

The Show is not the Show
But they that go —
Menagerie to me
My Neighbor be —
Fair Play —
Both went to see —
                 - J1206/Fr1270/M565

[  To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/hXtelnl2PNY ]

Harrison. What do you think she has in mind in this poem – anyone?

Bruce. It sounds like the circus. She mentions the menagerie.

Harrison. What was meant by a menagerie?

Bruce. I read it as like the circus animals, but she says that those aren’t the real show; the real show is the people that go to see the show.

Harrison. Then we have the irony, which is one, if not the primary, element of satire. But why do you think she says “Fair Play?” Why does she feel compelled to say “Fair Play?”

Jule. Possibly because they’re out in public, and if you are, other people have a right to observe you.

Harrison. That’s what she’s saying, isn’t it.

Greg. And isn’t there a pun on the show being a play?

Harrison. Also the show is a fair.

Greg. When she was at Mount Holyoke, she stayed back while all the other girls went to see the menagerie – a travelling animal show of some kind.

Harrison. Why does she feel compelled to plead fair play. It seems t me she’s kind of pleading “not guilty” – “I’m not being mean or nasty. I’m engaging in fair play.”

Greg. Well, she’ likening her neighbors to animals in a menagerie and trying to justify it somehow.

Harrison. We’ll talk about irony a little bit more as we go along here but more and more I become convinced that irony is the essential element of a Dickinson poem.

Jule. I think, too, in the fair play, we hear as children growing up, “Don’t stare! Don’t stare!”

Judith. Could fair also mean attractive?

Harrison. Yeah, oh.

Susan. In the last line she’s got them both going to the show, and each of them is looking at the other; that is, she recognizes that the neighbors are doing the same thing, so it’s a fair exchange.

Harrison. She’s looking at them and they’re looking at the animals.

Jay, Susan. And they’re looking at her.

Harrison. They’re judging her – staying there in the house – just as she’s judging them. That kind of back-and-forth is interesting to Dickinson, a kind of triangulation of looking.

Sarah. I wondered if the show was church. [general amusement]

Jule What clued you to that, Sarah.

Sarah. Just the idea of people looking at each other and, she says her neighbor goes, but that’s alright with me. She sees something different from what I see.

Julie. I think, too, about a lot of Emily’s poems, there may have been something specific that instigated some concept in the poem, these poems, you just carry them through your life so every time she went out or looked out her window, the principal, the concept is still there. I think that’s a very legitimate observation.

Harrison. In 1853 there was a show in Amherst that everybody went to see, and that was the dedication of the new railroad. Her father was very instrumental in bringing it to town. Austin was up in Boston at that time, and she wrote to him, paraphrasing here, “ I went, but I didn’t watch with the crowd, I watched from Professor Tyler’s woods, and after it was over I hurried home lest I meet someone, and they ask me how I was. She goes to the show and she’s only looking at her neighbors, they’re conscious of their looking at her too.

Someone. You just made me think. It could be a courtroom. How about that? In the second poem we have here she has “majority,” ascent – there’s also talk about supporting minorities. So, this “fair play,” maybe she’s picking up on some of the legal aspects – because of her father.

Harrison. Yes, there’s a lot of legal terminology in her poetry. There are a couple of interesting things in this poem, and one is the interest in this kind of triangular set of relationships that involve looking at each other, and then there’s the word menagerie itself. One of her central poems which everyone knows, which is not directly satirical, is This is my Letter to the World. She sets up three entities, the world, herself, and nature. There are the countrymen who represent the world. Her poem goes like this.

This is my letter to the World

That never wrote to Me -

The simple news that Nature told -

With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed

To Hands I cannot see -

For love of Her - Sweet – countrymen -

Judge tenderly - of Me
                             -  J441/Fr519/M254

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/doCvBkKs8wo  ]

She’s presenting herself not as an original creative artist but as merely passing on the news from nature to the audience, or the reader. But what’s interesting is the presence of majesty. You’ll find it again and again in the satirical poems – the concept of majesty – and it seems that majesty, wherever it leads [inaudible] arguably is judgement – a vision of judgement. Anyway, The simple news that Nature told/ with tender Majesty. Nature is presiding, the Deity is presiding, sovereign. So, you can treat her as she deserves, or you can treat her mercifully. And he’s treated her mercifully. He’s given her this message to pass on. So, you have nature and majesty. You have the poet, and then you have the reader, the countrymen, who are in a position to judge her as well. She’s in the middle. She can be judged by nature – the Deity – and she can be judged by those to whom she tries to pass on this message. And, she’s asking them to imitate nature and refrain from judging her. Judge tenderly of Me and show the same kind of mercy that nature showed to her. I’ve always been fascinated by this triangle in this poem. It seems central to the stance she takes in her work. In satire you need a stance from which you’re observing the reality around you and interpreting that or whatever. We should move on to another poem and see how these things relate to each other.

Elaine reads.

Much Madness is divinest Sense --

To a discerning Eye --

Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --

'Tis the Majority

In this, as All, prevail --

Assent -- and you are sane --

Demur -- you're straightway dangerous --

And handled with a Chain –

Harrison. What do you think of that. [some laughter]

Terry. Things aren’t what they seem.

Harrison. That’s one of the central elements of satire – and irony.

Someone. Well, I kept thinking of the politics of today. [laughter] I just hate to bring it up.

Lois. Sometimes madness is madness. [laughter]

Someone. Bizarre. Bizzare.

Someone else. But she’s defending the minority here.

Harrison. Where is she in this poem? Where does she put herself – place herself?

Someone. Discerning Eye.

Harrison. Discerning Eye. Excellent. Yes. Minority she’s thinking of herself, yes, but more importantly she’s thinking of herself as the discerning Eye, the one who’s seeing through all of this. Again you have this triangle of the majority, the minority, and the observer m- who is in a position to be judged, and in this poem being judged for not being with everyone else.

Bruce. It picks up on a fairly standard trope in literature, the idea of the outsider, the supposed lunatic who is perhaps only the sane one, or Lear’s fool or the narrator in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest. You can pick a bunch of examples of that. It was something that was probably a fairly commonplace idea even in her own time, I would think.

Susan. It’s interesting how the language becomes more edgy as it goes along. Divinest sense – you think it’s an exalted compliment. Discerning is very Latinate. It’s her own discerning Eye, but this is a statement made by someone who observes and discerns. And then she works out the ratio. The word starkest comes in, and that’s interesting because it sounds like itself. It sounds sharp, and then she goes back to the Latinate again. This is a little funny thing I didn’t notice before, In this, as All. Take it and run with it, it applies to everything. Then, straightway dangerous. Straightway has this little pun in it – I guess they had straight jackets then. People will come and getcha, and haul you away. And the word dangerous is like a little bomb going off, and handled with a chain leaves us with all of these terrible images – prisoner of Chillon and all sorts of other bad things.

Harrison. And, not only does a madman have a chain, but in the menagerie, the bear. I’m really interested in what you said about the language. I always use this on my tour at the end. Those heightened emotions in the last lines. She sees herself as in the minority and one of those people who is being treated as though she were mad because she’s different. … To get back to the idea of the discerning eye as her stance in this poem There’s another poem, very satirical, the next poem.

Robert reads.

Of Bronze — and Blaze —

The North — Tonight —

So adequate — it forms —

So preconcerted with itself —

So distant — to alarms —

An Unconcern so sovereign

To Universe, or me —

Infects my simple spirit

With Taints of Majesty —

Till I take vaster attitudes —

And strut upon my stem —

Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,

For Arrogance of them —

My Splendors, are Menagerie —
But their Competeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass —

Whom none but Beetles — know

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/OCTe2r-D3Sw ]

Harrison. OK, I’m going to stop you right there. First of all, what is the poem about?

Several. The Northern Lights. Aurora Borealis.

Harrison. The Northern Lights, that’s the occasion for her response. How does she respond? She’s turning her discerning eye on herself and she’s saying [inaudible] she’s taken up with what she calls their sovereignty and their unconcern.

Jay. I think this may be a poem about death.

Harrison. Well, it’s Emily Dickinson isn’t it? [inaudible] the lack of compassion and sympathy on the part of this power represented in the Norther Lights.

Greg. I hear the same attitude toward nature as in Apparently with no Surprise – “The Blonde Assassin passes on/ The Sun proceeds unmover/ To measure off another day”

Harrison. “For an approving God.”

Greg. It’s the most untranscendentalist stance you could take.

Harrison. It’s a twentieth century existentialist view of God. It relates back to Genesis. God creates the world in six days and at the end of each day he pronounces it good.

Victoria. I get a sense of ecstasy here that goes beyond the human level where she exists. When she has the experience of seeing this magnificent natural event, it’s transcending. It takes her beyond the human to something that’s much vaster than herself.

Harrison. Vaster attitudes. Yes, I think that’s well put. She’s identifying with nature, God, the presiding god of the universe, partaking of that sovereignty.

Victoria. It’s very elevating.

Bruce. I was wondering if she was having intimations of poetic immortality in the second stanza

Harrison. It’s interesting, that second stanza allows interpretation I guess.

Robert reads.

My Splendors, are Menagerie —

But their Competeless Show

Will entertain the Centuries

When I, am long ago,

An Island in dishonored Grass —

Whom none but Beetles — know.

Harrison. Who’s Competeless Show?

Greg. The Bronze and Blaze.

Harrison. I think so. Another interpretation is that she’s talking about her own work.

Julie reads.
He preached upon "Breadth" till it argued him narrow --The Broad are too broad to defineAnd of "Truth" until it proclaimed him a Liar --The Truth never flaunted a Sign --

Simplicity fled from his counterfeit presence
As Gold the Pyrites would shun --
What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus
To meet so enabled a Man!
                       - J1207/Fr1266/M564
[To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/nie1apkvIMw ]

Harrison. Lavinia was known to give parodies of the minister at dinner.

Harrison. What do you think she meant my Breadth?

Terry. Well, I was thinking of “Straight is the way and narrow is the path.” Not breadth, but the path that is required for salvation.

Harrison. They used to say, “High church crazy, low church lazy, broad church hazy.” She may have been talking about some kind of breadth in theology, I don’t know.

Bruce. Well, again in the lexicon there’s a definition for breadth of tolerance and open-mindedness – being non-judgemental.

Harrison. That fits. He’s up there preaching about not judging people, and meanwhile Emily’s sitting there in the pew judging him.

Victoria. Harrison, I was just wondering, if she was listening to a sermon that was so broad and tried to cover so much or be so all-inclusive that it lost any of it’s real value, so that even Jesus wouldn’t have gotten what the guy was saying, because his whole message was totally diluted and made ineffective, unidentifiable.

Harrison. He could have gotten so far from the gospel itself.

Victoria. Yeah.

Harrison. … the directness and simplicity of the gospel, so it loses sight of it.

Victoria. Yes, loses sight of it.

Jule. She does use the word counterfeit, which makes it sound like the preacher doesn’t really know what he’s talking about. He’s trying to pretend he knows everything.

Harrison. It’s interesting. She presents this scene between Jesus and this man goes to heaven and encounters Jesus and Jesus doesn’t know what to make of him. [laughter]. Let’s go to 169

Jay reads.

Wait till the Majesty of Death
Invests so mean a brow!
Almost a powdered Footman
Might dare to touch it now!

Wait till in Everlasting Robes
That Democrat is dressed,
Then prate about "Preferment" —
And "Station," and the rest!

Around this quiet Courtier
Obsequious Angels wait!
Full royal is his Retinue!
Full purple is his state!

A Lord, might dare to lift the Hat
To such a Modest Clay
Since that My Lord, "the Lord of Lords"
Receives unblushingly!
                        - J171/Fr169/M97

[ To hear Jay readi this poem is at https://youtu.be/XfZnqbrs-V8 ]

Harrison. .Again, here’s the Majesty. Here it’s the Majesty of Death. There’s that interest in the look of death, and then A certain slant of light, and the distance on the look of Death. So what do you find about the poem that is interesting?

Jay. The words that leap out at me historically and politically are democrat and clay.

Bruce. Well, there’s a kind of paradox that you find in Moby Dick as well, where you have the language of a class and royalty and so on mixed up with the language of democracy. And of course it’s nowhere more evident than in religion., where she refers to My Lord, "the Lord of Lords," so you have language from not an undemocratic era being used in a democratic context. So here this democrat, this mean brow here, becomes worthy, becomes royalty in effect because he/she is received by the Lord of Lords – unblushingly.

Harrison. You’re right about what you might call a cognitive dissonance; Christianity and a democratic message on the one hand, and the royalty and lords ankings and God on the other – how to really reconcile that.

Julie. I looked up “democrat” in my dictionary at home and it just means someone who practices social equality.

Greg. In another poem she calls the purple clover the purple democrat, because it’s just a common flower, and in I heard a fly buzz, death enters the room as the King. Royalty. Majesty.

Someone. Death is a democrat too, in the sense that we’re all going to die.

Bruce. I wonder if this isn’t also a slam on the Pie-in-the-Sky aspect of Christianity. This democrat got nothing in life but, promoted to death all of a sudden it’s royalty.

Harrison.
Hang on. You’ll get your reward in the end. Let’s go to number 77

One dignity delays for all,

One mitred afternoon.

None can avoid this purple,

None evade this crown.

Coach it insures, and footmen,

Chamber and state and throng ;

Bells, also, in the village,

As we ride grand along.

What dignified attendants,

What service when we pause !

How loyally at parting

Their hundred hats they raise !

How pomp surpassing ermine,

When simple you and I

Present our meek escutcheon,

And claim the rank to die !
                        -JJ98/Fr77/M55

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/lO2uyKN68xA  ]

Bruce. I think it’s interesting, comparing this poem to the last one, to me it suggests a real growth in her art in between the two. This one, so uncharacteristic in many Dickinson poems, kind of spells it out for you, and the further along she got, the more inclined she was to confuse you at the end.

Ben. There’s so much duplication of imagery between this one and the other one.

Harrison. Let’s go to 547

Victoria reads.

There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House,

As lately as Today —

I know it, by the numb look

Such Houses have — alway —

The Neighbors rustle in and out —

The Doctor — drives away —

A Window opens like a Pod —

Abrupt — mechanically —

Somebody flings a Mattress out —

The Children hurry by —

They wonder if it died — on that —

I used to — when a Boy —

The Minister — goes stiffly in —

As if the House were His —

And He owned all the Mourners — now —

And little Boys — besides —

And then the Milliner — and the Man

Of the Appalling Trade —

To take the measure of the House —

There’ll be that Dark Parade —

Of Tassels — and of Coaches — soon —

It’s easy as a Sign —

The Intuition of the News —

In just a Country Town — 

[ To hear Victoria read this poem, go to https://youtu.be/W8wye5xqaTc  ]

Ben. I was just reacting her in lighe of what my colleague Bruce said earlier about the changes that she underwent with time and maturity. It strikes me that this poem is one of the more simply imaged and constructed ones because I actually understood it the first time [laughter]. It’s all

Robert. To me, it’s the childlike, innocent point of view, looking at these events.