Emily
Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group August 2017
Facilitated
by Greg Mattingly
Emily Dickinson as a Second Language
[The
discussion was preceded by a brief tutorial on the online Emily Dickinson
Lexicon, which includes the Webster’s dictionary that Dickinson used, and which
was the source of word definitions presented, not given here]
Greg. A good example of the value of the Webster’s is evident in
this first poem. I’d like to have a horticulturist read this one.
Victoria reads:
Pink - small - and punctual -
Aromatic - low -
Covert - in April -
Candid - in May -
Dear to the Moss -
Known by the Knoll -
Next to the Robin
In every Human Soul.
Bold little Beauty -
Bedecked with thee -
Nature forswears
Antiquity -
-
J1332/Fr1357/M587
[To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/e1XvCYuF6UY]
Greg. And what is this poem describing?
Polly. Arbutus, I think.
Greg. Yes, arbutus. She signed one of three copies “arbutus,” and
it was printed in Poems 1890 under
the title “May Flower,” which is another name for the arbutus. So, I think the
word candid in here is kind of
interesting. What might that imply? How can a flower be candid?
Julie. Shining with dew, maybe? I mean, that’s the Latin root of
it. It gives the idea of shining, glowing. So, is it glowing with dew in the
burst of spring and so forth …
Greg. Anything elser?
Adrianna. Would it be white?
Greg. Yes, the definitions in her dictionary is as follows.
CAN'DID, a
1. White. – [But
in this sense rarely used.]
2. Fair; open; frank; ingenuous; free from undue bias;
disposed to think and judge according to truth and justice, or without
partiality or prejudice; applied to persons.
3. Fair; just; impartial; applied to things; as, a candid
view, or construction.
How does “white” apply to the trailing arbutus? So, Victoria, can
you explain about the colors of the May Flower? [A color painting of the May
Flower is circulated.]
Victoria. It starts out as pink, then fades to white.
Greg. Covert in April/
Candid in May.
Victoria. And, it’s so low growing that you really have to get your
nose right down in there to find it.
Greg. Yes, that’s the covert
part, I guess.
Elizabeth. It also has other definitions. The underside of a birds
feather is also called a covert, and it can be a thicket, as well as something
that’s hidden.
Greg. Something that can hide as well as something hidden. … So, I
put this together having written a book entitles Emily Dickinson as a Second Language. The publishers have changed
the title to Decoding Emily Dickinson: An
Introduction to the Poetry. It’s not out yet, but I worked it out by coming
to so many of these discussions and observing what we do when we get together
and work on these poems. I broke it down to these three things, avoiding the
biographical detours we often take, because we like to talk about the person
too. But if we’re not doing that, we’re usually doing one of these things, I
think. [1] We’re examining the language practices that were available to her,
in her time and place, and one way of finding out about that is through her
Webster’s. “What does this word mean to her?” [2] Where else does she use the
word? Might that give us a clue about what she’s implying? Now we had a
discussion just recently where we read the poem Wild Nights.
Polly reads.
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port, -
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!
- J249/Fr269/M133
Greg. And would someone read Whether
my bark went down at sea …
Elena reads.
Whether my bark went down at sea --
Whether she met with gales --
Whether to isles enchanted
She bent her docile sails --
By what mystic mooring
She is held today --
This is the errand of the eye
Out upon the Bay.
-J52/Fr33/M59
Greg. So, these two poems came up in recent discussions in this
group. In Whether
my bark went down at sea, someone focused on the word errand. Does that word seem a little bland?
Unknown.
Function.
Greg.
Webster’s gives us a definition that we might expect. Here’s what the EDEL
gives:
A.
Goal; quest; destination; [fig.] gaze; glance; visual searching; [word play on
"errant"] wandering; straying; roaming.
B.
Request; verbal message; attempt to communicate with someone far away; [fig.]
petition; supplication; entreaty; [metaphor] poem; composition; written verse.
C.
Undertaking; task; duty; obligation; responsibility; mission; journey for a
specific purpose.
Nathaniel
Dickinson crossed the Atlantic Ocean with John Winthrop in 1630. He was an
English lawyer, a Puritan, and he came to the New World to help found a “City
on a Hill,” to be looked up to by the rest of the world as the model for true
Christian worship and community.[i]
These early settlers left comfortable lives in England to begin anew in the
wilderness that was then North America. They were met with scarcity, harsh,
bitter winters, and the ever-present threat of attack by hostile natives. The
Puritans who so ventured were unwilling to compromise with the church practices
then prevalent in England. Their sole motive was to live a Godly life and
practice their form of Christianity as they deemed necessary. They came to call
their mission their “Errand into the Wilderness”[ii]
So, that’s a word with a lot of weight, and by examining the personal and
historical context of where the word sits, we get something out of the poem
that we might otherwise miss. So, I think that when we go through these poems
that this is what we’re going to be doing. Probably.
The
poem that Polly read was read in a discussion earlier this year, and one of the
images in that poem is of Rowing in Eden.
One or two people imagined a distraught relationship involving work and effort.
Rowing is hard work, right? That’s what some people got out of reading that.
Now, when I read it, I’m on a placid lake in a Jane Austen novel, there’s a
lady with a parasol seated across from me and petals from blown roses are
drifting down through the aromatic air. So, we had a very different reading. So
what you can do in that case is number 2 here; where else does she use that
image?
Could I but ride indefinite
As doth the Meadow Bee …
(To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLQnK7YDkyc
4th stanza:
I said "But just to be a Bee"
Upon a Raft of Air
And row in Nowhere all Day long
And anchor "off the Bar"
A Bird came down the Walk – …
4th and 5th stanzas
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home -
Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam -
Or butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless - as they swim.
A chilly Peace
infests the Grass
Last verse:
But all mankind
deliver here – cruise softly here, row softly here, sail softly here, do anchor
here
From whatsoever
sea —
Now, I don’t think there’s any way, looking at this poem –
ontologically – to say for certain that she’s not using it differently here.
But when we see where she’s using it in other places, at least it points to
another possibility. So that’s kind of the structure of the discourse here, and
how we’ll try to get through some of these poems and see what we discover. Dare
I ask for a reader for Remorse is
cureless? … I’ll start picking on people. Burleigh?
Burleigh. OK.
Remorse is cureless - the Disease
Not even God - can heal –
For 'tis His institution - and
The Adequate …
no … and the adequate … of Hell –
- J744/Fr781/M383
Greg. That’s a funny word, isn’t it?
Burleigh. Yeah …
Greg. So what’s this poem … any comments on this? – what she’s
trying to get across? … It’s a discussion!
Unknown. The word adequate
just jumps out. It seems like “equivalent.”
Greg. Yes. ad equate; equal to. So there’s a word that’s lost some
of its punch, for us, today. The definition in her dictionary is “Equal;
proportionate; correspondent to; fully sufficient.” So that word’s devolved.
She’s saying that it’s the same as hell, not that it’s good enough. … Well, we
disposed of that one quickly. [General Amusement] ….
There’s
a sound recording of Gerda Lerner – she’s an historian of feminism – she wrote
a fat tome titled The Creation of
Feminist Consciousness, and, I’ve got to tell you this story. On the
recording she talks about writing this tome, this prodigious research, and she
talks about various women in history, and she says [paraphrasing] “ I wasn’t going to use Emily Dickinson. She
never participated in the activities around her, she just staid home, so, I
wasn’t going to include her. But, when I was finished at night, with work, to
relax, I’d read at night some Emily Dickinson for pleasure, and I started
reading the poems and I said, “Hey … wait a minute.” [laughter]. Jay, could you read?
Jay
reads:
Dickinson
created a feminine universe, with metaphors that derive from the domestic
life of women. She employs her homely images in the most ambitious way to address the great questions
of humankind – death, God, the human condition, and immortality. In so doing,
she claimed for herself the authority to take on topics [from which women were
largely proscribed in a still quite patriarchal society]. … she opened the path
to the future and won the immortality she so boldly claimed by speaking as a
free soul, a free mind, and a woman. In this sense, Dickinson appears as the
perfection and culmination of centuries of women’s struggles for
self-definition. -Gerda Lerner
Greg.
Quite a statement. Quite a statement.
Julia.
Greg, what year is this? Is she still alive?
Greg.
No, she died just a couple of years ago. She’s written several books … So, in
this vein, “The Language of Home,” let’s take I felt a cleaving in my Mind.
Elaine
reads:
I
felt a Cleaving in my Mind -
As
if my Brain had split -
I
tried to match it - Seam by Seam -
But
could not make them fit.
The
thought behind, I strove to join
Unto
the thought before -
But
Sequence ravelled out of Sound
Like
Balls - upon a Floor.
-
J937/Fr867/M423
It sounds too familiar. [laughter]
[To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVnGS7EfQjM
Polly.
What does she mean by them in the
fourth line? I thought Mind and Brain – is she separating them?
Jule.
The Seams.
Burleigh.
That’s what I thought, too.
Greg.
Could not make the seams fit. She’s using a sewing metaphor. Some domestic
imagery there.
Burleigh.
I don’t think she’s talking about sewing. She’s talking about the thinking
[inaudible].
Greg.
Agreed. The seam is a metaphor for that taken from the home.
Elaine.
It seems that way. [laughter].
Greg.
Yes, and it fits, too, doesn’t it?
What’s she describing here?
Unknown.
A breakdown.
Greg.
I think so, yes. The mood is kind of – desperate, isn’t it? I heard a poet
read, many, many years ago. He wasn’t a very enjoyable poet, but he used an
image of ball bearings rattling around in a cigar box, and when I read this
poem, that image popped into my brain. Ugh. Somebody who’s really having a
tough time. But, is that what she’s saying here?
Jule.
No, I think she’s talking about knitting balls. They’re silent, but they roll.
Greg.
Yeah, I even gave a little hint – there’s a skein of yarn there to the right.
I’ve learned that in the nineteenth century, yarn would come into the home in
these skeins, a kind of a tangle. They’d have to roll it by hand into a ball.
Unknown.
It still does. Mostly, it comes in a skein.
Burleigh.
But, there is a machine you can put the skein on, and crank it, and the it will
wind it. [ general discussion of yarn skeins ensues.]
Robert.
I find myself resisting the skein of yarn, because [inaudible] silence. I
resonate with the idea of an actual ball, a steel ball. That would ravel out of
sound.
Greg.
Sound. Out of sound …
Ella.
Yeah, out of sound is silence.
Maura.
Why bring up sound at all?
Greg.
Is it going out of sound, or is it outside of sound?
Ella.
It’s all internal.
Elizabeth.
Whenever I read it, I think of Athena. She was born through the head of Zeus.
She’s the goddess of Wisdom, but also of knitting and tapestry. I think that
might be reaching a bit too far, but I just had to share it as a possible
meaning of creation, or production, as well as something just unravelling.
Greg.
I like that. Maybe not so bad after all. .. I understand these balls unraveled
more easily than machine-rolled balls?
Burleigh.
Especially if there’s a cat around. [laughter]
Jule.
Actually, the tighter they’re rolled, the farther they’ll go.
Greg.
All right, we can stretch this a little further with the next one.
Adrianna
reads:
How
the old Mountains drip with Sunset
How
the Hemlocks burn --
How
the Dun Brake is draped in Cinder
By
the Wizard Sun --
How
the old Steeples hand the Scarlet
Till
the Ball is full --
Have
I the lip of the Flamingo
That
I dare to tell?
Then,
how the Fire ebbs like Billows --
Touching
all the Grass
With
a departing -- Sapphire -- feature --
As
a Duchess passed --
How
a small Dusk crawls on the Village
Till
the Houses blot
And
the odd Flambeau, no men carry
Glimmer
on the Street --
How
it is Night -- in Nest and Kennel --
And
where was the Wood --
Just
a Dome of Abyss is Bowing
Into
Solitude --
These
are the Visions flitted Guido --
Titian
-- never told --
Domenichino
dropped his pencil --
Paralyzed,
with Gold --
-J291/327/M156
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUxA5_9ipQo ]
Polly.
Boy, are Amherst sunsets still … [laughter]
Greg.
She’s up on Mount Tom, maybe. Anything stand out on this one? Beautiful
imagery, hm? [general agreement]
Adrianna.
All the color words.
Maura.
And, she doesn’t say “red,” or “blue,” or “brown.”
Greg.
Dun, sapphire.
Susan.
It’s amazing to me – she could have ended the poem in the second-to-last
stanza, and then, here come the Italian painters, and they march into the poem,
in order to be dismissed.
Julie.
I love the image of Domenichino dropping his pencil.
Elaine.
Can you talk about that? I don’t know that painter.
Julie.
OK. I have a book – a sometime useful book – called The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists, and I looked him up. He
painted frescos and small landscapes and altar pieces in Rome. He was very well
known in Rome for those pieces. He was active in the first part of the
seventeenth century. His frescoes are foremost examples of early baroque style.
So, I found it fascinating that we’ve never heard of him.
Polly.
She probably read about him in an article in Harper’s or something.
Greg.
Or in an art book in the library.
Susan.
Well it’s interesting that she has Titian.
Maura.
Well, she had “Titian” hair. The color of her hair. Red hair. So maybe she
thought, “I really belong in that.”
Greg.
I like that she got the sun on the hemlocks without actually naming a color; Hemlocks burn. How about the odd Flambeau? What might they be?
Jule.
Is this about the time her brother was building his house?
Polly.
Maybe it’s when he started wearing the red wig. [laughter]
Ellen.
And what are the flambeaux, torches?
Greg.
I don’t know. I always thought it was fireflies. A literal flambeau is
something like a torch.
Elaine.
Is it just the way the light’s reflecting on the street?
Greg.
That’s the way others have read it, yes.
Victoria.
I was thinking of the edges of branches. They look like they’re on fire.
Greg.
I’m interested in the expression, How the
old Steeples hand the Scarlet.
Maria.
The sun is scarlet. It’s a ball of fire.
George.
The sun is setting, isn’t it? Hiding behind the steeple?
Greg.
I think that’s what that is, yes. I’m interested in the steeple handing the
scarlet, because a steeple looks like a spindle, doesn’t it?
George.
Some of them, not all. It could be square, stone, and the sun hiding from us.
Greg.
I’m suggesting that the image might be drawn from hand-spinning; that’s why I
have the image here. Hand the yarn – it’s kind of wound around the spindle.
Burleigh.
If you were in the right spot, the steeple might appear to just touch the sun.
[crosstalk]
Polly.
She couldn’t otherwise, just from her bedroom window, have seen the sunset.
Nathan.
Perhaps she’s saying that poetry has as much trouble trying to describe the
complexity of a sunset as paintings do.
Greg.
Yes, thank you.
George.
So, do you think if she had the lip of the flamingo that she could adequately
express ….?
Greg.
Flamingoes are known to be very noisy, clattery birds. They make a big squawk.
Even if I were a gabby chatterbox, would I dare to tell? That’s how I’m reading
it – or could I, even?
Jule. That’s a good idea – “That I dare to tell”
question mark.
Maura.
What strikes me about this poem is that there’s almost a childish wonder about
it. How the old Mountains …. How it is
Night… The way she expresses that – she’s almost overcome. It’s an odd
diction, to put it that way. She’s just overwhelmed.
Greg.
I often get the impression, when I read poems like this, that alright, I’ve
never actually felt this myself. It’s more sensitivity that I’m even capable
of.
Susan.
One of the amazing things about this poem – I was reflecting on this - just
last night, everybody, if you live in Amherst, what a perfect John Kensett it
was, I swear, just exactly like that John Kensett painting that we have in the
evergreens – the way the clouds were formed across the sky – the pink … what
is amazing is that she goes everywhere. She goes up in the mountains and the
steeple. She goes into the sunset, fire touching all the grass, brings in a
duchess just for fun. She sees the small dusk crawl on the village like a drunk
going down the sidewalk, and then this odd flambeaux, this sort random light
almost like a willow-the-wisp comes in, and the dome of abyss. You can see that
from the Dickinson property. There really is a kind of dome of abyss – a
bottomless grey that moves in on the background. Then, she just hands the poem
over to the Italians. [laughter]
Polly.
But, isn’t she exaggerating here? Even comic. It’s way too much sunset than
anyone’s ever seen.
Greg.
That’s two different readings, one comic and one awe-struck. [crosstalk]
Julie.
The painters couldn’t capture it.
Jule.
You take a painting, and it’s small. The sunset is overwhelming. It’s
everywhere. You can’t paint that 360-degre dimension. [crosstalk]
Greg.
Of course, Dickinson also coined her own words. Most of the words that she made
up, though, are composed of real English words. She just adds –less or –ness
onto them. They’re not all in the dictionary, some of them are. “Stopless” you
can find in our dictionary. “Overtakelessness” … No. [laughter]. Let’s take a
quick look at one of the words that she created. There aren’t too many of
these. Anyone in a really exultant mood want to read this next one?
Robert
reads.
We - Bee and I - live by the quaffing –
'Tisn't all Hock - with us –
Life has its Ale –
But it's many a lay of the Dim Burgundy –
We chant - for cheer - when the Wines - fail –
Do we "get drunk"?
Ask the jolly Clovers!
Do we "beat" our "Wife"?
I - never wed –
Bee - pledges his - in minute flagons –
Dainty - as the trees – on her deft Head –
While runs the Rhine –
He and I - revel –
First - at the vat - and latest at the Vine -
Noon - our last Cup –
"Found dead" - "of Nectar" –
By a humming Coroner –
In
a By-Thyme!
- J230/Fr244/M116
To hear this poem read aloud, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3xqlI2-npA
Greg.
What’s the created word?
Several.
By-Thyme.
Greg.
I’d love to hear what that says to people.
[inaudible]
George.
After life.
Greg.
After life. … Found dead of nectar.
Maria.
It’s a very sensual poem, too. The thyme, the clover, ale. The Burgundy wine.
George.
What’s the “beat our wife” about, do you think? Is that what drunkards talk
about or something?
Greg.
Well, alcoholism was a problem, and there were plenty of drunks and sots in
Amherst, and some pretty sordid incidents took place. She saw a lot of that
looking right out on Main Street.
George.
Is there any significance in her putting the word “beat” in quotation marks and
the word “Wife” in quotation marks in stead of the whole three-word phrase?
Greg.
I think it’s because she would have seen the words beat and Wife in the
newspapers in accounts of these incidents, and the word our would not have been
there in those accounts.
George.
Oh, OK.
Maura.
Do you think this would have come from newspaper reports?
Greg.
Yes, I think the words, “found dead of drink” was not an unknown phrase to read
in a paper.
Maura.
Nectar is in quotes, too, so that probably didn’t appear in the paper.
[laughter]
Buleigh.
I like the humming coroner.
Greg.
That’s a bee, right.
Polly.
Or a hummingbird. [ahas of recognition]
Question.
What does Hock mean.
Greg.
A German white wine. The English used to like it to get old. We wouldn’t like
to drink it that way. It was highly prized in 18th,19th-centuy England.
It comes from Hochheim, town in Germany.
Maura.
Byron uses that word. He writes about it.
Greg.
“Old Hock.” It gets yellow. We’d spit it out.
Unknown.
Does this seem like a really exuberant poem?
Greg.
It makes me feel like running barefoot through the tulips. I really love it. …
There’s a book by Brita Lyndberg-Seyerstad, The
Voice of the Poet. She’s done research on words that Dickinson made up, and
she wrote that the only words that she totally made up are this one and
“Optizan,” someone who’s a wizard at seeing things. But the others she just
twists on words that we already know. That could really throw someone who’s not
an English speaker.
Susan.
A Drunkard cannot meet a cork/ Without a reverie.
Sheila.
Where did she get the authority to write that? [laughter]
Greg.
So, a lot of her vocabulary is kind of private. She makes words mean things
that are special to her. I think the most well-known one is circumference, and
we could spend at least one full workshop on that one for sure. There are
others, like meridian, the four
cardinal points of the compass, north,
south, east, west, the she makes mean something of her own – film. I thought an interesting one to
look at would be physiognomy.
Julie
reads:
A Spider sewed at Night
Without a Light
Upon an Arc of White.
If Ruff it was of Dame
Or Shroud of Gnome
Himself himself inform
Of Immortality
His Strategy
Was Physiognomy.
- J1138/Fr1163/M705
(To hear this poem read aloud go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijd9f_K-Irs
Greg.
Dickinson seems to have admired spiders.
George.
Why not?
Greg.
Because they crawl upon her reticence in a circumstance reluctant to be told.
Jule.
They kill two of the most deadly insects known to man, flies and mosquitoes,
because of the diseases they carry.
Greg.
What’s she saying in the last stanza?
George.
Physiognomy means face, doesn’t it? – the appearance of a face, does it not?
Greg.
It means more than that, but it does mean that.
Julie.
You can determine your character from your outward appearance.
Greg.
Right. Physiognomy is considered a pseudo-science today, but it goes back to
the ancient Greeks. It enjoyed a revival in the middle ages. It lasted until
the nineteenth century via Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One of its
offshoots was phrenology. The idea was that you could determine a person’s
character by examining their physical traits. It had a wider application in
that you could determine the nature of anything in the natural world that way.
There’s a quote on the other side by Sir Thomas Browne Dickinson identified as
important to her in an early letter. The words in brackets are mine.
Maura
reads.
“And truly I have observed that those professed
Eleemosynaries [anyone having to do with charitable giving, including those
receiving the charity], though in a crowd or multitude, do yet direct and place
their petitions on a few and selected persons: there is surely a Physiognomy,
which those experienced and Master Mendicants [beggars] observe, whereby they
instantly discover a merciful aspect, and will single out a face wherein they
spy the signatures and marks of Mercy. For there are mystically in our faces
certain Characters which carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that
cannot read a, b, c, may read our natures. I hold moreover that there is a
Phytognomy, or Physiognomy, not only of Men, but of Plants and Vegetables; and
in every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs or bushes [Bushes were hung out as signs before tavern doors] of
their inward forms. The Finger of GOD hath left an Inscription upon all His
works, not graphical or composed of Letters, but of their several forms,
constitutions, parts, and operations, which, aptly joined together, do make one
word that doth express their natures.”
Greg.
So, I think that it’s in this larger sense that the word physiognomy that
Dickinson’s applying in this poem. She took that word and made something more
out of it than what we just read.
Brooke.
Hey Greg. Do you make anything of her reading something like Hitchcock, who was
musing on the sacred nature or spiritual nature of the natural world as a scientist?
Greg.
I hope we get to that.
Brooke.
I feel a lot of that when I look at this poem.
Greg.
Yes. Dickinson was trained to see signs of God’s benevolence all throughout
nature. They looked for it everywhere, and Edward Hitchcock, the leading
intellectual force in Amherst during her youth was right in there. He looked at
the autumn leaves and he said, we’re heading into the death of winter. Why
would God grace this transition in such glory? But then, if we think of the
resurrection … and this was a leading scientist, and that’s how he wrote.
Susan.
Can you explain why bushes were hung outside of taverns?
Greg.
I cannot.
Jule.
Well, not everybody could read.
Greg.
That’s a good point, yes. One things that strikes me is that the spider seems
certain of his strategy for attaining immortality, his web-work. This is his
immortality, and, Dickinson was never so sure. I know I could start an argument
by saying that.
Polly.
How did she know it was a male spider? Most people who sew were not males at
that time.
Greg.
I wonder if she did know. But the word sew is another from the language of the
home, and I think it tends to anthropomorphize the spider a little bit. You’d
normally say the web was woven, wouldn’t your, or spun? But she say sew, which,
again, suggests that domestic activity that gives us a more sympathetic view of
the spider at work. Why did she choose “him?” She could have said “Herself
herself inform.
Jay.
Why
the repetition? Himself himself.
George.
Well, one’s a subject and one’s an object.
Greg.
She uses these inflexive pronouns in ways that we wouldn’t. We would say “He
informs himself.” I’ve never found a satisfying, or cogent explanation of why she
does that. I know I like it. Margaret Freeman has written a very abstruse
treatment of this topic, but l’ve been unable to follow it, unfortunately.
Robert.
The last stanza – I’m just wondering whether it’s the spider who’s using
physiognomy to [inaudible} to insects that are falling into the web and is
reading the insect’s physiognomy as it decides to pounce upon it.
Greg.
I think we’re considering the physiognomy of the web itself. It testifies to
his great art.
Jay.
Immortality?
Greg.
Yeah, art can make you immortal.
Susan.
The spider is sewing. He’d sewing funeral garments. The ruff of the dame. The
shroud of the gnome. He’s sewing at night, without a light. He’s obviously very
used to doing it. That may be a clue as to why it’s a he. A he spider. Not that
there weren’t he spiders who did the same thing. And then there’s the word
immortality which suggests that he’s providing the means for people to clothe
themselves in immortality, or be clothed.
Polly.
Does the spider become God? Immortality. He’s killing other bugs. [laughter]
Elizabeth.
Maybe he’s one of the three fates. [continued laughter]
Maura.
Maybe it’s Lucifer.
Greg.
Lucifer or God. Now there’s two different readings.
Julie.
Greg, I like the Lucifer idea, because that means “light bearer.”
Nathan.
Does Dickinson compare herself to the spider, writing poetry at night?
Greg.
Yeah. She’s not so sure, but her is.
Elaine.
There’s so much more here. Let’s go on.
Greg.
There is. The language of the church. This is an area where I didn’t know
anything until I started reading Emily Dickinson. This is all new to me, and I
understand from previous discussions that it’s not so new to everybody here.
We’ll see what we can turn up with Further
in Summer than the Birds. It’s a poem of Indian Summer, and one reason I
included these in my work is that, people come from the world, Brazil, or Texas
even, and they haven’t experienced our Indian Summers, and they read something
like this, and they’re going to miss what it’s talking about.
Nathan
reads.
Further
in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic
from the Grass
A
minor Nation celebrates
Its
unobtrusive Mass.
No
Ordinance be seen
So
gradual the Grace
A
pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging
Loneliness.
Antiquest
felt at Noon
When
August burning low
Arise
this spectral Canticle
Remit
as yet no Grace
No
Furrow on the Glow
Yet
a Druidic - Difference
Enhances
Nature now
-
J1068/Fr895/M534
[To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5jb9x5GLSM]
George,
Is anti-quest a new word?
Greg.
Antique-est. Most antique. It’s an invented word. What’s she describing in that
first stanza?
Polly.
Crickets.
Greg.
Yes. At least one copy of this was sent with the comment in the accompanying
letter, identifying the poem as “my cricket.” That’s the minor nation.
Maura.
Why is it pathetic?
Greg.
If you turn to page 6, dictionary definitions. Dickinson seems to have been
moved by the sound of the cricket. That’s why there’s this quote from the
letter on page 5:
“The
cricket sings in the morning, now, a most pathetic conduct.”[iii]
And,
why that would be is that most species of crickets in Massachusetts chirp at
night. But, if it gets really cold, sometime they’ll chirp early in the day,
and that’s a sign of coming winter. So, they’re singing in the morning. That’s
what she’s saying in the letter – a most pathetic conduct.
Penelope.
She also says they’re celebrating.
Greg.
Yes. The Mass is a celebration, and I think we’re going to see, as this poem
progresses, that it goes from the celebratory life in the grass, and it moves
toward winter both in what it’s describing and in mood. I think it’s a real
masterpiece. And, I think maybe – Masses weren’t celebrated in her church - no
masses in a Reformed Protestant Church – that would be the Catholics, the
“Papists,” who weren’t in the majority here, in Emily Dickinson’s time; that’s
the way I’m reading that minor nation.
Elizabeth.
One thing – if the crickets are celebrating Mass, Catholics believe grace is
given through sacrament, but Protestants believe that grace is freely given
from God. The crickets are engaging in a ritual. They’re saying that no
ordinance be given, communion or baptism. They are engaging in ritual by chanting,
asking for grace, maybe perhaps to be saved, come the winter. And, there is a
sadness about it, because their song – that is not a way to seek grace from the
Protestant perspective, but there is, perhaps, an element of enchanting
paganism about it.
Greg.
I was hoping someone would speak, and give a little sermon on grace, because
that’s such a heavy word for her and for her time. It was, as Elizabeth said,
freely given of God, and there’s nothing that you could do to get it. God
decides whether to give it or not. Your whole salvation depends on grace.
Jay.
Greg, why are you so sure it’s a cricket?
Greg.
Because, she actually wrote, “I offer you my cricket.” She sent the poem to a
number of people, and she called it her cricket. No particular insight on my
part. .. So, no ordinance be seen, no sacrament, as Elizabeth said. “I don’t
see anything, but the grace that’s transforming my world is so slowly that I
don’t even see any outward sign of it. Sacraments, ordinances, were outward
signs of an inner relationship with God. She sees no outward signs, but
something’s happening.
George.
She does exploit the resonance between grace and grass.
Burleigh.
Nice catch.
Greg.
Then she tells us it’s a pensive custom enlarging loneliness. Aren’t we moving
away from the celebratory life in the grass in the first stanza, changing mood
a little bit? Because, we’re moving toward winter? …. Antiquest. Let’s look at
her definition of this from her dictionary on page six of the handout. This is
a good one. Because, that’s a strange word, isn’t it, in this context? Does it
mean old, or ancient? Those are the first two definitions, but the third one is
“odd, wild, fanciful, more generally written antic.” So, I went to my
dictionary of word origins and looked up antic, and it says, “see antique.”
And, part of that definition is, “In Italian, antico, from Latin antiquus, was often applied to grotesque
carvings found in ancient remains. So there’s the tie-in. It was borrowed into
English in the sixteenth century, as an adjective, antic, meaning bizarre. Also used as a noun to mean absurd
behavior. So there’s a lost meaning for that word.
Jay.
Antic means funny, too.
Greg.
Yes, talking about antics, that’s odd behavior.
Victoria.
It’s out of sequence. You would expect to hear that at night. It’s odd to feel
that at noon.
Greg.
Antiquest felt at Noon/ When August burning low' Arise this spectral
Canticle A canticle can be any
song, but to Dickinson’s parishioners it would have probably suggested the
Biblical Song of Solomon; and then/ Repose to typify. I want to know
what that means.
Maura. Isn’t she just saying that song typifies
repose – it makes you feel a repose, moving toward death. It typifies repose.
The definition of repose is that sound.
Greg. OK, if we turn back to page six and look at
the definitions of type and typify – again these are from her dictionary. This
is Webster.
TYPI-FY,
v.t.
To
represent by an image, form, model or resemblance, The washing of baptism
typifies the cleansing of the soul from sin by the blood of Christ. Our Savior
was typified by the goat that was slain.
It’s a sign of something to come. I remember being
in these groups before, and I understood that some of the participants were
quite familiar with Christian typology. I was not, so this is kind of new stuff
to me..
1. The
mark of something; an emblem; that which represents something else.
2. A
sign; a symbol; figure of something to come; as, Abraham's sacrifice and the
paschal lamb, were types of Christ. To this word is opposed antitype. Christ,
in this case, is the antitype.
So,
I’m suggesting that Repose to typify
suggests that what’s happening right now, in the grass, is a sign of winter to
come. This language of the church, as I said, is new to me, and I find that it
yields great riches when we start looking into the poems.
What’s happening now? Remit as yet no Grace. Payback? Return?
You don’t have to give it up …yet.
And a Druidic difference. We’ve gone
from a mass to the savage, barbaric practices of the Druids, as we go from a
lovely Indian summer heading toward winter.
Ellen.
I see a connection to the [inaudible] poem, Remorse
is cureless – Not even God can heal. Sort of a death, but in the first one
God can’t heal, but then the cleansing of baptism.
Greg.
The Druids were close to nature, too. [general agreement]
Jay.
I don’t think we’ve gone from heaven to hell. I think we’ve gone from one kind
of grace to another kind of grace.
Greg.
Yeah, I don’t see hell in here, but I see wild …
Jay.
Druidic difference suggests that it’s now enhancing nature, too. Nature can be
enhanced in other ways, at other times.
Greg.
Well, as if that wasn’t enough, let’s move on to the Book of Revelation. The
real title of the book, that last book in the Bible, is The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. Emily Dickinson herself
refers to it as the Revelations, in the plural. And she does that for reasons
unknown, but it’s Revelation singular, and John the Divine, on the isle of
Patmos, receives a vision from God, and Jesus Christ talks to him, and give him
the words to write down. And even thought we start with Mathew, we are going to
draw on the book of Revelation.
Susan
reads.
There
came a Day at Summer's full,
Entirely
for me -
I
thought that such were for the Saints,
Where
Resurrections - be –
The
Sun, as common, went abroad,
The
flowers, accustomed, blew,
As
if no soul the solstice passed
That
maketh all things new -
The
time was scarce profaned, by speech -
The
symbol of a word
Was
needless, as at Sacrament,
The
Wardrobe - of our Lord -
Each
was to each The Sealed Church,
Permitted
to commune this - time -
Lest
we too awkward show
At
Supper of the Lamb.
The
Hours slid fast - as Hours will,
Clutched
tight, by greedy hands -
So
faces on two Decks, look back,
Bound
to opposing lands -
And
so when all the time had leaked,
Without
external sound
Each
bound the Other's Crucifix -
We
gave no other Bond -
Sufficient
troth, that we shall rise -
Deposed
- at length, the Grave -
To
that new Marriage,
Justified
- through Calvaries of Love –
- J322/Fr325/M155
To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scaDQONBkyo
Greg.
You’d better know your Bible, to read this one. Could you add, Susan, the quote
from Matthew there on the page?
Susan
reads.
“Jesus, when he had
cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of
the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake,
and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints
which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went
into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” – Matthew 27:50 – 54
Greg.
This particular description is after the resurrection of Christ; He’s risen
from the dead – glorious event, which Paul called “the first fruits of the
resurrection,” meaning that we’re all going to rise again from the dead
someday, and Jesus is just the first. That’s the context, I think, of this
first stanza, that she’s comparing this glorious day to this other glorious day
or days, the resurrection.
Susan.
In Emily’s time, “Saints” meant those who belonged to the church – professed believers,
and it’s often capitalized.
[i]
“… for we must consider that we shall be
as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall
deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to
withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword
through the world.” – Winthrop speaking to the pilgrims aboard the Arbella
(spelling modernized).
[ii]
Perry Miller,
Error into the Wilderness,
From the title of a sermon given by Samuel
Danforth (1626-1674) in 1670,
A Brief
Recognition of New-England’s Errand into the Wilderness (New York,
Evanston, and London: Harper Row 1956), 1.
