EDIS, Amherst Chapter, Poetry Conversation

4 August 2017

Facilitated by Lois Kackley

Fascicle 3 Sheet 4

Source: Cristanne Miller, Emily Dickinson’s Poems as She Arranged Them, Cambridge, Massachusetts  London, England Harvard University Press, 2016

Sleep is supposed to be
By souls of sanity
The shutting of the eye.

Sleep is the station grand
Down which, on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!

Morn is supposed to be
By people of degree
The breaking of the Day.

Morning has not occurred!

That shall Aurora be—
East of Eternity—
One with the banner gay—
One in the red array—
That is the break of Day!

                        - Fr35/J13/M59

Lois. Essentially, she’s calling attention to the fact that even her father’s convention-bound language would limit life itself – by souls of sanity – even that is figurative language, because, to talk about “shut-eye” as sleep is figurative, and yet it’s limiting. In contrast to that, in the second stanza, “Sleep is the station grand/ Down wh’, on either hand/ The hosts of witness stand,” she’s kind of putting that in the category of myth-making, is she not? Anybody have any thoughts or arguments about that line of thinking?

Greg. The dead were said to be “sleeping in Christ.” It sounds that biblical note. The reason this isn’t the real morning is that the real morning is the resurrection.

Lois. Well, yeah. I started doing a little research on the Puritans, because, in the language that Greg is pointing out here, she’s aligning herself with the spiritual aspects of myth and language and poetry, if we read between the lines. So there’s not the wholesale rejection of the spiritual aspect of her Puritan heritage, right? Only with the deadening of language that comes about when you use figurative language to cut off imagination .

Greg. She uses that language for its power. It’s not doctrinal at all.

Lois. Right, it’s not doctrinal, but nevertheless she’s aligning herself with life as adventure that I suppose was inherited by the Puritans before all the dogma became so repressive. When she talks back to her father, if I  use that phrase, she’s not saying that she’s totally rejecting the tradition, only its repressive elements that come down and get hold of people and stop their thinking, stop their imagination, their wonder, the free-flow of ideas. And then again, in the third stanza, Morn is supposed to be/ By people of degree/ The breaking of the Day. Scan it, that’s just “Morning is just the break of Day.” And then the poet answers. I don’t think it’s fully developed. I don’t think her imagery is fully developed; but I do see the back-and-forth between what the acceptable language is and what the language is among those who align with symbolism and myth-making and possibility-exploring. Morning has not occurred! Morning has not even yet gotten here!

Victoria. I think that word – she uses it twice – suppose, is kind of important here, because, later on you get a lot of definition poems [such as Hope is the thing with feathers], where she proclaims it, and this is a very early poem. When she uses the word suppose, there’s a qualifying …

Lois. Well it’s not her voice.

Polly. She’s quoting people around her their attitude. It reminds me of Shakespeare, in a way, because who else addresses sleep in literature?

Victoria. I was thinking of Shakespeare too. What’s that line? Sleep [crosstalk].

Greg. I agree, the word suppose expresses a kind of light-hearted skepticism. There are a couple of other poems lime that, like Where bells no more affright the morn, that ends with Not Father’s bells nor factories/ Could scare us any more. So she’s done that more than once in per poems.

Victoria. She writes about that in another letter, where – this is in the context of her conservatory – where she went down early to tend to her flowers, but Father doesn’t like that. He’d rather I was reading the Bible, or doing something more valuable.

Lois. It doesn’t say in the notes, but I thought this poem was a response to his statement about preferring “real life.”

Melba. “We don't have many jokes, though, now, it is pretty much all sobriety; and we do not have much poetry, father having made up his mind that it's pretty much all real life. Father's real life and mine sometimes come into collision, but as yet remain unhurt.”

Judith. When I read it, I actually thought that second stanza was about dreams.

Melba. I got a very hallucinatory quality out of that, and it immediately called to mind that kind of sleep where there’s just this parade of images just constantly in your head, and it’s very fantastic.

Lois. I think that’s wonderful, because that’s exactly what she’d doing in that poem. So, she pulled out of you the phantasmagorical.

Victoria. That’s not sanity; it makes you feel the insanity.

Melba. Yes, or at least the release from a constrained sanity and convention. And then maybe you could say it’s the minds eye that’s active then. The physical eye might be shut, but it’s the mind’s eye that’s sort of wandering in this land of images.

Lois. It’s not what you’re supposed to have going on in your head.

Melba. No, no, no.

Lois. The contrast between Sleep is supposed to be and Morn is supposed to be and the proclamation, Morning has not occurred – Folks! [laughter]. The task that I think Dickinson took on in this little poem is to distinguish between the mechanistic, convention-bound thinking, and the symbolic – Possibilities – Exploring mind. She’s distinguishing between two modes of thinking here, and I think her Father’s attitude about so-called “real life” – and he’s the one who set up the juxtaposition, in a way. I’m not saying he was cruel or anything, but he’s the one that created this contrast between the symbolic mind, and the conventional, life-deadening mind.

Judith. Also, it wasn’t just her father, it was the time, it was the culture. It was limiting to individuality and free thought,

Lois. Yes, absolutely. And isn’t it true today? You meet some people who get glassy-eyed if you bring up a poem in a conversation, and can’t imagine sitting in a room for an hour and a half talking about poetry.

Melba. I swear, in a tour yesterday I started on an eight-line poem and they’re like zzzzzzzzz. [laughter]. It was not a good day.

Judith. This poem is 1858, and it’s just when she’s moving into this period of productivity – it’s kind of extraordinary that in some ways we can see her transitioning by the declarations that she’s making here.

Lois. That’s what’s so fun about reading them in this order.

Melba. She’s just getting her vocabulary together.

Polly. Yeah, or rationalizing, justifying, articulating why she’s moving in the direction she’s moving.

Melba. Is it possible that there are two compatible readings of this poem?

Lois. Oh, yeah. Probably more than two.

Melba. The witnesses are standing by for the resurrection, but maybe morning has not occurred for me. Maybe my morning is just about to happen – In language. I mean, I’m wondering if it’s double voice, and that’s why it’s directed to someone like her father, because that’s one meaning that she knows he’d be comfortable with.

Lois. I think that’s entirely possible.

Melba. But maybe I misunderstood something. When you started you said a sort of a dedication to Edward from his affectionate daughter.

Lois. Let’s look at that again. This is an editor’s note. “Copy sent to Susan, with the ironic dedication, ‘To my father, who’s untiring dedication in my behalf – I am indebted for my morning – hours – viz 3, AM to 12, PM. These grateful lines are inscribed by his aff daughter’ (L198). ED writes in another letter that her father typically ‘rapped on my door to wake me’“ (L175).

Victoria. A copy of this poem in the letter to Sur – it almost sounds as if she wrote the poem, and then sent the letter to Sue – “here’s the poem I wrote about Father, and this is the way I would dedicate it if I were to show it to him.”

Greg. It’s kind of tongue-in-cheek isn’t it?

Lois, Victoria. Yeah! It’s very tongue-in-cheek.

Victoria. If we look at this poem in the context of the fascicle, maybe we could get a clue as to what kind of morning it is.

Lois. I think Greg is right in pointing out that when she talked about Aurora, and east of eternity, she’s eliciting the religious connotations to eternity. I can’t give you an exact reference, but Aurora was spoken of traditionally, in Puritan terms as referencing the break of heaven.

Greg. The morning Goddess, right? She’s the Goddess of Dawn?

Lois. Yeah. And her enthusiasm – she italicizes “that,” which usually means that in the manuscript she underlined it. That is the break of day.

Victoria. Why is that emphasis?

Lois. Because she’s contrasting what the world calls the breaking of the day, and the logical day, the symbolic day. You know, to her, morning could be when she’s happy with a poem.

Polly. I’m thinking of it as a birthing image. The birth of the day is at dawn, and she is birthing her poem, and that’s when the breaking of the day is for her.

Lois. Yeah, yeah. I think something along those lines.

Melba. The Latin root for Aurora means to shine, so it has the connotation of a light that’s different from the actual light from the sun. So, I think one connotation here is that there’s a kind of light that has nothing to do with the eye being open or shut – that there’s some kind of internal light – usually knowledge – that comes into view. One last thought – it seems to have the quality of a hymn.

Sleep is supposed to be
By souls of sanity
The shutting of the eye.

Morning has not occurred!

Sleep is the station grand
Down which, on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!

Morning has not occurred!

Morn is supposed to be
By people of degree
The breaking of the Day.

Morning has not occurred! [general approval]

Lois. Because, she does isolate that line … Alright, shall we move on?

Mary 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

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/Dez9iTq4dzw ]

Lois. So, what is that symbolic mind saying in this poem?

Polly. It’s not a journey, right? in that first stanza? It doesn’t matter what journey has happened. It’s mystic journey.

Adrianna. It’s like accepting what life sends your way, because you could be met with gales, you could go to an enchanted isle – and so you anticipate, await whatever happens, accepting what occurs.

Polly. Well, any one of these things could have happened – gales, the mystic mooring – that’s what I’m looking at – whatever’s there.

Lois. Yes, I think it’s as Adrianna said; if this is a commentary on life, it’s all up for question, it’s all up in the air. We don’t know. I may be buried by the storms of life.

Greg. What’s interesting to e is that this whole first stanza is in the past tense. [general agreement]. Then she goes into the present tense in the next stanza … but not the future

[crosstalk]

Victoria. All of those things may have happened to me, but here I am today

Lois. It’s the soul and the body, isn’t it? It’s the spirit speaking. I don’t know – it’s posing a question is it not? Whether, whether, whether? [crosstalk]

Polly. There are all these choices and she doesn’t know which is the right one.

Judith. The word “errand” is interesting, isn’t it? when you think of soul and body – the errand of the eye.

Lois. Yes, everything leads up to that, doesn’t it?

Greg. It’s nice alliteration.

Judith. But also I’d like to know about “errand” if there was a deeper meaning back then. It’s kind of a daily routine thing…

Greg. No, the Puritans called their entrance into the New World as an “errand into the wilderness.” It wasn’t just running an errand, l/vicike an errand boy. It’s a big deal.

Lois. It’s interesting that you talk about the change of tense, though. It’s like when people talk about out-of-body experiences, where they look down on their body on the surgical table or something, they look back into the past and into the future. It’s almost like she’s trying to look at everything from every perspective –the uses of the changing tenses I’m just saying…..There are lots of possibilities in life. My job is to figure it out. Some of it may be out of my control, like gales at sea. Some of it may be within my control, as in docile sails.

Victoria. The sea is always a big symbol for her, of the unknown.