Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group October 2017

Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group October 2017

Emily Dickinson as a Second Language, based on my book of that title.

Part 1

 Facilitated by Greg Mattingly

[The discussion is preceded by a brief tutorial on the online Emily Dickinson Lexicon, http://edl.byu.edu/ ]

Webster’s

The Emily Dickinson Lexicon – http://edl.byu.edu/

ED’s Dictionary

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For every word that she uses in the poems, what meanings and connotations she gives it.

            New Feet within my Garden go - … A Troubadour upon the elm betrays the solitude

For every word that she uses, a line or partial line from each poem that contains it, with the Johnson and Franklin numbers.

 [Three ways of examining the poems are listed on the whiteboard]

1. First, examine the language practices that were available to Dickinson in her time and place.

2.      Where else might she use this word or trope? An example of how this approach can shed light on a word arose in a discussion of the poem below that took place here last year.

3.      Third, and most ambitious effort, identify distinctly personal, biographical, and local references. Also historical context, including the American Civil War and the Second Great Awakening.

Greg, A good example of what you can get out of Emily Dickinson's Webster's is with the poem Pink - Small - and Punctual. We'll get a horticulturalist to read this poem, so I'll call on Victoria.

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?

Victoria. Arbutus, I think.

Greg. Yes, Arbutus. She signed it "Arbutus" - one of three copies - 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 can that imply? How can a flower be candid?

Sally. Shining with dew, maybe? The Latin root is shining, glowing.

Adriana. Would it be "white?"

Greg. Yes. Thank you. The definitions in her dictionary are as follows. This is the second definition/ "Fair, open, frank, ingenuous," as we might think. The first definition, but in this sense "Rarely used," "white," And how does that apply to the trailing arbutus? So, Victoria, can you explain how the colors of the May Flower.

Victoria. It starts out as pink, and fades to white.

Greg. Covert - in April/ Candid - in May.

Victoria. And it's so low-growing that you have to really hunt for it.

Greg. Yeah, that's the Covert part, I guess.

Elizabeth. That word has other interesting meanings as well. The underside of a bird's feather is the "covert," and the underside of leaves as well. Something that is hidden as well.

Greg. Well, I've written a book titled "Emily Dickinson as a Second Language: Demystifying the Poetry." I worked it up after coming to so many of these discussions, and observing what we do when we get together and work on these poems, and I broke it down to these three things, avoiding the biographical detours we often take - we like to talk about the person, too. But, if we're not doing that we're usually doing one of these three things, I think. We're examining the language practices that were available to her. And, one way of doing that is through her Webster's. [ The 1844 printing of the 1841 edition of Noah Webster's "American Dictionary of the English Language" ]. Right? What does this word mean to her. Where else does she use the word? Would that give us a clue to what she's implying? low, we had a discussion just recently - we were reading Wild Nights. Would anyone read that for us?

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!

Greg. Thank you. And can I get someone to read Whether my Bark when down at sea?

Juanita 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.

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

Greg. Thank you very much. So, these two poems came up for discussion in this group, and in the last poem, someone focused on the word errand. Does that word seem a little bland here?

Beardsley. Function.

Polly. What does Webster's say?

.

Greg. Webster's gives us a definition that we might expect. Here's what the Emily Dickinson Lexicon EDL tab gives us though. "goal, quest, destination, request, verbal message, attempt to communicate with someone far away. undertaking, duty, task, obligation, responsibility, mission, journey for a specific purpose. A little more weighty than an errand to the grocery store, right? Well, when Emily Dickinson's forbearer, Nathaniel Dickinson, crossed three thousand miles of ocean in a wooden boat with John Winthrop in 1630, they did that because they wanted to found a "city on a hill" that would be looked up to by the rest of the world as a model of Christian worship and community. He was a Puritan, an English Lawyer. They left comfortable lives in England to endure scarcity, hardship, harsh New England winters, potential attack from hostile natives in order to abandon the church practices in England that they objected to live a godly life in the manner that they believed necessary. They called this mission, this journey for a specific purpose, their "errand into the wilderness." So, that's a word with a lot of weight, and by examining some personal and historical context of where a word sits, we get something out of the poem that we might otherwise miss. So, I think that as we go through these poems this is what we'll be doing.

            The poem that Polly read was discussed here earlier this year, and the image, rowing in Eden. One or two people imagine this distraught relationship that required work and effort. Rowing is hard work, right? And 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, with a lady with a parasol sitting next to me; blown rose petals are falling down on me ... so, we had a very different reading of that. What you can do in that case maybe is number two here; where else does she use that image? We have: "'Could I but ride indefinite/ As doth the Meadow Bee ... "

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"

And we have "A Bird came down the walk .... "

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 -

At the museum we have a poem on display that we've talked about a thousand times - at the museum, "A Chilly peace infests the Grass," and we've come to think that that describes a cemetery. The last line is, "But all mankind deliver here," but there are variants: cruise softly here - row softly here - sail softly here - do anchor here. I don't think that there's any way of looking at this poem, ontologically, to say that she's not using it differently here, but when we see how she'd using it in other places, at least it points to another possibility.

            So, that's 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?

Burleigh reads.

Remorse is cureless - the Disease

Not even God - can heal –

For 'tis His institution - and

The Adequate of Hell – [The reader falters over the word "adequate."]

- J744/Fr781/M383

Greg. That's a funny word, isn't it?

Burleigh. Yeah.

Greg. What's with this poem. Any comments on what she's trying to get across? Discussion!

Marixa. It's like Dante.

Greg. Oh, the Hell, yeah.

Victoria. The word "adequate" just jumps out .. it seems like "the equivalent," like they're equal.

Greg. Yes. ad - equate, equal to. There's a word that's lost some of its punch for us today, hasn't it. 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 it's just good enough.  ...  Well, we disposed of that one quickly ... [laughter]

Greg. [Refers to handout, shown below.]

The Language of Home

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

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

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 –

HAND, v.t. 1.To give or transmit with the hand. 2.To lead, guide and lift with the hand; to conduct. 3.To manage; as, I hand my oar.

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/Fr327/M156

[end of handout page]

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/tUxA5_9ipQo ]

Greg. There's a feminist historian named Gerda Lerner who wrote a called "The Creation of Feminist Consciousness." I have to tell you this story - on a recording she talks about writing this tome, this big piece of research that traces important women in history, and she says, "I wasn't going to use Emily Dickinson. She never participated in the activities of her day that were going on all around her. She didn't participate in social activities, she just staid home, so I wasn't going to include her. She wasn't important. [some laughter] But when I was finished at night with work, to relax I'd read for pleasure Emily Dickinson, and I started reading the poems and I said ... Hey, wait a minute." [laughter] So, could someone read this from Gerda Lerner?

Jay reads from the handout above.

Greg. So, in this vein, The Language of Home, let's take I felt a Cleaving in my Mind.

Elaine reads from the handout above.

Elaine. This sounds too familiar. [laughter]

Polly. What does she mean by "them" in line four? because she's talking, I thought, Mind and Brain. Is she separating them?

Elaine. The seams.

Greg. I could not make the seams fit.

Burleigh. Yeah, that's what I thought, too.

Greg. She's talking about sewing - some domestic imagery there.

Burleigh. The two parts of her brain.

Jay. I don't think she's talking about sewing, but about the thinking that accompanies sewing.

Greg. Agreed. Agreed. But, "seam" is a figurative way of saying that using imagery, or metaphors, taken from the world of her home.

Elaine. It "seams" that way. [laughter]

Greg. Yeah, and it fits, too, doesn't it. What's she describing here?

Claire. A breakdown.

Greg. I think so, yeah. The mood is kind of - desperate - isn't it? I heard a poet once read, many many years ago - he wasn't a very enjoyable poet - 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 - somebody who's really having a tough time. But is that, do you think, what she's saying here?

Jule. Yeah, it's weaving balls. They're silent, but they roll, and they'll keep rolling.

Greg. Yeah, I even gave you a little hint there. There's a skein of yarn there at the right.

Robert. I find myself resisting the skein of yarn, which is always silent, and I resonate with the idea of an actual ball, a steel ball, which - rrrrrr - then would ravel out of sound.

Greg. Right. Sound ... out of sound.

Claire. Yeah, out of sound is silence.

Burleigh. I would take it that way too.

Greg. Is it going out of sound or is it outside of sound?

Victoria. It's all internal.

Greg. That's how I kind of read it.

Elizabeth. Whenever I read that first line I think about the birth of Athena. She was born through the head of Zeus. His mind was cleaved, and she's the goddess of wisdom but also of knitting and tapestry, and I think that might be reaching a bit too far, but I had to share it as a possible meaning of creation or production as well as just unravelling.

Greg. Wow. I like that. Yeah, maybe not so bad after all. I understand the balls unravel pretty easily compared to the machine-rolled balls? ... Alright, we might stretch this a little further with the next poem, and we have a volunteer.

Adriana reads How the old Mountains drip with Sunset from the handout above.

Polly. Boy! Are Amherst sunsets still so vivid? [laughter]

Greg. She's up there on Mount Tom, maybe. Anything stand out on this one? Beautiful imagery.

Victoria. All the color words. [general agreement] 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.  [laughter] They come marching through, only to be dismissed.

Jule. They can't compete with nature.

Julie. Right.

Greg. I like how she gets you to see the sun on the hemlocks without actually naming a color. How about the odd Flambeaux, what might they be?

Claire. What is a flambeau - is it a sort of torch?

Greg, Yeah, and I don't know, but I always thought it was fireflies here, but yeah, a literal flambeau is a kind of a torch. That's my guess.

Claire. The light on the edges of branches, sometimes, they look like they're on fire.

Greg. Yes, that's what others see in it. ... I'm interested in the expression, How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet.

Marixa. The scarlet is like the sun is a ball of fire.

Steve. The sun is setting isn't it? Hiding behind the steeple?

Greg. Yes, and I'm interested in the image of the steeple handing the scarlet, because a steeple looks like a spindle, doesn't it?

Steve. Could be, but some are square - brick. And it could be the sun hiding from us.

Jule. The sun reflecting from one thing to the other - handing it off.

Greg. I'm suggesting that the image might be drawn from hand spinning; that's why I have that illustration here. Hand the yarn and have it wound around the spindle. You see in the a distaff. She uses that word in one poem, "There is a morn by men unseen."

Here are the birds that sought the sun

When last year's distaff idle hung

And summer's brows were bound.

Burleigh. If you were in the right spot the steeple might appear to just touch the sun.

Steve. Do you think if she had the lip of the Flamingo that she could adequately express ...

Greg. The Flamingoes are known to be very noisy birds. So, if I were a real chatterbox, even then, would I dare to tell? That's how I'm reading it. - Or could I, even?

Sally. What strikes me about this poem is that there's almost a child-like wonder about it, and delight. The way she expresses it, she's almost overcome. She's overwhelmed.

Greg. I often think to myself, when I read one of her poems like this, "Alight, I've never actually felt this." It's more sensitivity than I'm even capable of.

Susan. One of the amazing things about this poem - and I'm reflecting on this because last night, everybody, if you were in Amhest - was a perfect John Kensett sunset - the way the clouds were formed across the sky - the pink, the grey - what is amazing about this is, she goes everywhere. She goes up, to 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 dusk crawl on the village, like a drunk going down the sidewalk. Then, this odd flambeaux, this sort of random light almost like the willow-the-wisp comes in, And the dome of abyss, you can actually see that from the Dickinson property, a sort of bottomless grey that moves in at that time. And then she just hands the poem over to the Italians. [laughter]

Polly. Do you think she's exaggerating here? She's being comic? It's way too much sunset that anyone's ever seen.

Greg. There's two different readings - one comic and one awestruck. ... of course, Dickinson coined her own words, most of them made up from real English words; then she just adds -less or -ness onto them. Most aren't in the dictionary, some of them are. "Stopless" is in the dictionary, "overtakelessness," no. We'll take a quick look at one that she created; there aren't too many of these. Does 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://youtu.be/p3xqlI2-npA ]

Greg. What's the created word?

Several. By-Thyme. I'd love to hear what that says to people.

Sally. Time running through a field.

Steve. After life,

Marixa. It's a very sensual poem, too - the thyme, the clover, ale.

Steve. What's the beat our Wife about. Is that what drunkards talk about or something?

Greg. Well, alcoholism was a problem. There were plenty of town drunks - sots - in Amherst and some pretty sordid incidents took place, and she saw all of that out on Main Street.

Steve. Do you suppose there's anything to having the single words "beat" and "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 accounts of these events in the newspaper, and the word "our" would not have been in there.

Sonia. So is it possible that all those words in quotes are from newspapers, like we see in the police reports?

Greg. I think so. "Found dead of drink" was not an uncommon heading, unfortunately.

Maureen. Those quotes almost look like irony quotes.

Burleigh. I like the humming Coroner. A bee.

Polly. Maybe it could be a hummingbird. [general aha!]

Steve. What's Hock?

Greg. That's a white German wine that the English used to enjoy aged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We would call it "oxidized" and not drink it today. We'd spit it out. It comes from Hochstein, in Germany, where the grapes were grown.

Maureen. Is this a really exuberant poem?

Greg. Oh, yes. This makes me feel like running barefoot through the tulips. There's a book by Brita Lindberg-Seyersted, "The Voice of the Poet." She's done some research on words that Dickinson made up, and she said that the only two that were complete inventions are this one, and in another poem there's "Optizan," someone who's wizard at seeing things. The others are just combinations or twists on words that we already know, but they could really throw somebody who's not a native English speaker.

Susan. "A drunkard cannot meet a cork/ without a reverie."

Ruth. Where did she get the authority to write that?

[A discussion of Dickinson and alcohol ensues]

Greg. Some of her vocabulary can be somewhat private. She makes words mean things that are special to her. I think the best-known one is "circumference," and we could spend at least one full workshop on that one. There are other words, like "meridian," the cardinal points of the compass, "film" that she makes mean something of her own. I thought an interesting one to look at would be "physiognomy." Who will read the next poem?

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/M70

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/ijd9f_K-Irs ]

Greg. Dickinson seems to have admired spiders.

Ben. And why not?

Greg. Because they crawl on you in your outhouse, that's why. ... What's she saying in that last stanza?

Ben. Physiognomy means face, doesn't it? the appearance of a face, does it not?

Greg. It means more than that.

Julie. It's telling your character from your outward appearance, isn't it?

Greg. Yes. Physiognomy is considered a pseudo-science today, but it goes back to the ancient Greeks; it enjoyed a revival in the middle ages and lasted into the nineteenth century - Charles Lamb, 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, and it had a wider application in that you could determine the nature of anything in the natural world that way - by examining its natural traits. There's a quote from Thomas Browne, whom Dickinson identified as important to her in an early letter.

Sally 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.”[1]

Greg. I think that it's in this larger sense of the word physiognomy that Dickinson's applying here in this poem. You see the way she took that word and made more out of it than what we just read.

Brooke. Hey Greg, can you make anything of her reading somebody like Hitchcock [ Amherst College professor and scientist] and who was musing on the sacred nature or the spiritual nature of the natural world as a scientist?

Greg. Yeah. I hope we get to that, that's a -

Brooke. I feel a lot of that when I look at this poem.

Dickinson was trained to look for signs of God's benevolence in nature everywhere. Edward Hitchcock, the leading intellectual force in Amherst during her youth was right in there. He'd look at the autumn leaves, and he'd ask, "We're heading into the death of winter. Why would God grace this transition in such glory? But then if we think of the coming resurrection  ..." This is a leading scientist, and that's how he wrote.
            Any other thoughts on this poem? One thing that strikes me about it is that the spider seems certain of the success 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?

Greg. I wonder if she did know. But, the word sew is the language of the home, and I think it tends to anthropomorphize the spider a little bit, because we'd normally say the we was woven, wouldn't we?

Jay. Why the repetition, Himself himself?

Sally. It's subject and object.

Greg. She uses these reflexive pronouns in ways that we wouldn't. We would say "He informs himelf." I've never found a satisfactory explanation, or a cogent and consistent one, as to why she does that. I know I like it.

Robert. On this last stanza, I'm just wondering if the spider is using physiognomy to - considering the insects that are falling into the net, and is reading the insect's physiognomy.

Jay. Isn't the spider guided by his own physiognomy? Isn't that the point.

Greg. I think we're considering the physiognomy of the web itself as a natural object, and it testifies to his immortal art.

Susan. He is sewing funeral garments - Ruff of Dame - the Shroud of the Gnome and he's sewing at Night Without a Light. He's obviously very used to doing it, and that almost may be a clue as to why it's a he. Then there's this 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]

Greg. There's more. "The Language of the Church." This is something I didn't know anything about until I stared reading Emily Dickinson, so this is all new to me, and I understand from previous discussions that it's not so new to many people 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 that I included these in my work is that people come from other parts of the world, Brazil, Texas even, and they haven't experienced our Indian Summers. Such people will read something like this, and they're going to miss what it's describing.

Jay. Exactly.

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

Repose to typify.

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://youtu.be/r5jb9x5GLSM ]

Ben. Is antiquest a new word?

Greg, Yes - "most antique" that's an invented word. What's she describing in that first stanza?

Polly. Crickets.

Greg. Crickets, yes. At least one copy of this was sent with a comment in the accompanying letter, calling it "my cricket." That's the minor nation.

Maureen. Why is it pathetic?

Greg. On page six you have dictionary definition. [page six follows]

TYPE, n.

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.

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.

FUR'ROW, n.

1.      A trench in the earth made by a plow.

2.      A long narrow trench or channel in wood or metal; a groove.

3.      A hollow made by wrinkles in the face.

PA-THET'IC, or PA-THET'IC-AL, a

1.      Affecting or moving the passions, particularly pity, sorrow, grief or other tender emotion; as, a pathetic song or discourse; pathetic expostulation. – Spectator. No theory of the passions can teach a man to be pathetic. – E. Porter

AN-TIQUE', a.

1.      Old; ancient; of genuine antiquity in this sense it usually refers to the flourishing ages of Greece and Rome; as an antique statue.

2.      Old, as respects the present age, or a modern period of time; of old fashion, as an antique robe.

3.      Odd; wild; fanciful; more generally written antic

EN-HANCE, v.t

1.      To raise; to lift; applied to material things by Spenser, but this application is entirely obsolete.

2.      To raise; to advance; to highten; applied to price or value.

3.      To raise; applied to qualities, quantity, pleasures, enjoyments, &c.

4.      To increase; to aggravate.

[End of page six]

Greg. Dickinson seems to have been moved by the sound of the crickets. In a letter she wrote, "“The cricket sings in the morning, now, a most pathetic conduct.”[i]  And why that could be is that crickets in Massachusetts, most species chirp at night, but if it gets really cold, sometimes they'll chirp early in the day. That's a sign of coming winter.

Sally. Although, she also says they're [inaudible]

Greg. Yes, the mass is a celebration. And, I think we're going to see, as this poem progresses, it goes from this celebratory life in the grass and it moves toward winter as it moves along in what it's describing and in mood. I think it's a real masterpiece. And a minor Nation - masses weren't celebrated in her church, the Reformed Protestant Church, that would be the Catholics - the "Papists." That's the way I'm reading that - they weren't here in significant numbers yet. But really it's just the crickets.

Elizabeth. One thing [inaudible] this, if the crickets are celebrating the mass - the Catholics believe that grace can be given through sacraments, but Protestants believe that grace is freely given from God. The crickets are engaging in a ritual, and they're saying No Ordinance ­- an ordinance would be Communion, or Baptism, but they are engaging in ritual by chanting, essentially, asking for grace, maybe, perhaps, to be saved [laughs] from the winter, and there is a sadness because that is not a way to seek grace from the Protestant perspective, but there is an element, perhaps, of enchanting paganism about it.

Greg. I was hoping someone would speak, or give a little sermon, on grace, because that's such a heavy word for her and her time. As Elizabeth said, freely given from God, there's nothing you can do to get it. God decides 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 said, "I offer you a cricket." She sent the poem to a number of people, calling it her cricket. So, 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 is transforming my world progresses so slowly that I see no outward sign of it. Sacraments - ordinances - were outward signs of an inner relationship with God. She sees no outward signs, no external signs, but something's happening.

Ben. She does exploit the resonance between grace and grass.

Burleigh. Nice. Nice catch.

Greg. So then we're told it's a  pensive Custom Enlarging Loneliness. So, aren't we moving away from that celebratory atmosphere in the grass in the first stanza, because were moving away from it toward winter? Antiquest. Let's look her the definition of antique in her dictionary. Because, that's a strange word, right? in this context.

AN-TIQUE', a.

1.      Old; ancient; of genuine antiquity in this sense it usually refers to the flourishing ages of Greece and Rome; as an antique statue.

2.      Old, as respects the present age, or a modern period of time; of old fashion, as an antique robe.

3.      Odd; wild; fanciful; more generally written antic

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 I 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. It is also a noun, used in the plural to mean absurd behavior." So there's a lost meaning of that word.

Jay. Antic means funny, too.

Victoria. It's out of sequence. You would expect to hear that - it's odd to hear that in the daytime. Odd to feel that at noon. You expect it in the evening.

Greg. Yes. So you see, I think what we're doing here is this, and this, [Pointing to items 1 and 3 above] in this case. ... When August burning low/ Arise this spectral Canticle. A canticle can be any song, but to Dickinson's parishioners it probably suggested the Song of Solomon, which is joyous poetry - doesn't have to. Then, Repose to typify. I Wanna know what that means.

Sally. Maybe she's saying that part of that song typifies the poetry.

Greg. Let's look at the definitions of "type" and "typify." Again, these are from her dictionary. this is Webster. [See above] It's a sign of something to come. I remember being in these groups before, and I understood that some of of the speakers were very familiar with Christian typology. I was not. So this is new stuff for me. I'm suggesting that Repose to typify - what's happening right now, in the grass, is a sign of winter to come.

Sally. Winter being equal to repose? It's the cessation of things. Repose - quiet.

Greg. Yeah. So, this language of the church, as I say, is pretty new to me, and I find it yields great riches when we start looking into it in the poems. Alright, what's happening now? Remit as yet no Grace. We don't have to give it up - YET. And a Druidic difference. We've gone from the sacred mass to something perhaps less so. The Druids were close to nature, too. .... Well, let's move on to the Book of Revelation, a very important book for Dickinson. She seems to have been especially drawn to this book. I'll point out that the full title of this book, the last book of the Bible, is "The Revelation of Saint John the Divine. Emily Dickinson refers to it as "The Revelations," in the plural, for reasons unknown. John the Divine received revelation directly from God, and Jesus Christ talks to him and gives him these words to write down. And even though we start with Matthew, we'll move on to Revelation.

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

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://youtu.be/scaDQONBkyo ]

Greg. The quote from Matthew is after the resurrection of Christ, glorious event, which Paul called "the first fruits of the resurrection," meaning that we're all going to rise from the dead eventually, and Jesus is just the first. That's the context, I think, of this first stanza. She's comparing this glorious day to this other glorious day or days.

Susan. Of course, Matthew wasn't writing in Puritan English, but in Emily Dickinson's time, "saints" were those who belonged to the church - professed believers, and it's often capitalized, but Matthew might not have meant that - it's hard to know.

[A lengthy discussion of church history ensues]

Greg.

The Sun, as common, went abroad,

The flowers, accustomed, blew,

As if no soul the solstice passed

That maketh all things new -

That comes from Revelation 21 verses 4 and 5.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. “

So remember, this is John writing, and the He is Jesus, telling him what to write. But, she doesn't say "make," she says "maketh." Maybe she needed the syllable, but she might easily have heard it spoken that way popularly.

            I have to admit, when I first came to Amherst in 2008, I had to post on the EDIS website asking what The Wardrobe - of our Lord is. What is it? Speaking is a needless as The Wardrobe - of our Lord is at a sacrament - something that you don't need at a sacrament. Could it be the body of Christ? He's present in spirit, the physical body isn't necessary. Here, from first Corinthians:

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body”

- I Corinthians 15:44

Then from two Corinthians ... I thought that would get a laugh; that's Trump's version of second Corinthians. [laughter]

“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven”              - 2 Corinthians 5:1-2

A familiar metaphor, I think. Here, from Longfellow

Take them, O Grave! and let them lie

Folded upon thy narrow shelves,

As garments by the soul laid by,

And precious only to ourselves!

            - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Suspiria

Then we have Dickinson again.

Perhaps they do not go so far

As we who stay, suppose --

Perhaps come closer, for the lapse

Of their corporeal clothes –

- J1399/ Fr1455/M608

Each was to each The Sealed Church. She wrote to Suzie once, something like "don't go to Church Suzie, come to our church," as if they were church to each other. And Supper of the Lamb? Revelation again.

“And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.” – Revelation 19:9

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[1] Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici Part 2 (Cambridge, Great Britain: The University Press 1963), 73 – 74.

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