Emily
Dickinson International Society, Amherst Chapter
December,
2019
Topic:
Emily Dickinson’s Metaphor of “Home”
Facilitated
by Melba Jensen
In
addition to several poems, the conversation considered material from two of
Dickinson's letters:
Austin Dickinson to Susan Gilbert (undated letter, @1854-1855
A home, Sue! It’s too beautiful a word for this
world. It means too much – It’s an ideal realized by not one in a thousand –
for it’s not a house & barn & orchard...It is the type & symbol of
a heaven promised the followers of him who went about doing good. It is the
center & spring of all living. It is the choice blossom of love – the
beautiful answering of the dearest dream.
I cannot tell you how we moved…I took
at the time a memorandum of my several sense, and also of my hat and coat, and
my best shoes – but it was lost in the melee, and I am out with
lanterns looking for myself.
Such wits as I reserved, are so badly
shattered that repair is useless – and still I can’t help laughing at my own
catastrophe. I supposed we were going to
make a “transit,” as heavenly bodies did – but we can budget by budget, as out
fellows do, till we had fulfilled the pantomime contained in the word “moved.”
It is a kind of gone-to-Kansas felling, and if I sat in a long wagon,
with my family tied behind, I should suppose without doubt I was a party of
emigrants!
They say that “home is where the heart
is.” I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings.
Victoria. They're sequential there. You have the blossom, that then unfolds as a manifestation of the dream - full flowering.
Melba. Yeah, every time I've read this up until now, they've seemed perfectly parallel. Then I thought, hm, there's something about the blossoming that seems more active than the dreaming.
Greg. Think of the blossom as the result.
Robert. "Bloom is result"
Melba. And that's the manifestation of the dream. So we've got a time sequence here. OK.
Jan. [in the second letter] What does she mean by budget by budget? What is out fellows?
Melba. I would guess that it might have been who was going to Kansas at that moment. This is the year that the New England Emigrant Aid Society is organizing wagon trains of emigrants to go from the northeast to settle out in Kansas. They were calling US citizens emigrants. The reason that they were going was that the Kansas-Nebraska act had established that Kansas would become a slave or a free state based on an election that was going to be determined by an undetermined process, voted on by an undetermined people at an undetermined time in the future. So, yeah, total bedlam. People were literally going out there to vote in this election. I think it [outfellows] was referring to the people who could actually go to Kansas, that they're so disconnected from their communities that they could just pick up and go.
Robert. They had to save money to buy the house, so, budget by budget might refer to that.
.....
Melba. I was struck by the contrast between the home as a symbol of heaven on earth to Dickinson, who seems to be so aware of the material reality of this pile of stuff that you keep around you that determines so much of who you are in the world.
Victoria. I love that and I am out with lanterns looking for myself.
Greg. You hear that quoted on tours a lot.
Judith. I see it as curious that she contrasts - at least I see it as a contrast - her several sense and the coat and the hat and the shoes. A holistic view there but the memorandum of my several sense makes me curious.
[A discussion of the history of the Dickinson homestead ensues, ]
Melba. So, with the full range of the possible meanings of "home," we can turn to the poems.
Larry reads.
A Door just opened
on a street -
I - lost - was passing by -
An instant's Width of
Warmth disclosed -
And Wealth - and Company -
The Door as instant shut -
And I -
I - lost - was passing by -
Lost doubly - but by
contrast - most -
Informing - Misery –
- Fr914
- Fr914
Greg. Melba, I noticed that you chose to include the line breaks; I wondered
why.
Melba. Oh, well, because most of us have the Franklin, so I pulled these
off of edickinson.org, just to see if having access to both versions - you know
me, I never let a detail go unpursued. [laughter]
Victoria. I like that.
Robert. Its interesting; 439 - the first and second stanzas kind of
capture A Door just opened.
Melba. Well, I don't think the next one is going to shed light on this,
but it's certainly going to enrich our sense of the question.
Victoria reads.
Where Thou art - that -
Where Thou art - that -
is Home -
Cashmere - or Calvary - the same -
Degree - or Shame -
I scarce esteem Location's Name -
So I may Come -
What Thou dost - is Delight -
Bondage as Play - be sweet -
Imprisonment - Content -
And Sentence - Sacrament -
Just We two - meet -
Where Thou art not - is Wo -
Tho' Bands of Spices - row -
What Thou dost not - Despair -
Tho' Gabriel - praise me - Sir -
- F749/J725/M376
- F749/J725/M376
Melba. I don't know about you, but this poem, initial interpretation
didn't materialize; it was just initial questions. [laughter] So, any question
people want to throw out?
Greg. Isn't this just a lovely other way of saying "I see heaven in
your eyes, or, "you're heaven to me?"
Melba. So, for you, Thou is
human. It's second person archaic plural. OK.
Greg. Oh. That does raise a question, doesn't it.
Melba. In Emily's day, it could also be direct addressed to God.
Judith. Especially capitalized.
Melba. Yeah, but it could be ambiguous. One of the problems of the poem
is, is this addressed to a God? Is this addressed to a beloved person? Is it
addressed kind of generically to both - a kind of an ode to Love. I see heaven
in your eyes, and I'm not going to bother to clarify whether I'm addressing God
or the Beloved.
Greg. Now, that's really interesting. I think that depends on the reader
projecting onto the poem. I wonder if there's anything in here that could
definitely establish whether she's talking to the Deity, or a person. Just
because of who I am, I would read it as a person, but someone else, more
spiritually oriented, might read it differently. Is there anything in the poem
that will steer me one way or the other?
Victoria. Yeah, if you read it as a prayer. If you knew that you were
saying it in a prayerful way, then it could be that you were addressing the
divine.
Melba. OK, so that sort of turns it into a praise poem.
Polly. It would help so much if we knew whether she sent this to an
individual or not.
Robert. Well, the variorum will tell us. The third line, Cashmere - or Calvary - the same - As I
read that, it makes me think it's more of a person.
Jan. Thinking of your question before, she does what mystics have done
through the ages - rhe two seem mutually exclusive - contrasting things so. So,
Home - where we are is both pleasure
and pain. Cashmere and Calvary. Degree,
high, then Shame. Then Bondage as Play, sets up a paradox.
Polly. Whether it's good or bad, you are all things.
Jan. And then, if Just We two - meet,
if it's a person, - it can be a person, but also the house of the divine. And
then, Tho' Gabriel - praise me - Sir
- I am elected to give birth - Gabriel is the angel of the anunciation, right?
Greg. "Blessed art thou among women."
Jan. Yes. [general agreement]
Melba. Popping the stack back to Polly's question, this was not in a fascicle,
but there was no known recipient. You know, I'm trying to imagine a human
speaker who would say that Imprisonent,
conviction, Bondage were preferable
to the absence of another human being. That's an interesting claim to me; It
says, "As long as we can share the same cell, and be in bondage and have
the same sentence, that's it - that's what I want." REALLY!? [laughter]
Jan. She dares to go to the very extremes. We've talked about that before,
right? Like, "God's hand is amputated;" We saw that a few times ago.
Whew! She just uses these stark images.
Melba. I don't know, that's a little scary to me - this notion that as
long as she can be in the prison with this beloved, that's enough.
Victoria. I think she's saying, if she had to be. If the circumstances
were such that they were imprisoned, she would go there too. I will follow you
to the deepest, darkest place, because my love is that strong. It's very
hyperbolic, but that's just where Dickinson loves to go - all the way.
Greg. How about thinking of it in the sense of a committment. When we
marry, we promise "for better or for worse." Not that I want to be in
prison, but, if that's what happens, I'm sticking with you.
Victoria. Exactly.
Judith. Or, it could be arelationship that she's observed.
Greg. It doesn't have to be her.
Judith. It doesn't have to be her.
Melba. Yeah. Now I think we're really into the realm of the "supposed
person." That this is a lyric written from a supposed person's point of
view. I'm wondering, though, how people are reading the penultimat line - What Thou dost not - Despair, which I
take to mean, what thou dost not demand, or be present for, is the speaker's
despair about the loved one's absence. Then, she seems to qualify it. She says,
Although Gabriel praise me.
Greg. How about, even though Gabriel
praise me. [ general agreement ]
Jan. How about Tho' Bands of Spices
- row?
Greg. Bands as in bands of
gypsies. The air seems to be full of bands of spices. I think it's what's
sometimes called an "imageless image." You can't construct a picture
of it in your mind, nor translate it literally into something in our physical
world.
Melba. The closest I could get was kind of waves of scent, wafting.
Greg. Nice.
Melba. And maybe row as in the
sense of agita - vioplent. I'm wafting into your nose. Even if you don't want
to smell how exotic I am, you're going to.
Polly. There's something very positive. Even though bands of spices
were there, but you were not, then it is woe.
Melba. Right. "I couldn't possibly take pleasure in that."
Robert. That stanza, "I cannot live with you," reflects for me,
"And were You lost, I would be/ Though My Name/ Rang Loudest/ On the
Heavenly fame - " [J640/Fr706/M343 ]
Jan. In the last line, it's like, "I am the one being
annunciated."
Melba. Oh, I didn't quite get that sense before. Wow. Quite a claim.
Jan. Thw two most enigmatic lines are always at the end.
Melba. Yeah, and if she's going to pull a reversal, it's going to show up
here, which is why I'm so interested in that. OKm so, Gabriel is the Archangel
who appears to reveal - who annunciates. I think he shows up in Daniel, to
explain the meaning of Daniel's vision. In the Old Testament, he's also given
the power to manipulate human actions and human events - earthly events, to
bring about God's punishments or rewards. He's kind of the edgiest of the
archangels, in the sense that he's the one that confers and withdraws the power
to earthly actors. And apparently, he's also given control of serpents. - Fun
Fact. [laughter] Serpents. This is a kind of loaded image in the Bible. This is
a kind of edgy claim, that Gabriel is praising her.
Greg. "Even if he were to praise me."
Melba. Yeah, but even in the hypothetical, that's kind of edgy, because
that says that either Gabriel is announcing her, as having some role in the
world, or, that Gabriel has empowered her to speak truth or carry out some
revelation.
Judith. Could she be trying to convince a lover? - that she is devoted?
And that she is saying "Even if you don't, Gabriel has annointed me, in a
way?
Greg. She did realize that Gabriel had annointed her, in a way.
Melba. I think she did.
Greg. "It was given to me by the gods/ When I was a little
girl."
Judith. I don't know - on one level it sounds like a pleading.
Melba. Or possibly an acceptance that, "OK, if you can't be present
to me, I still have this role that's been conferred on me. ... This might be
expressing the death of her love for another human being, and I think it's
certainly open to that reading, but I'm thinking that this is a very critical
poem directed to God, saying, "My love for you would be so great, if we
could just meet. BUT, since we can't, I'm going to carry on my mission of a new
revelation.
Victoria. I don't know why it is, but I keep thinking of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, and the passionate love that the Brownings had, that she woulld have
known about, and to me there's kind of an echoe, or a little bit of Browning
and that very very famous love relationship. I can see how you could read it on
either level, but this feels more human to me.
Melba. OK.
Greg. Hm. Yeah.
Larry. I have a question along the same line, because, if God pervades
everything, then where are these places where he is not? It's more of a human
object.
Victoria. Well, the places, I guess, where he is not, are those places
that we perceive as hell.
Polly. Right, and I do think that this kind of love, that Emily was always
longing for, was associated with the divine - there's no separation. That's
what God is. She could never quite find it.
Melba. Yes, and I suspect that some of her homelessness is because she
tied that kind of love to the concept of home. And, not being able to recognize
that in the human world, she has to invent some other way of understanding
home.
[interlude]
So, shall we turn to Myself was formed
a Carpenter? Volunteers?
Polly reads.
Myself was formed — a Carpenter —
Myself was formed — a Carpenter —
An unpretending time
My Plane — and I, together wrought
Before a Builder came —
To measure our attainments —
Had we the Art of Boards
Sufficiently developed — He'd hire
us
At Halves —
My Tools took Human — Faces —
The Bench, where we had toiled —
Against the Man — persuaded —
We — Temples build — I said —
- Fr475/J488/M236
- Fr475/J488/M236
Melba. This is where I see Dickinson trying to find her way into a
different notion of home - something that's more dependent on her own actions.
And, I love those lines, My Tools took
Human — Faces —/ The Bench, where we had toiled — / Against the Man — persuaded
—. I'll be damned if I can tell you what those mean. Any thoughts?
[ long silence ]
[ long silence ]
Judith. It's interesting that we
is not capitalized in that second line.
Greg. I can understand the last half of it. A man was persuaded that she
did indeed have the Art of Boards.
But Tools with Human Faces is a tough one.
Polly. Can we think of her work as the building of poems? And, because
she's a woman, it's always considered as Halves;
it's not considered as significant as men's is. But when she said We Temples build, she knew it was good.
Greg. That's good, because if you think of her work as poems, and that
poems are words, then it's a little easier to see them as having human faces;
they kind of come alive.
Melba. And I wonder if she's seeing these characters, in each poem, as
being a little "supposed person." That she's populating her own
pantheon, or whether she's focused on the other authors whom she's reading and
responding to. I'm not sure we can tell from the poem alone.
Victoria. Well yes, that's what came to me in the last poem, the Barrett
Browning connection. She had her whole oevre in her head, so maybe this time
she's seeing herself as a different kind of Carpenter
than Jesus was. She had a message and it came through her poetry. He had a
message of the gospel.
Melba. Which nicely handles the last line. She's building a Temple.
......
Melba. Well let me add on.
To my small Hearth His fire came—
To my small Hearth His fire came—
And all my House aglow
Did fan and rock, with sudden
light—
'Twas Sunrise—'twas the Sky—
Impanelled from no Summer brief—
With limit of Decay—
'Twas Noon—without the News of
Night—
Nay, Nature, it was Day—
- Fr703/J638/M341
So, I think if Dickinson found someplace to live, in her house, it was
probably the hearth.
Judith. That's where she had the most intimate conversations with Austin,
isn't it?
Melba. Yeah. Filling in Bacground, there's an author, Jean Mudge, looked
into Emily's letters and found multiple references to sitting by the hearth in
the pleasant street house and having conversations. I think they were early in
the morning. This was a central hearth - one large chimney in the center of the
house. It probably had fireplaces opening into multiple rooms, so this was
really the center of the house.
Jan. That reminds me of Sue describing Emily as one who "sat by the
light of her own fire."
Melba. I have to be careful about shoving Dickison's poems into great
narrative arcs, but it seems to me that when she writes about home, she's usually
mourning acknowledging, or mourning, some lack, or absence, or deficit. But
when she starts writing about individual actions, or about craft, or about
portions of the house, like the fireplace, then all of a sudden, she gives me a
sense that she's really found a way of describing what she's doing. And a fire
is something that's such a great metaphor, and it's something you interact with
daily. You build fires, feed them, you keep them going. It's almost like she
had to scale down the metaphor from home to something like a fireplace before
she could make it into a suitable metaphor for herself and what she was doing.
Larry. So, we're looking at this as His
fire not being just daylight - as provided by God - but a natural fire, in
her heart?
Melba. Nominally, it's about the physical hearth, in the house, but I also
think it takes on that other layer of meaning; It's my hearth that the fire
came - in her own body that she's feeling glow and warmth.
Larry. What about this first stanza, where it's dawn, and then [second
stanza] it's Noon? There's some kind
of a development there, a time gap. What is that?
Melba. There is, and Dickinson has a very specific associations with the
different times of day. I don't claim to fully understand them, but, I think
for her, noon is when the day begins. In her poetry, days run noon to noonm not
midnight to midnight. Noon is this moment when the sun is neither waxing nor
waning. So, it always strikes me that noon for her is this moment of
perfection, because it's moment of pure stasis. Greg, you're nodding.
Greg. Yeah, Rebecca Patterson on that Noon, Meridian, it's exactly what
you're saying.
Melba. Feel free to elaborate. [Laughter]
Greg. It's figurative, not literally a time of day. You could have Noon at dawn.
Robert. "Antiquest felt at Noon/ When August burning low."
Judith. Sometime, when she wrote about the soul, it was masculin. I'm
wondering if this is about her muse.
Melba. Yeah. When she refers to the poets, poets are "he."
That's pretty consistent.
Judith. But, what's the News of
Night? It's tempered that Noon.
Greg. It's without the News
of Night.
Victoria. There was nothing to darken this perfect moment.
Judith. But I wonder, what's the News of Night?
Melba. Noon is when the sun is at it's height; It's all downhill from
there, to night.
Victoria. There's a legalistic line, Impanelled
from no Summer brief .
Several. Oh, yeah.
Victoria. So, this is coming down as a legal argument - a decision that
this is the moment of perfection.
