Emily Dickinson International Society, Amherst Chapter February 2019

Emily Dickinson International Society - Amherst Chapter - Poetry Conversation

Fascicle 7 Sheet 2

February 1, 2019

Facilitated by Lois Kackley

Lois. I wanted us to get our heads around Dickinson's idea of "Master," because I think. we'd all agree, it'll probably never be settled whether or not those three Master letters

[ http://archive.emilydickinson.org/classroom/spring99/edition/franklin/f-master.htm ]

were actually sent to anybody. I re-read them this week. I kind of put them in the context. I know it's very speculative as far as the dates, but still in all, within the context of her other letters, I was struck when I read them this week with how really cryptic and unfocused they are. Maybe not the first one when she's talking about an illness. ... Other letters, where she's kind of drilling on a topic - they're so focused, whereas the Master letters, especially the second two, to me they're just kind of        [crosstalk and interruption]

[Lois asks for a reading of a fragment of a poem by Alexander Smith ]

Robert reads.

More brave, more beautiful, than myself must be

The man -whom truly I can call my Friend ;

He must be an Inspirer, who can draw

To higher heights of Being, and aye stand

O'er me in unreached beauty, like the moon ;

Soon as he fail in this, the crest and crown

Of noble friendship, he is nought to me.

Polly. So, we know that, in her copy of this, she marked that.

Lois. She marked that, right. So, what does it tell us about her ideal? To me, it indicates this ideal, this paragon of an individual, and Dickinson's marking of it, I think is so interesting. And I think it helps us in reading the Master letters, and the Master poems, because of this ideal that she carried. The other interesting thing - and I guess everybody else is aware of this, but it came back to me - the last of the three master letters was written right before her queries to Higginson [Thomas Wentworth Higginson], and there were no more Master letters after the first query letter to Higginson.

.....

Greg D. So what did you come up with for a chronology?

Lois. Well, for one thing, Franklin didn't do the letters. The only letters we have are of Johnson.

Greg D. Am I not mistaken or is there not a Franklin edition of Just the Master letters?

Judith. Yeah, there is a folio size -

Greg D. In fact, I own it, and was thinking to bring it but couldn't find it.

Lois. But, I think it's safe enough to say, for our purposes here, that the Master letters came right before what we can call her real thrust of mature poetry writing, right? - 1861 on. And the Master letters, and this devotion, was really something that was in her more formative years, but that she carried, that she continued to use, more than being used by it, we might say, which is kind of indicative of the Master letters.

Greg D. It always surprised me though, if you think of these as being earlier, '59 or '60 or something - her formative years - they're more intensely poetic than a lot of her poems. It's arguable, of course, but for one thing, the total leaving open of them, and who the reference is - many of her poems have that, of course - but they're succinct, and these ones seem to be so much larger. Especially the second Master letter is so much larger.

Lois. Oh, yeah, they go on and on.

Greg D. Not just in terms of length, but in terms of coverage.

Victoria. There's a lot of pieces to that puzzle - and we have some facts, which is what you just stated, and then there's the Civil War and all of that. Do you remember hearing that talk by Martha Nell [Smith]? It was right after Frasar [Stearns] was buried. The day after that funeral, off she sends her letters, so, there's that component. We have all these facts, but then how you interpret them, how you fit them all together, because they're not separate.

Lois. Taken with this quote that she marked, this idealized idea of a friend, together with this devotedness in the Master letters, I just wanted to think of as a kind of preamble to the poems that we look at today. Now this poem is the beginning of what I believe is a later and more mature theme of "My Life had stood a loaded Gun." In fact, let's read that first.

Lois reads

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -

In Corners - till a Day

The Owner passed - identified -

And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -

And now We hunt the Doe -

And every time I speak for Him -

The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light

Upon the Valley glow -

It is as a Vesuvian face

Had let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -

I guard My Master's Head -

'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's

Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -

None stir the second time -

On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -

Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live

He longer must - than I -

For I have but the power to kill,

Without--the power to die--
                                    - J754/Fr764/M354

Adrianna reads
I have a King, who does not speak —

So — wondering — thro' the hours meek

I trudge the day away —

Half glad when it is night, and sleep,

If, haply, thro' a dream, to peep

In parlors, shut by day.

And if I do — when morning comes —

It is as if a hundred drums

Did round my pillow roll,

And shouts fill all my Childish sky,

And Bells keep saying "Victory"

From steeples in my soul!

And if I don't — the little Bird

Within the Orchard, is not heard,

And I omit to pray

"Father, thy will be done" today

For my will goes the other way,

And it were perjury!
                        -J103/Fr157/M88

Lois. I love that line - My will goes the other way [laughter, agreement] Any thoughts on this theme of - well, here we have a King. Do you think there's any cause to equate that, or compare that, to the concept of Master?

Greg M. I had no idea, myself. I thought it might be a bird? [laughs] A flower?

Lois. What, the King?

Greg M. The King.

Lois. Anybody else see a theme that's fully developed in My Life had stood a loaded Gun?

Greg M. I can see it now. Yeah. It's an idealized figure. That's why the King doesn't speak? Yeah, OK, I get it now.

Judith. Or, if it's someone that's beyond her - not within her reach.

Lois. Yeah, like that quote that we looked at in the play. "In order for me to be truly devoted to them, they have to be beyond my reach. And yet, in My Life had stood a loaded Gun, this posing herself in the shadow of - or in opposition to - or she puts herself in some sort of relationship with this idealized figure. But in My Life had stood a loaded Gun she owns herself more. Whereas in the younger self - and tell me if you disagree, because there is definitely - she begins the whole poem with the word I, so she's not afraid to speak for herself. I would just like us to think about this transformation into the poet who wrote My Life had stood a loaded Gun. Even thought it remains a difficult poem, there's this sense that the speaker is much more her own person.

Greg M. The speaker in My Life had stood a loaded Gun has some real agency that you certainly don't find in the Master letters where she's positively abject, so they're at opposite ends of the pole. She's got a little agency here, though, with her will going the other way.

Polly. Yeah, she says that happens when she doesn't have the kind of dream and look into the unknown - In parlors, shut by day. Then is when she feels her will goes the other way from God, so I almost feel as though she feels in herself a guiding principal that is enhanced by the dream world at some times, and diminished at other times , because she can't reach it; she can't find it.

Lois. "It" being ...?

Polly. It being this internal guide. But that's just what I feel. This is my first encounter with the poem.

Lois. Well, it is a poem that gets overlooked, I think. And, the question is why? And the reason is, at least for me, this less perfected self, that's the speaker in this poem, which lends itself to - less of an eternal poem. But the fun of it is seeing this original work that she did on this theme.

Greg D. Assuming that the first poem we're reading is around 1859? I that what we're thinking?

Lois. Miller dates it around spring 1860.

Greg D. OK - around the time the conjectured second Master letter. And there's a line in that letter I have here that certainly reminds me of the ending of a Loaded Gun, but possibly the other poem, where she says, "I used to think, when I died, I could see you, so I died as fast as I could." And then it goes on about that everybody's going to heaven, and then it wouldn't be so much fun because everybody'll be there [laughter] but if you and I were together separately [laughter] I'm paraphrasing here. That's kind of strange saying there's more agency in this later poem. That's a strange kind of agency - sort of a negative one, you know.

Lois. It's a purely phantasmagorical concept. First of all, to say "I died as fast as I could." So from that standpoint the speaker is already dead when she's writing this.

Greg D. Whereas we have the lines For I have but the power to kill, Without the power to die. There's definitely some commentary.

Lois. Something definitely happened there!

Victoria. I was trying to overlay this with the identity of this external force, this love, if you will, that she seems to have had for someone, in the Master letters, and I keep remembering the letters and the poems she wrote around this time and the references to Samuel Bowles. I'm wondering, as that friendship developed and she became more and more enamored of him, that there were parts of herself that began to mature - her understanding of erotic love. So, by the time of My Life had stood a Loaded Gun, I don't know where their relationship was - or how she saw the relationship. I'm not saying that they had one, but she may have gotten past the initial romance, the initial infatuation, with this man she never met anyone like, to the point where she was feeling her own power - that force that transported her. It seems like it's just starting in this one - that she would have that ability, that wow, this experience of being with someone that could have that kind of impact on her, could be so transforming.

Lois. Yeah, the references that Judith Farr offers - concepts, words, that were identical - the things that she says to Bowles, the things that she says in the Master letters - she just goes on and on. I think you're mush closer to the fact that this ideal that she worships started with a need, like she said to Higginson, "I had no Monarch in my life and cannot rule myself," when she indicated that she needed guidance, and the overlap between this realization, as a young poet - that she wanted guidance, and this ideal that she had for someone to be far and away better than her - those gave way, as you say, in later years. as she recognized that this perfection she sought in someone else was a reflection of the perfection that she believed in herself.

Polly. I would like to think about this poem in a different light. I don't see it referring to a person. To me, it seems like her relationship to her muse. It seems much more related to her muse and her identity as a poet, than having to do with a human being or a man, and, she's really saying sometimes this comes to me and I'm able to peep in parlors shut by day - It reminds me of that line from "I dwell in possibility," "Of Chambers as the Cedars/ Impregnable of Eye." I think she sees this world of poetry as very sealed, but occasionally you get a chance to enter it, and it's glorious when you do, but it's very disappointing when you don't. To me, that's a more logical meaning to this poem than having something to do with some kind of relationship with a lover.

Lois. Oh, I agree. The theme, though, of this relationship between herself and the other is beginning to be dealt with in this poem that is more thoroughly developed in the later poem.

Greg M. I'm wondering if there would be a difference - two ways of reading it - one way would be toward an individual or it could be toward artistic imagination - would there be a difference in the gravamen of the poem - of what you feel when you read it. Would that change?

Polly. If you read it with one interpretation in mind as opposed to the other?

Greg M. Yeah. Would it feel different?

Lois. Good question.

Robert. I'm not quite clear on And if I do - And if I don't. Peep in parlors? Is that what that's referring to?

Polly. If I haply, through sleep, peep into these secret chambers that are shut by day - if I'm able to get into that, then this. If I don't then this.

Lois. So, is she setting herself off against this accessibility ...

Polly. I see it as her own mastery.

Lois. I think it's interesting that the word pillow shows up in this poem as well as in the later, My Life, and also is in our next poem. Why don't we go on to that one.

Judith reads.

Where I have lost, I softer tread—
I sow sweet flower from garden bed—
I pause above that vanished head
And mourn.

Whom I have lost, I pious guard
From accent harsh, or ruthless word—
Feeling as if their pillow heard,
Though stone!

When I have lost, you'll know by this—
A Bonnet black—A dusk surplice—
A little tremor in my voice 
Like this!

Why, I have lost, the people know
Who dressed in frocks of purest snow
Went home a century ago
Next Bliss!
                                    - J104/Fr158/M88

Lois. Greater attention to form in this one, and it's quite lovely.

Victoria. Where, Whom, When, Why.

Polly. Yeah, and also the rhyme scheme and the stanza scheme - very regular.

Greg D. There's a name for that form - you find it in people like George Herbert, for sure, and maybe Spencer. There are three metrically similar lines in this case - tetrameter - and then two iambs.

Lois. Several people have noted that snow is Dickinson's synonym for integrity.

Victoria. Other places, it's innocence, depending on the poem, right?

Lois. Somewhat, but apparently there' quite a bit of agreement on snow and integrity.

Polly. And she portrays the angels in white, marching [ inaudible ] it seems to be very much her image of heaven.

Lois. Of course, her snow poem [ If sifts from leaden Sieves ] never uses the word snow.

Greg D. Rather than purity, for me, in this case, it would be more like finality, or loss. It's like everybody who died is right now under all that ice in the graveyard.

Lois. Well, it's sort of didactic - the poem itself - isn't it? It presents a logical sequence, with a conclusion.

Polly. Yeah, it very much looks like "When someone dies I go to the cemetery and this is what it's like."

Victoria. "I did this - I went there - Where - with Whom - but Why? Why someone I loved dies. Why did that happen?

Greg M. Unanswered.

Victoria. Unanswered. That's the Next Bliss. That's when you get the answer.

Polly. At first that last stanza baffled me, but now I think she means only those who've gone beyond know why they lost. Those who have died and are now in the angelic white. That's Next Bliss. That's when you go beyond.

Robert. That sounds pretty Christian. So Next Bliss is the affirmation of an afterlife?

Polly. Yes, it sounds very hopeful.

Victoria. That's where you get the answers.

Greg D. I don't interpret it that way, but one could, easily. I would like to interpret it a little harder way. Went home a century ago/ Next Bliss! That's almost too easy - the rhyme and the sentiment there. I almost see her as too complicated for that simplistic vision of how things work in this world and the next.

Robert. Yeah, and to kind of emphasize the simplicity with Where, Whom, When, Why, maybe there's a little irony there.

Greg D. It's like the four questions of journalism.

Polly. But that's what the whole thing feels like to me. It's a fairly early poem, and the whole thing feels like playing with form, playing with these ideas. When she was in her early years, especially, she was trying out all kinds of ideas, trying out all kinds of forms, because she was perfecting her art - working on it. She doesn't have to be complex. She's working on some other thing, and we don't know -

Greg D. And that other thing might be the Next Bliss. It's almost like [inaudible] been there, done that. "Next Bliss!" [ As in "Next please!" ][laughter]

Polly. I don't see much passion in this poem. [agreement. crosstalk]

Greg M. The question of Why is a very serious one for her, though.

Greg D. It's not even a grammatically correct sentence - those commas there.

Victoria. That's why I think that's what she's driving towards - each stanza til she gets to that last one, and then she's bracketing that. That's the biggie.

Polly. And it's not "why do people die," it's why I have lost. "Why do I have to suffer this?"

Judith. In that sense it sounds a little forlorn in that last stanza the way it doesn't in the other three - in spite of the little tremor.

Lois. You know, the poem could be titled "Lost." Her attention is on that experience. And, even perhaps the attempt to address it, like a journalist would.

Greg M. I hear forlorn, too. It's like she's saying "don't speak ill of the dead."

Polly. Exactly. She's very protective. Every one of those stanzas talks about not letting the dead feel forlorn - in a way. "I'm protective. I sow sweet flowers, and I don't let any harsh words be spoken, and I'm here for them and I protect their memory." I think that's a very interesting perspective.

Lois. An attempt to get some measure of insight into what can be totally devastating. And I like the poem from the standpoint of intellectualizing, or organizing, completely overwhelming emotions.

Victoria. It reminds me of that later poem, I tie my Hat I crease my Shawl, "I'm going through all the motions. I tread softly and plant flowers, I do all these external things, but inside I'm asking why? And the devastation -  if she follows those forms, that'll help.

Greg. The poems always sound sincere to me. [ general agreement ] She's expressing a sincere point of view, or feeling, or attitude, almost always.

Lois. It's jarring, isn't it, to realize how intense Dickinson was, at least in the accounts that we have, that she was so passionate, that people would feel put off, and then we read poems like this and we think how do we reconcile that dichotomy. But, it's like people have said, that she "wrote herself into sanity." And this is a beautiful example, perhaps, of that insight into Dickinson's use of poetry.

Polly. I'm wondering if she isn't recalling her losses, so that there's some chronological distance between the loss that she is learning from.

Lois. Yes, and she would have demanded of herself not to just suffer, but to learn from it.

Victoria. Hm. Wow. Yeah. So that it wasn't just a self-indulgence, this grief, but -

Lois. Or an ultimately destructive - completely destructive - because for some people, that does happen. People become their loss, become their grief, and it's not good for anything. Alright, next go on ...

Greg M reads.

She went as quiet as the Dew
From an Accustomed flower.
Not like the Dew did she return
At the Accustomed hour !

She dropt as softly as a star
From out my summer's Eve -
Less skillful than Leverrier
It's sorer to believe !

Lois. Exclamation! [laughter]
                                    - J149/Fr159/M89

Victoria. Miller gives a variation - line 2 - from a familiar flower.

Lois. And when she changes it, she capitalizes it. Any thoughts on this poem?

Greg M. Well, I've fallen into the grave error of attempting to make sense of the last two lines. [laughter]

Victoria. And who is "She?" I think sorer to believe means that it's harder to believe. It's difficult to believe.

Greg. Alright, Less skillful than Leverrier - he discovered a planet - she dropped out of the sky like a star ...

Lois. That is a rather impenetrable -

Victoria. It's hard to believe that that happened? It's hard to believe that this she in the poem ...

Greg M. Who's less skillful than Leverriere? Maybe it's the speaker?

Victoria. I think it means that anyone who is less skillful, or knowledgeable than the great French astronomer could make it hard to believe. If I was as brilliant as the French astronomer, I might be able to understand why she She dropt as softly as a star/ From out my summer's Eve.

Lois. I think you might be onto something there.

Victoria. I'd have to be that brilliant.

Greg D. An astronomer, he fixed stars and the planets in the sky, so someone who didn't couldn't do that, by dropping out.

Victoria. But he'd have to have someone as skillful as an astronomer, like Leverriere would explain stars to me, to have someone explain Why she died. ... So there's that same thing again, like in the last poem, the last stanza, she - Why?

Lois. She uses the word Accustomed twice, in different ways in that first verse.

Greg M. I think she's comparing two situations, and, they're dissimilar, and within the verse, by using the word Accustomed twice, in each couplet, she represents the similarity to contrast with the dissimilarity. It makes it more effective. It was the same, except she didn't come back.

Lois. Ah. Nice.

Greg D. Also, one's an accustomed time and one's an accustomed place. So, space and time.

Greg M. I think what made the second stanza so difficult to parse is, I think there's just a huge ellipsis - words left out. So, you have to fill in the blanks.

Polly. Does anyone know if she had any variants for sorer? Because, that's kind of a difficult word. [ No ]

Lois. She seems to want to emphasize this death. It wouldn't have to be a death, it could be somebody leaving.

Greg M. the word "sore" - I think it was used more often then. You could be sorely worried, or sorely troubled, etc.

Lois. Yes. I think my mother used to use that word. "You are sorely mistaken." [ much laughter ]

Greg M. l didn't mean to revive any such memories. [ more laughter ]

Lois. OK, Greg, read the next poem?

Greg D reads.

To hang our head – ostensibly –

And subsequent, to find

That such was not the posture

Of our immortal mind –

Affords the sly presumption

That in so dense a fuzz –

You – too – take Cobweb attitudes

Upon a plane of Gauze!
                                    - J105/Fr160/M80

Judith. So, in stead of people saying "I'm having a senior moment," you're taking cobweb attitudes. [ general hilarity/ crosstalk ]

Lois. This is a funny poem, and I read it as making a kind of a riff on your own attitudes, or your own presentations. Kind of like being taken in by your own act.

Greg D. I think hanging the head could also be more serious, like shame, or defeat, or self-criticism.

Lois. Exactly, and then finding out that you don't feel shame - when, maybe you pretended that you did [ laughs ].

Greg D. Or, in  terms of postures of our immortal minds and higher values and things, maybe it's not so big a deal.

Greg M. Once you realize you're not so far off base after all. you start to think, well, maybe this other person is not on solid ground either. Is that what it's saying?

Greg D. Whatever Cobweb attitudes and plane of Gauze refer to, it's sort of like clouded thinking.

Polly. I think there is something interesting when you feel humble, and then you realize, that's not the truth of me, and then you realize, someone that's been taken as an authority is also just as foggy and no more of an expert than you.

Victoria. Nobody knows the real truth.

Polly. It's interesting, the pronouns, don't you think? - To hang our head, and then our immortal mind, and then You – too!

Robert. I like this poem. I like that it's one sentence, the first sentence being the subject.. I'm enjoying the S sounds as contrasted with the D of mind. It might be talking about prayer - it's ostensible - all bowing, and then the irony, That such was not the posture, using that word ostensibly ... The immortal mind is not so ostensible - it doesn't take postures, so the sly presumption - so dense a fuzz. So I guess from this experience of this ironical attitude towards the congregation praying, and her personal experience of it Affords the sly presumption that other people aren't really getting it either. [ laughter ]

Lois. Emily Dickinson, The Great Equalizer. [ laughter ] Let's read the next poem.

Victoria reads.

The Daisy follows soft the Sun－

And when his golden walk is done－

Sits shyly at his feet－

He－waking－finds the flower there－

Wherefore－Marauder－art thou here?

Because, Sir, love is sweet!

We are the Flower－Thou the Sun!

Forgive us, if as days decline－

We nearer steal to Thee!

Enamored of the parting West－

The peace－the flight－the Amethyst－

Night's possibility!
                                    - J106/Fr161/M89

[ To hear Victoria read this poem aloud, go to https://youtu.be/Cb7TDjPvc0Y ]

Lois. This fascicle is sort of a Whoopie Pie. [ laughter ] The first and the last poem are like the chocolate cookies, with it's creamy center of the other little poems.

Greg D. Very academic. [ laughter ]

Victoria. Love is sweet! Sometimes overly sweet. Well, here's the word soft again. There's a real feminine touch to this one, you know. Love is sweet!

Greg M. Night's possibility! You can read anything you want to into that. [ general agreement ]

Adrianna. What's The Amethyst?

Polly. She uses that a lot - the purple color in the sunset.

Judith. Well, I got intrigued by Amethyst, and did you know there's a website called jewelpedia.net?

Greg. Well, of course there is. [funny]

Judith. It gives you all of the symbols, and, it's an image that was used by Keats, Amy Lowell, Robert Frost, James Joyce, D H Lawrence; and, from the Greeks and Romans, to ward off passionate excesses; stabilizes the mind and sharpens the wit; promotes sleep and pleasant dreams - from Pliny the Elder. But, Emily Dickinson's Lexicon really limits it to the color, the violet light at sunrise, sunset. Also, a color for noble men or gentlemen.

Victoria. It's a royal color. Tyrian is that purple-blue.

Judith. I went to the concordance and she uses it in six poems.

Greg M. It's also in her "gem chapter" in the Book of Revelation. It's one of the twelve gemstone foundation stones in the New City of Jerusalem.

Polly. Does it have a particular meaning in that context?

Greg M. I don't think so, no.

Lois. I like Wherefore Marauder art thou here? The first four lines are just a description, to set the stage, if you will. Then all of a sudden this deity has something to say to the lowly, worshiper, and what does he say? Marauder! Wherefore.

Polly. Because she's right there at his feet.

Lois. Like, what are you doing here, you little imp. And the answer would seem to be disarming, right?

Greg M. The question itself sounds teasing, to me.

Polly. It seems like a poem written to a lover.

Lois. Could be. It could also be the introduction of some tension in this relationship. An ostensible surprise on the part of the sun god?

Greg D. It's morning. Why are you still here?

Victoria. And then she uses the royal We. Forgive us - We and us. this is important stuff!

Lois. Let you think this is just between us -

Victoria. I speak for all lovers, all flowers.

Greg. If it were "I am the Flower," it would ring differently.

Lois. Like the poem before it, there's a shift into the universal, right? [ general agreement ]

Robert. I'm enjoying this poem just on the level of the flower, following the sun, and saying Love is sweet. It's the kind of a thing I could turn into a theatrical presentation, playing with my granddaughter. I read somewhere where this might be about Samuel Bowles and her love relationship with him, and that detracts from the experience for me. It's so full being just daisy and the sun.

Lois. More about a principal than an individual.

Greg D. There's something in the second Master letter where she has a similar conversation: "Master - but if I had the Beard on my cheek - like you - and you - had Daisy's petals - and you cared so for me - what would become of you? Could you forget me in fight, or flight - or the foreign land? Could'nt Carlo, and you and I walk in the meadows an hour - and nobody care but the Bobolink - and his - silver scruple?"

Lois. That is a very poetic passage, isn't it?