Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group, Jan 2019

Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group

January 18, 2019

"Emily Dickinson's White"

Leader: Ivy Schweitzer

An Exploration of Dickinson’s Iconic Color with “White Heat: Emily Dickinson in 1862: A Weekly Blog”

There is no color more connected to Dickinson than white, the color of the house dress she began wearing sometime around 1862. What does this color stand for? Innocence or spiritual/sexual purity? Coldness, snow, and the forbidding blankness of New England winters? Bones and marble, alabaster chambers, pearls, death shrouds and ghosts? Or renunciation of society? As her assumption of white clothing occurred during the years of the Civil War, we cannot ignore the meaning of white as a racial marker of class privilege and power, a category of identity that was undergoing cultural re-consolidation during this period.

The name of Ivy Schweitzer’s year-long blog project on Dickinson comes from her poem, “Dare you see a soul at the ‘White Heat?'” because it captured Dickinson’s intensity and the refining forge of creativity that characterized the year 1862 in her life. With her extensive knowledge of astronomy, Dickinson would have known that white is not so much a color as a compendium of the full spectrum of colors. We will use the White Heat blog with its sections on history, biography and poetry to explore this intriguing color.

Ivy Schweitzer is Professor of English and past chair of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College.

Ivy. Maybe White as an Indian Pipe would be a good one to do, because Victoria has a show-and-tell.

Victoria D.. Of all the poems that you had selected for us to read today, this is one that I had in my collection of watercolors that I did, and I'm really intrigued by the manuscript layout here compared to Franklin, and I really love the graphics of that, because I'm going to pay much more attention to that.

[White as an Indian Pipe

Red as a Cardinal Flower

Fabulous as a Moon at Noon

February Hour — ]

Ivy. Oh, good, because on the websites it's interesting; are the visuals helpful, or are they distracting? ... There are two Indian Pipe poems. There's this one, and then there's a later one, which has some variants to it.

Melba reads.

The World — stands — solemner — to me —
Since I was wed — to Him —
A modesty befits the soul
That bears another's — name —
A doubt — if it be fair — indeed —
To wear that perfect — pearl —
The Man — upon the Woman — binds —
To clasp her soul — for all —
A prayer, that it more angel — prove —
A whiter Gift — within —
To that munificence, that chose —
So unadorned — a Queen —
A Gratitude — that such be true —
It had esteemed the Dream —
Too beautiful — for Shape to prove —
Or posture — to redeem!

Everett. I love the idea of the - as she often does, turn things on their head - so I love the idea that she takes of the woman being wedded being bound, and turns it on it's head to say that that that magnificence is wonderful to be contained, or to have form; so, it's internal. So, from the outside you have this patriarchal system that owns women - blah blah, blah - and she is saying that the internal world liberates - which is a little contrary to what the culture does.

Ivy. That's a wonderful reading of the subversiveness of the inside versus the outside, in some way.

Jule. Can we relate it to white at all? What does it have to do with white?

Everett. Well, that period being untouched by the social constructs of the day. I guess you could extend it to how she felt about publication ... in it's purest form - always [inaudible] always unattainable, so it can't be saved on the page. So, that whole concept of being pure, and unpolluted by other forces. She is her own person, without reference to anything or anyone else; and she doesn't ask to have that, measured.

Ivy. I'm glad you see it as larger than the sexual purity, because everyone wants to go into that metaphor. I don't think you have to. I don't think it's necessary.

Member. Yeah, I was going to say, it's almost as if she doesn't have to prove herself to be pure and white. In other poems she's a volcano, so I think she prefers to be unadorned; she doesn't want to prove that she's a member of the patriarchy.

Ivy. So, you want to think about it as integrity, right? And, from her astronomical studies, she would have known that white contains all colors; it's not the absence of color, it's actually the simultaneous presence of all colors. So, while it looks like it's blank, I think for Dickinson it's not; it's what you're saying, it's the fullness of a kind of interiority - a private, but protected, interiority. So, do you think that this is a marriage poem? Is it literal marriage - spiritual marriage?

Victoria D.. When I think of her whiter Gift I think of her gift as a poet. Wherever that comes from - wherever those words and those artistic impulses that she puts down on paper, they're too beautiful, but there's a sense of gratitude about it. This is not something that she's posturing about. She does that sometimes in other poems, but in this one, there's this gift from which she can feel this gratitude that she recognizes is a precious perfect pearl - her words.

Ivy. And it's a religious image, you have the "pearl of great price," right? Salvation is the pearl of great price.

Victoria D.. Yes.

Ivy. But, it's also an image that she uses in very secular ways. I love that line, so unadorned a Queen. That really works with your [to Everett] reading of it: On the outside not - unadorned, relatively sparse, or, unmarked as royal, but a queen still, inside; that royalty is somehow an inner quality.

Judith. I looked up the word munificence, just to make sure it had the same understanding, and it's just "the quality or action of being lavishly generous; great generosity."

Ivy. It's interesting, you know, on the one hand we talk about the nun - the white - the purity - and then, some of the language is just the language of excess, which you don't associate with nuns, renunciation, not wanting to embrace life. So, you have both of those things going on in her poetry. It's also interesting - this is a transcript of the manuscript where the lines are broken up in really interesting ways; it's not the way you see it in Franklin - it's very different - you read it in a different way - you pause in a different way. Well, let's go to another one.

Robert reads"
A solemn thing — it was — I said —

A woman — white — to be —

And wear — if God should count me fit —

Her blameless mystery —

A hallowed thing — to drop a life

Into the purple well —

Too plummetless — that it return —

Eternity — until —

I pondered how the bliss would look —

And would it feel as big —

When I could take it in my hand —

As hovering — seen — through fog —

And then — the size of this "small" life —

The Sages — call it small —

Swelled — like Horizons — in my breast —  [vest]

And I sneered — softly — "small"!

Ivy. So, looking at the manuscript, it looks like breast was the first one, and vest is the variant. [Examines Manuscript]. It looks like breast is the first one and vest is the variant.

Member. This is a very intense poem. In Johnson he chose vest.

Ivy. No, it is interesting, and the question is, why? Did he just like it better? Or, did he think it was just more authoritative? My understanding of the variants is that, it's not like one is a second choice; this could really stand as well in this line as this other word. And they're often very different; they do different things. Like vest and breast; they rhyme, but they're very different. One is about her clothing and another is about the body.

Member. Johnson may have been avoiding the word breast, because of the social restriction at the time.

Ivy. That's really interesting. They both cover the heart, so, I'm not going to offend anybody.

Templa. Vest also gives "investiture," "investing," and all of that.

Greg. I read just recently that our terms for parts of the turkey, "drumstick," "first joint," "white meat," because the Victorians were too embarrassed to say "leg," thigh," and "breast." [laughter]

Ivy. So lascivious, those words, right? The power of language." [laughter.]

Elizabeth. I was going to go off of what Templa has said, because there is a connotation of vestments.

Ivy. Yes, there's a little bit of nun imagery - a woman in white, right? It could be a nun - it could be a bride - could be a sister of mercy - a nurse.

Everett. Breast deals more with price, while vest is more clinical - an honor kind of thing, so to me there's a clear distinction there. I can see why she would have had breast as the first choice and vest as an alternative.

Greg. It occurs to me that in breast vs. vest there also might be a masculine/feminine dichotomy there. And, I understand that white wasn't actually a bridal color until around the 1870's [in this country].

Ivy. Yes, and I thing Queen Victoria  really set the fashions there, because she wore white for her wedding; that's where the white wedding dress started. Then, of course, Albert dies in '62 and then she goes into mourning and all black.

Robert. I'm always pausing when I read A woman white to be­ - the whole racial thing. I'm wondering, to what extent did she bring a consciousness to the woman white to be, and did it bring any flavor of racial.

Ivy. Some scholars are saying that she could not, as a woman in her time, she could not have been untouched by racialized discourse and attitudes around her. The question is, what was her attitude? Again, as a kind of elite woman in an upper-class family, at a time when white was being consolidated as an identity. I mean, everything we're hearing today about white supremacy and white nationalism really gets going in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s. It's all kind of happening, but it's in flux. Dickinson, I think, never put things down as absolute. Her genius is to make everything processional and dynamic. It's always about "choosing not choosing;" she chooses not to choose. She makes a choice, and it's not choosing - it's to leave things open and dynamic and alive.

Susan. One of the things that strikes me about this poem is how edgy it is. There's irony everywhere; if God should count me fit - what's he doing counting her at all?´" if God should count me fit" - it sounds humble, but it's not; A timid thing to drop a life/ Into the mystic well [Susan is reading Dickinson's variants into the line.] Too plummetless - I don't know anybody else who uses this word, but, it's a plummetless word. There was a terrible suicide in Amherst, when the wife of a neighbor killed herself by jumping into a well. Emily referred to it as particularly distressing, and of course, you jump into a well and you die, because it is plummetless. But then - this whole business of measuring - being measured, being evaluated, and there is another edge in how the bliss would look ... When I could take it in my hand; not my heart, but my hand. Is that another person's hand? Is it a ring? As hovering seen through fog; In other words, it's not real yet - it's a shape. And, the last stanza is amazing to me because of all the S sounds. Who are these Sages? Are they the same people who are measuring her - finding her wanting? If she can carry Horizons in her breast, then, she ain't small. But those Ss', which you associate with the snake.

Ivy. Exactly. That was my first thinking, yeah. ... And also the sea - that sinuous - could be more oceanic. But I think you're right. There's something so resistant about this - resistant, and claiming that maybe this space looks small from the outside, but on the inside it's plummetless, or limitless.

[Interlude]

Listen to this [reading]. This poem struck a discordant note with Dickinson's first editor Mable Loomis Todd, who was always concerned with the salability of Dickinson's and the protection of her reputation. In the Poems 1896, the third collection, she gave this poem it's title, "Wedded," to what Martha Nell Smith called "a culturally blasphemous poem." And to make that stick, Mable cut out the last two stanzas! where the speaker grows powerful and sneers at the sages who dared to see her life as small. That's really interesting. I think that gives support to your [Susan] interpretation.

Susan. That sneer - that's always driven a little dagger ...

Ivy. Yes. But I love this idea of the Horizons - the scale - and then the small. What really constitutes scale here? So, let's go to another one.

Greg reads.

Of Tribulation, these are They,

Denoted by the White—

The Spangled Gowns, a lesser Rank

Of Victors—designate—

All these—did conquer—

But the ones who overcame most times—

Wear nothing commoner than Snow—

No Ornament, but Palms—

Surrender—is a sort unknown—

On this superior soil—

Defeat—an outgrown Anguish—

Remembered, as the Mile

Our panting Ancle barely passed—

When Night devoured the Road—

But we—stood whispering in the House—

And all we said—was "Saved"!

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-i8oOQBNJw ]

Ivy. She included this poem in her July 1862 letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, where she called attention to the misspelling of ankle, and more importantly where she explains that the I in her poems was a "supposed person." So that's really interesting to think about - that this poem is involved in that denial these poems are auto biographical. Emily Seelbinder has written about this poem and writes that it borrows heavily from the Book of Revelation, Chapter 7.

"And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

So, it's that kind of imagery of people who have suffered much, and who have come through it, and are now part of the "saved." So, Emily Seelbinder goes on to point out that the poem puts "emphasis on other-worldliness - of the inversion of earthly signs and spiritual signs, and the transformation of earthly grief into heavenly triumph. We should not the demotion of spangled gowns at the end to a lesser rank than the white robes of the righteous."

[Interlude]

Whenever the syntax gets gnarly, I think there's tension there, there's issues there.

Greg. It is hymn meter, though.

Ivy. It is hymn meter. Oh yeah. You could sing it.

Greg. The idea of the speaker of this poem being saved recalls your quote that, "When I state myself as the representative of the poem, I do not mean me, but a supposed person."

Ivy. And just because it's a supposed person doesn't mean it doesn't have elements of the poet. But I had to really train my students to talk about "the speaker. "Because, what about the poems where she speaks in the voice of a young boy? But we really have to separate ourselves from the speaker.

Greg. "We were all boys once, as Mrs. Partington says," she writes in a letter.

Ivy. So, is she imagining people marching off to salvation? I never thought about connecting this to soldiers. "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." They're marching off to salvation. And we know that the rhetoric in the newspapers was that we need to have a blood purging because of the sin of slavery. Blood has to flow. People have to die because we have to somehow cleanse the country, the nation, of the sin. So, this could be patriots marching off to a kind of national salvation. ... And also, a panting ancle! I think it's a biblical thing.

Greg. It's in Acts, and that's the English spelling.

Ivy. Does anyone here read Vendler. I often go to her, because she catches alot of the illusions.

Melba. It's the same image that you get in the end of "I started early - took my dog." That poem ends: And He - He followed - close behind -/ I felt His Silver Heel/ Upon my Ancle - Then my Shoes/ Would overflow with Pearl. So, the water sort of clutching at the ankle and spilling into the shoe, carrying her forward into the town - very similar.

Ivy. And she spells it the same way. Look at that. And then we have the pearl there. It's interesting when we start to put these poems together you start to see the same words being used - solemn, pearl. we're getting that ancle, right? So that connects the sea with the serpent, in a way. It's a figure of temptation, perhaps. Let's have somebody read the next poem.

Claire reads.

It sifts from Leaden Sieves --

It powders all the Wood.

It fills with Alabaster Wool

The Wrinkles of the Road --

It makes an Even Face

Of Mountain, and of Plain --

Unbroken Forehead from the East

Unto the East again --

It reaches to the Fence --

It wraps it Rail by Rail

Till it is lost in Fleeces --

It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack -- and Stem --

A Summer's empty Room --

Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,

Recordless, but for them--

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts

As Ankles of a Queen --

Then stills its Artisans -- like Ghosts --

Denying they have been -- 

- J311/Fr291/M248

[ To hear this poem read aloud, to to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN_HewbUYwE]

Ivy. It's a poem about snow, and it references Emerson's amazing poem "The Snow Storm." Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet

Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

And apparently she wrote down that phrase, "In a tumultuous privacy of storm" somewhere. That is a great line. " The frolic architecture of the snow" [Last line of Emerson's poem, not read loud here.] You can just see what she's doing here.

[Interlude]

Victoria D. reads.

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?

Then crouch within the door—

Red—is the Fire's common tint—

But when the vivid Ore

Has vanquished Flame's conditions,

It quivers from the Forge

Without a color, but the light

Of unannointed Blaze.

Least Village has its Blacksmith

Whose Anvil's even ring

Stands symbol for the finer Forge

That soundless tugs—within—

Refining these impatient Ores

With Hammer, and with Blaze

Until the Designated Light

Repudiate the Forge—
                                  - J365/Fr401/M214

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/fdj9PRqx_Tk ]

Ivy. I chose this for the title of this project because I wanted something from this year at the height of her creativity - white heat. Everything just purified out by the blaze that [inaudible] the creativity. Now, people have different interpretations. Not everybody interprets this as about poetry, but that's how I read it, and I wanted to respond to that call, Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?/ Then crouch within the door -what does that mean - to crouch within the door? Is the speaker here protecting us from the heat, saying don't come to close? Just come to the door frame, and don't come into the room because you're going to get burnt, is that what she's saying?

Greg. It's the blacksmith's place isn't it? You're not supposed to get too close.

Ivy. We know that door frames were very important to Dickinson, right? They're these kind of images of access - liminal, like windows and door frames - places where you go in and out - they're the threshold. So, they're very interesting places. Lots of things are happening at door frames. And, we know that she would stand outside a door, or be within the door frame to listen to people visiting in the parlor.

Claire. And just the rhythm - the stanzas. You feel like you're watching a blacksmith at work. She brings you right in with her.

Ivy. I've never thought of it, but the word blacksmith has the word black in it. We all know what a blacksmith is, but words were words for Dickinson. They all resonated in all their many, many shadows and inferences, so we can't ignore that the poem about the white head has the word black in it - the shadow, the opposite, the dark.

Greg. When she sent this to Colonel Higginson, she identified it as "Cupid's Sermon." ... so there's some white heat for ya.

Ivy. My comment talks about what it is it be anointed. According to Dickinson's Webster's, if means to be prepared or consecrated by oil ... was of high antiquity. "Kings, prophets and priests were set apart or consecrated to their offices by the use of oil. Hence the peculiar application of the term anointed, to Jesus Christ." But her blaze here is unannointed - unconsecrated by a higher power. [reading from Ivy's blog [Reading from the blog, https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/whiteheat/dare-you-see-a-soul-f401a-j-365/ ] : " What this definition does not specify is who authorizes or does the anointing – in the case of prophets, kings, priests and Jesus, it is God. To be “unannointed” (notice that Dickinson spells it with two n’s) means to be unconsecrated or not authorized by God or a higher power. Thus, the white heat and the white, rather than red, light of this forge is not authorized by a divine or outside force, but from within the soul or mind of the speaker, the “finer forge” of the second stanza." It becomes a metaphor, I think. The finer forge, a kind of spiritual blacksmith shop.

Victoria. It sounds like a heartbeat. You can tug at heartstrings, and it's soundless, and that would make the hammer in the next stanza the heart. And, I think the blaze might still be the soul.

Ivy. So this would work with the Sermon.

Victoria D. Yeah, I think Cupid's Sermon, and the heart, the passion, the heart beating, and then an unannointed blaze would be an unauthorized passion. I dig this! Wow!

Ivy. And then look at the other word I talk about is designate. Until the Designated Light/

Repudiate the Forge. She seems to be saying, you get the hammer and the blaze, but this light is going to be so intense that it doesn't need the forge anymore. [Reading from blog] " But in the stunning final lines, the process of refinement or purification gets so intense that it produces a “Designated Light” that can altogether repudiate (dismiss, renounce) the forge, the physical shaping process, and perhaps symbols altogether. This specially distinguished light can be seen as a positive form of the “unannounced Blaze,” less ritualistic and more administrative, earthly, and the extremest form of purified, self-authorized white. It’s hard not to hear “ors,” as in choices or contradictions or refusals to choose, in the word “Ores,” which are first “vivid” and then “impatient,” longing for purification." Sop, when somebody is designated, often you designate a substitute - something that stands in for something else. The other pun, I thought would be intersted in developing is the word Ore also implies "or" - that is, choices. So, Refining these impatient Ores - there could be a double entendre there.

Susan. Designated is interesting, because it's got a contradiction, because it's got "desgign," and it's got de-singned, and then the signs are taken away.

Ivy. And, unanointed is such a weird word, so when we're looking for other un words, it's the undoing, right? - the negative, the not.

Melba. Designated goes, too, to those who are anointed. ... and if the heart is the forge, then ultimately she's doing that very Dickinsonian thing and gesturing toward the end. when the sould escapes the body. The body is repudiated.

Victoria D. So this is a passion that transcends the physical.

Ivy. So, whether it's love, whether it's poetry, it transcends the physical.

Elizabeth. I love the idea of the soul being at the white heat, because it would be a moment of extreme power, in that it could be blinding and it also recalls Biblical imagery of people not being able to look at the face of God [crosstalk] but it's also a moment of extreme vulnerability and malleability, because if something is at white heat it can be formed. It can be made. It does really speak to the feeling of love, a complete vulnerability that you might have in forming an inner relationship between yourself and someone or something else.

Ivy. And also violence, because the blacksmith is pounding the metal into shape.

Melba. I keep wanting to go with connotation of danger, because Dickinson really likes passages in Shakespeare where she talks about the passion that feeds on itself - and she'll go back to those passages with Anthony and Cleopatra, and in Hamlet. I just remember the old flame tests that we used to do in chemistry class, where you'd stick something in the flame and it would blaze with a particular color. The unanointed Blaze seems to me to be a thing that feeds almost on itself. It's almost just consuming the air around it.

Claire. She first gives us the red, and then it's burnt off. All those other elements are burnt off.

Ivy. And she says it's soundless. So, she doesn't want us to hear the ring. I want to hear the ringing of the hammer and the anvil, but she says it's soundless.

Victoria D. Well, that would be like - you can't hear someone's heart beating, but it sounds very loud within. You can feel it.

Ivy. Yes, if you're really attuned to it. ... I want to go on to the next poem in this cluster, which is really the climax. Mine by the Right of the White Election - and this is a poem we should read standing up, you know what I mean? [laughter] - because it's such a delerious poem! I love these moments in Dickinson, like "Wild Nights," right? The delerium in Dicksinson - I love them. So, anybody want to do a delerious reading?

A member reads:

Mine — by the Right of the White Election!

Mine — by the Royal Seal!

Mine — by the Sign in the Scarlet prison —

Bars — cannot conceal!

Mine — here — in Vision — and in Veto!

Mine — by the Grave's Repeal —

Tilted — Confirmed —

Delirious Charter!

Mine — long as Ages steal!

Ivy. It's just a series of exclamations. And we've got the white and the red here, like the last poem. Some people interpret this as the scarlet letter. Actually, this is Hester speaking, in some way. That's an interesting connection. It's 1862. And, this was published in the first collection of poems, in 1890. I guess Mabel liked it.

Victoria D. Did she try to give it a title?

Ivy. I'm sure she did. Let's go look at it and see what the title is ... It's called, guess what - "Mine!" [laughter]

Susan. I understood that it was Higginson who wanted the titles, and some of his titles were real bow-wow. [laughter] [crosstalk] It's like a judge's gavel coming down.

Ivy. But, does anyone hear like posessiveness in this? But then you have to put it in the context of in these times did women own themselves, or that women had the right to themselves?

Elizabeth. It's like "Title divine is Mine!"

Ivy. "Title divine is Mine!" is a little earliker than this. But yes, that's another one. It doesn't have the white in it.

Elizabeth. It has red - garnet to garnet.

Ivy reads.

Title divine — is mine!
The Wife — without the Sign!
Acute Degree — conferred on me —
Empress of Calvary!
Royal — all but the Crown!
Betrothed — without the swoon
God sends us Women —
When you — hold — Garnet to Garnet —
Gold — to Gold —
Born — Bridalled — Shrouded —
In a Day —
Tri Victory
"My Husband" — women say —
Stroking the Melody —
Is this — the way?
               - j1072/Fr 194/M701

Yeah, I think they're related.

Member. I think if you look at the word mine, you have to think about the other meaning for the word, and going beyond the possessive to the imperitive, amd the digging for ore, the mining for ore.

Ivy. She's go so many poems about titles, queens, empresses, degree. Betsy Erkkila writes an article - a very controversial article - "Emily Dickinson and Class," where she argues that all these references amount to an obsession with the old world of noblesse oblige and courts and queens and kings, and that she hasn't somehow gotten past 1776 where we're now in a democratic republic, and she's not down with the, kind of, democracy - even though she talks about the democracy of death - "Oh democratic Death!" I never saw it that way. I always saw it as her way of trying to assume a kind of royalty that she gave herself.

Member. I think it's her feminist sovereignty

Ivy. Right, exactly. I never saw it politically.

Member. It was politial too, but, I don't know if she ever read Margaret Fuller, but Margaret Fuller famously used "queen" in her poetry to mean the woman in herself - powerful within erself. And, I would expect that Emily had that same connotation.

Melba. That's true, because Emerson used "king" and "kingship" as metaphors for self-reliance. So, it makes sense that Fuller would pull off "queen."

Ivy. What do we think about Mine here in Vision and in Veto" What's the Veto about? That makes it political, right? That's a political word. Mine by the Grave's Repeal. She talks about God's "repealless list" when she's talking about the dead of the Civil War.

Victoria D. If I think of "mine" as a noun - as the mine that's at the depth of her poetic gift, then that kind of shifts everything for me. In 1091, the poem "To own the Art within the Soul," at the end she calls it As an Estate perpetual/ Or a reduceless Mine. The gold, the riches are hers. So, that question you asked about the word Veto, and also Titled, as Susan was saying about the judge's gavel - the legaleze in this - it just seems like the possession off this treasure, and "I got that by the right of the white election" or, by Royal Seal. This treasure trove is mine. By the Scarlet prison I keep thinking that that's by the heart-work that she's done, or something to do with her heart. You can have all the Bars of a prison, but they can't keep that away from me.

Melba. She may feel delerious - she may say, "I've conferred it all on myself. I've voted myself the monarch of my own domain. [crosstalk]

Ivy. People have connected to Puritan notions of election, and you get a white stone - Ann Bradstreet said you get a white stone, you get a crown, you get white robes washed in the blood of the lamb, and then you're part of the elect. This is the language that she grew up with, but she's taking it and doing amazing things with it - making it work for her own personal, complicated symbol system.

Bruce. I was going to say something about the Puritan aspect. Election is something that's not in your control. This is something that's determined before your birth, though there are visible signs of invisible grace, but here the election she confers upon herself.

Melba. And she's redefined the White election, too, in the previous poem. She says "My soul has been refined. I've refined the ore out of it.