Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group October, 2017

Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Discussion Group

October, 2017

Topic: Emily Dickinson as a Second Language

Facilitated by Greg Mattingly

In this presentation of certain topics in his book, Emily Dickinson as a Second Language: Demystifying the Poetry (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2016), the author begins by explaining a valuable resource that helped him in his research.

Greg. Type "Emily Dickinson Lexicon" into your search engine. That will bring you to this site, http://edl.byu.edu/. You'll be confronted by a number of tabs, one of which is "Webster's." That is Emily Dickinson's dictionary - the dictionary that she used (An 1844 printing of the 1841 edition of Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language). She actually sat around reading this dictionary. All you have to do is click on a tab, type in a word, and you'll get that definition, out of her dictionary.
            Another tab is the EDLexicon, which bears the same name as the website. "Emily Dickinson Lexicon." If you click on this tab, and type in a word, you'll get the figurative ways, and allusive ways that she employs that word, that scholars have worked to determine. For example, we were reading a poem in a discussion group just recently:

New feet within my garden go—

New fingers stir the sod—

A Troubadour upon the Elm

Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green—

New Weary sleep below—

And still the pensive Spring returns—

And still the punctual snow!  

                                    - J99/Fr79/79/M56

Now, if you look up the word "troubadour" here, one of the definitions it will give you is "Robin." If you register with a free username and password, and sign in, and type in "troubadour," you'll get not only that, but a line or two from every single poem in which she uses the word troubadour, along with the Franklin and Johnson numbers - a very valuable resource.
            A good example of what you can get out of Webster's, is evident in this first poem:

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

Greg. What is this poem describing?

Victoria. Arbutus, I think.

Greg. Yeah, arbutus; she signed it, "Arbutus," - on 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 might that imply? How can a flower be candid?

Jule. "Shining with dew," maybe? I mean, that's the Latin root of it, really.

Greg. "Shining with dew?" Really?

Julie. The Latin route is "shining," "glowing."

Greg. Anything else?

Adrianna. Would it be "white?" Something to do with white?

Greg. Yes, thank you. The definitions in her dictionary are as follows. This is the second definition." Fair; open; frank; ingenuous; free from undue bias; disposed to think and judge according to truth and justice, or without partiality or prejudice; applied to persons," just as we might think. The first definition, "But in this sense rarely used," is "White." And how does that apply to the Trailing Arbutus? So, Victoria, can you explain the colors of the May Flower?

Victoria. It starts out in spring as pink and then fades to white; Covert - in April -/ Candid - in May - And, it's so low-growing that you have to really get your nose right down there to find it.

Greg. Yes, that's the covert part of it, I guess.

Elizabeth. Covert has a lot of interesting meanings. Like, the underside of a bird's swing is called the covert. Something that can hide as well as something hidden.

Greg. I put this discussion together on the same idea that prompted me to write my book, after participating in these discussions over the years, and realizing what we do when we work on these poems, and, I broke it down to these three things, avoiding the biographical detours we often take, because we like to talk about the person, too. But, if we're not doing that, we're usually doing one of these things, I think:

Examining the language practices that were available to her, and one way of finding out about that is through her Webster's. What does this word mean to her. Where else does she use the word? Would that give us a clue as to what she's implying? Now, in a discussion recently, we were reading the poem Wild Nights. Would someone 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!

                        - J249/Fr269/M143

Greg. Thank you. And wood someone read Whether my bark went down at sea?

Greta reads.
Whether my bark went down at sea --

Whether she met with gales --

Whether to isles enchanted

She bent her docile sails --

By what mystic mooring

She is held today --

This is the errand of the eye

Out upon the Bay

                        - J52/Fr33/M59

Greg. Thank you. These two poems came up in a recent discussion, and, in Whether my bark went down at sea, someone focused on the word errand. Does that word seem a little bland?

Peter. "Function."

Mary. What does Webster's say?

Greg. Yeah, Webster gives us a definition that we might expect. Here's what the Emily Dickinson Lexicon - the EDL tab gives us though: "goal, quest, destination; request; verbal message; attempt to communicate with someone far away; undertaking, task, duty, obligation, responsibility, mission. journey for a specific purpose. A little more weighty than an errand to the grocery store, right? But, when Emily Dickinson's forbear, Nathaniel Dickinson, crossed 3,000 miles of ocean in a wooden boat with John Winthrop in 1630, they did that because they wanted to found a "City on Hill." He was a Puritan, an English lawyer, and these settlers 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. They left comfortable lives in England to endure scarcity, hardship, harsh New England winters, and potential attack from hostile natives, in order to abandon the church practices in England that they objected to, and live a Godly live in the manner that they thought necessary. And, they called this "journey," with a mission, "for a specific purpose," their "Errand into the Wilderness." So, that's an expression with a lot of weight, and by examining the personal and historical context of where the word sits, we get something out of the poem that we might otherwise miss. So, I think that when we go through these poems, this is what we're going to be doing - probably.
            The poem that Polly read was read and discussed in this group earlier this year, and one of the readings was of the image of rowing in Eden. One or two participants imagined this as a distraught relationship that required work. Rowing is hard work, right? 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 from the air; So, we had a very different reading there. [laughter]. What you can do in that case, maybe, is number two here [written on board]; where else does she use that image? We have as one example:

Could I but ride indefinite

As doth the Meadow Bee

And visit only where I liked

And No one visit me

And flirt all Day with Buttercups

And marry whom I may

And dwell a little everywhere

Or better, run away

With no Police to follow

Or chase Him if He do

Till He should jump Peninsulas

To get away from me—

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"

What Liberty! So Captives deem

Who tight in Dungeons are
                        - J661/Fr1056/M474

And row in Nowhere all Day long/ And anchor "off the Bar"

And we have,

A Bird came down the Walk -

He did not know I saw -

He bit an Angleworm in halves

And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew

From a convenient grass -

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall

To let a Beetle pass -

He glanced with rapid eyes

That hurried all around -

They looked like frightened beads, I thought -

He stirred his velvet head

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 -

Or butterflies, off Banks of Noon

Leap, plashless - as they swim.

                                    - J328/Fr359/M189

At the [Emily Dickinson] museum, we have a poem on display that we've talked about a thousand times as guides at the museum. We think it describes a cemetery. The last line is But all mankind deliver here. But there are variants; cruise softly here, sail softly here, row softly here, do anchor here. I don't think there's any way, looking at this poem, ontologically, to say for certain, that she's not using it differently in the poem that Polly read, but when we see where she's using it in other places, at least it points to another possibility. So, that's the structure of the discourse here - how we'll try to get through some of these poems, and we'll see what we discover. Dare I ask for a reader for

Burleigh reads.
Remorse - is Memory - awake -

Her Parties all astir -

A Presence of Departed Acts -

At Window - and at Door -

It's Past - set down before the Soul -

And lighted with a match -

Perusal - to facilitate -

And help Belief to stretch

Remorse is Cureless - the Disease

Not even God - can heal -

For 'tis His institution,-

The adequate of hell [falters over the word "adequate"]
                        - J744/Fr781/M383

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

Burleigh. Yeah

Greg. Anyone have any ideas about this one - what she's trying to get across?

Greta. It's like Dante. Dante's inferno.

Greg. Hell, yeah, something is like that.

Victoria. The word adequate just jumps out. It seems like "equivalent," which is pretty close to "adequate."

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; as, means adequate to the object; we have no adequate ideas of infinite power. Adequate ideas, are such as exactly represent their object."
            We move on to The Language of Home, next. I have a sound recording featuring Gerda Lerner, the feminist and historian. She said that, when working on her tome, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness [1993, Oxford University Press], said that at first, she wasn't going to include Emily Dickinson, because she never participated in any of the social or political movements that were going on all around her at the time. "She just stayed home, she wasn't important, so I wasn't going to include her. But at night, when I would go to bed, I would read Emily Dickinson, just to relax, and as I was reading the poems for a while, I said .... hey .... wait a minute." [laughter] So, Jay, would you read the quote from Gerda Lerner's book there on page 2?

Jay reads.
"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."  [murmurs of appreciation].

Greg. Yeah, quite a statement. So, in this vein - The Language of Home - let's take this next poem.

Clare reads.
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.

A Skein of Yarn

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

That sounds too familiar [laughter]

Polly. What does she mean by them in the fourth line? Because, I thought she's talking Mind, and Brain - is she separating them?

Greg. I read it as the Seams. "I could not make the seams fit. It's sewing, so there's some domestic imagery there.

Jay. I don't think she's talking about sewing. I think she's talking about the thinking that accompany's sewing.

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

Jule. It seams that way. [laughter]

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

Clare. A breakdown.

Greg. I think so, yes. The mood is kind of desperate, isn't it? I heard a poet read, many, many years ago - he wasn't an enjoyable poet - use the image of ball bearings rattling around in a cigar box, and when I read this poem, that image popped into my mind - somebody who's really having a tough time. Is that what she's describing here?

Jule. I think she's talking about knitting balls, because I've had this experience. There's just silence, but they keep rolling., but they keep rolling. Yarn still comes into the home in skeins, and you have to unravel it and roll it into a ball.

[ A discussion of yarn ensues ]

Elizabeth. This might be going too far, but when I read this poem, I think of Athena springing from the head of Zeus. That's like a cleaving. She's the goddess of wisdom, but also of tapestry. I wonder if this unraveling could be the creative means of production rather than just a breakdown,

Greg. Wow, I like that. Yeah, maybe not so bad after all. All right, we could stretch this a little further with the next poem. Do we have a volunteer?

Adrianna reads.
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 --

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 --

Greg. Anything stand out on this one? Beautiful imagery, right?

Adrianna. All the color words stand out.

Susan. She doesn't say "red," or "blue," or "brown." - dun, Sapphire -. 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] and they 're marching into this poem in order to be dismissed.

Jule. They can't compete with nature.

[ A discussion follows of Domenichino ]

Greg. I like the way she got the color in the Hemlocks without even naming a color - Hemlocks burn. How about the odd Flambeaux? What might they be?

Clare. What are Flambeaux? Is it sort of a torch?

Greg. I always thought it was fireflies. A literal flambeau is sort of like a torch, but that's my guess.

Victoria. The light reflecting on everything, maybe? The branches look like they are on fire.

Greg. Yes, that's the way others have read it. I'm interested in the line, How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet.

Jay. The sun is setting, isn't it - hiding behind the Steeple? - and the bell is lit up, and that's when the Ball is full.

Greg. Yes, I think that's what that is. But, I'm interested in the image of the Steeples handing the Scarlet. Because, a steeple looks like a spindle, doesn't it?

Jen. She must be talking about the steeples in Amherst that she would have seen.

Greg. Yeah, I'm suggesting that the image might be drawn from had spinning. That's why I have that image here. You have the scarlet yarn being wound around the spindle.

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

Polly. She could have, just from her bedroom window, seen the sunset.

Jay. Do you think that if she had the lip of the Flamingo, she could adequately express -?

Greg. The flamingo is known to be a very noisy, clattery bird. They made a big squawk -

Jay. So, what is the significance of her wistful imagining that if she had the lip of the flamingo?

Greg. Well, if I were a real chatterbox, even then, would I dare to tell? Or, could I even?

Clare. There's something of a childish wonder in the first stanza - how she expresses the wonder of the sunset - it overwhelms.

Greg. I often get the impression, when I read poems like this, that, alright, I've never actually felt anything like this. This is just a person of much more sensitivity than I'm even capable of.

Susan. If anyone was lucky enough to be in Amherst last night, it was a perfect John Kensett sunset, like that painting that we have in the Evergreens [The home of Emily's brother, Austen, and part of the Emily Dickinson Museum]. And what amazes me about this poem is that she goes everywhere. She goes to the Mountains and the Steeples; she goes into the Fire Touching all the Grass; brings in a Duchess, just for fun. [laughter] She sees a small Dusk crawls on the Village, like a drunk going down the sidewalk. and the this odd Flambeaux, this sort of random light, almost like a willow-the-wisp; and the Dome of Abyss - you can see that from the Dickinson property; there really is a kind of bottomless grey that moves in, and then she just hands over the poem to the Italians. [laughter]

Polly. But, could she be exaggerating here? - being comical? There's way too much sunset than anyone's ever seen.

Greg. That's two different readings; one comical and one awestruck.

Julie. But, the Italians couldn't capture it.

[crosstalk]

Greg. Of course, Dickinson made up her own words. Most of the words that she made up, thought, are made up of real English words, and then she just adds "-less" or "-ness" onto them. They're not all in the dictionary; some of them are p "stopless," you can find that in our dictionary, "overtakelessness," no [laughter]. Let's just take a quick look at one of the words that she created - and there aren't too many of these. Is anyone in a really exultant enough mood to want to read this 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

Greg. So, what's the created word?

Several. "By-Thyme."

Greg. Yes. I'd love to hear what that says to people.

Several. A time gone by. Afterlife.

Marguerite. It's a very sensual poem, also - the Clover, the revels, the Wine, the  quaffing.

Gordon. What's the "beat" our "Wife"? all about? Is that what drunkards talk about, or something?

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

Gordon. do you think there's any significance in her putting just the word beat in quotation marks, and just the word Wife in quotation marks, in stead of the whole three-word phrase?

Greg. I think it's because beat and wife she would have seen in the papers - the accounts of these events - and the word "our" would not have been in those accounts.

Clare. Is it possible that all of those in quotes are from newspaper reports, or police reports?

 Greg. Yes. I think this "Found dead" - "of Nectar" echoes "found dead of drink." It was not an uncommon nor unknown heading to see in a paper.

Clare. "of Nectar" is also in quotes, too, I don't suppose you'd have seen that in the paper.

Greg. [laughs] Yes, I think that's "as if."

Jule. Maybe it's , "do you beat her physically, or beat her in a race? [laughter]

Greg. Beat her at cards. [laugher]

Burleigh. I like the humming Coroner.

Greg. That's a bee.

Polly. Or, it could be a humming bird.

Several. Ah!

Gordon. What does Hock mean?

Greg. That's another word for German white wine. The English used to like to drink it old. Today, we don't like to drink it that way. It was highly prized in 18th-19th-century England. It comes from Hochstein, where some of that wine was grown.

Clare. Byron writes about that. He uses that word.

Greg. Yes. "Old Hock" gets yellow, even dark yellow, which we would spit out. [soft laughter]

Willa. Does this seem like a really exuberant poem.

Greg. Yeah, this makes me feel like running barefoot through the tulips. There's a book by Brita Lindberg-Seyerstad. "The Voice of the Poet." She's researched the words that Dickinson made up completely out of whole cloth are this one, and, in another one, "Optizan" - someone who's a wizard at seeing things. But the others that she made up are just combinations, or twists, on words that we already know. But, they can really throw someone who's not an English speaker.

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

Clare. Where did she get the authority to write that? Is anything known about her drinking habits?  [laughter]

Greg. Yeah - we know that they made currant wine at the homestead, and that she invited cousin John to come and taste it. And, if you take lines like:
To hold a letter to the light --

Grown Tawny now, with time --

To con the faded syllables

That quickened us like Wine!

                        - M97/Fr180/J169       [from "In Ebon Box, when years have flown} ]

You'd have had to have had a little taste before, in order to write something like that, don't you think?

Brooke. I thought there was a cabinet in the basement where her father kept his wine - and they also had a cider press.

Polly. Yeah, people didn't drink water; they drank cider. Cider goes hard very quickly, as you know.

[interlude, crosstalk]

Greg. A lot of her vocabulary is kind of private. She makes words mean things that are special to her. I think the most well-known one is "circumference." We could spend at least one full workshop on that one, I'm sure. But there are others, such as "Meridian," the cardinal points of the compass, "Film" - she makes them mean something of her own. I thought an interesting one to look at would be "Physiognomy."

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/M705

Greg. Dickinson seems to have admired spiders.

Sam. And why not?

Greg. Because they assiduously crawl on you in your outhouse, as we will see. But, what's she saying in that last verse?

Sam. Physiognomy means "face" doesn't it? - the physiognomy of a face.

Greg. It does mean that, and more than that.

Sam. What more?

Julie. It showed your character from your outward appearances.

Greg. Yeah. Physiognomy is considered a pseudo-science today, but it goes back to the ancient Greeks. It enjoyed a revival in the middle ages, and it lasted into the nineteenth century with Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. One of it's offshoots was phrenology. But, 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 by Thomas Browne, whom Dickinson identified as important to her, in an early letter, which I'll ask someone to read. The words in brackets are mine.

Willa 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. So, I think that it's in this larger sense of the word physiognomy that Dickinson's implying here in this poem. You see the way she took that word, and made something even more of it though, than what we just read.

Brooke. Hey Greg, can you make anything of her reading something like Hitchcock, who wrote about the spiritual nature of the natural world as a scientist? I think about that when I look at this poem and [inaudible].

Greg. Yeah, I hope we get to that. Dickinson was taught to see signs of God's benevolence all throughout nature - they looked for it everywhere, and Edward Hitchcock, the leading intellectual force in Amherst during Dickinson' youth, was right in there. He looked at the autumn leaves and asked, when we're heading into the death of winter, why would God grace this transition in such glory? But if we think of the coming resurrection - this is a leading scientist, and that's how he wrote.

Willa. Can you explain why bushes were hung out in front of inns?

Greg. I cannot. [laughter] Hard to find a good sign painter? Cheap"?

Clare. Well, not everyone could read a sign.

Greg. That's a good point. Any more thoughts on this poem? One thing that strikes me about it is that the spider seems certain about the success of his Strategy for Immortality - his web-work. This is his strategy for immortality, and Dickinson was never so sure.

Polly. How did she know it was a male spider - because, most people who sew are not males.

Greg. I wonder if she did know. But the word sew is more language of the home, and I think it tends to anthropomorphize the spider a little bit, because, normally, you'd tend to say that the web was woven, wouldn't you? - or spun? "Sew," perhaps, gives us a more sympathetic view of the spider at work. But yeah, why couldn't she have written "Herself herself inform?"

Jay. Why the repetition?

Everett. One's a subject and one's an object.

Greg. Yeah, he informs himself. She uses these reflexive pronouns in ways that we wouldn't. And, I've never found a satisfactory explanation, or a cogent and consistent one, of why she does that. I know I like it. Margaret Freeman has written what I find to be a very abstruse theory, but I was unable to follow it, unfortunately.

[Interlude]

Elaine. There's so much here, Greg.

Greg. THERE'S MORE! The language of the church. This is an area where I didn't know anything until I started reading Emily Dickinson. It's all new to me, and I understand, from previous discussions, that it's not all new to many people here. We'll see what we can turn up in this next poem. It's a poem of Indian summer. One reason that I included these in my work is that people come from other parts of the world - Brazil - Texas, even - who haven't experienced our Indian summers, and such people read something like this, and there going to miss what it is that the poem describes.

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

Gordon. Is antiquest a word?

Greg. It's another of her made-up words - "most antique." :What's she describing in that first stanza?

Clare. Crickets!

Greg. Yes, at least one copy of this poem was sent with a letter, an the comment referring to it as "my cricket." That's the minor Nation.

Willa. Why is it Pathetic?

Greg. Here's the dictionary definition on your handout.

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

Dickinson seems to have been moved by the sound of the cricket. That's why we have that quote from the letter.

“The cricket sings in the morning, now, a most pathetic conduct.” [ L936, to Mrs. . J. G. Holland ]

 And why that would be is that crickets in Massachusetts chirp - most species - at night. But, if it sometimes, if it gets really cold, they'll chirp early in the day, and that's a sign of coming winter. So, they're singing in the morning. That's what she's saying in the letter, "a most pathetic conduct."

Willa. She also says they're celebrating.

Greg. Yes, the Mass is a celebration. I think that we'll see, as we progress through this poem, that it goes from the celebratory life in the Grass, and moves toward winter, which itself - the structure of the poem, traces the changing mood of this transitional period. And minor nation - masses weren't celebrated in her church - the Reformed Protestant - but rather in the Catholic church, which were a minority here in Emily Dickinson's time...that's the way I'm reading that; but really, it's just the crickets.

Elizabeth. I see one thing about this. The crickets are celebrating Mass. Catholics believe that Grace can be given through sacrament, but Protestants believe that Grace is freely given from God. The crickets are engaging in a ritual - they're saying No Ordinance - and ordinance would be Communion, or baptism, but they are engaging in ritual, actually, asking for grace, maybe perhaps [laughing] to be saved from the winter, and there's a sadness about it, because that is not a way to seek grace, from the Protestant perspective. There is, perhaps, an enchanting element of Paganism about it.

Greg. I was hoping someone would speak, or give a little sermon, on grace. It's such a heavy word for her, and for her time, As Elizabeth said, it's "freely given from God," and there's nothing you can do to get it. God decides either to give it or not, so, your whole salvation depends on grace. ... So, No Ordinance be seen, no sacrament, as Elizabeth said. "I don't see anything, but the grace, that's transforming my world, is so slow, I don't even see any outward signs of change - sacraments were outward signs of an inner relationship with God. She sees no external signs, but something's happening.

Gordon. She does exploit the alliteration between grace and Grass.

Burleigh. Yeah, nice catch.

Greg. Then we have A pensive Custom it becomes/ Enlarging Loneliness. So, aren't we moving away from that celebratory feeling in the grass in the first stanza? Aren't we changing the mood a little bit, because we're moving toward winter? ... Antiquest. Let's look at the definition of "antique" from her dictionary. This is a good one. Because, that's a strange word, right? Does it mean "old," or ancient? - because those are the first two definitions of this word - but the third one is -

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

So, I went to my Dictionary of Word Origins, and looked up "antic," and it says "see antique." Part of that definition is, in Italian, "antico," from Latin "antiquest", was often applied to grotesque carvings in ancient remains." So there's the tie-in. "It was borrowed into English in the 16th century as an adjective, 'antic,' meaning 'bizarre,' but also as noun, usually used in the plural, in the sense of 'absurd behavior.'" So there, I think, is a lost meaning for that word.

Jay. "Antic" means "funny, too.

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

Greg. Antiquest felt at Noon/ When August burning low - we're getting close to winter now - Arise this spectral Canticle - a canticle can be any song, but to Dickinson' fellow parishioners, it would have suggested the Song of Solomon, which is very joyous poetry. Then, Repose to typify. I want to know what that means.

Willa. Isn't she just saying that the sound of that song typifies her poetry, that makes you feel peaceful, moving toward death. It typifies repose.

Greg. Alright, let's look at the definitions of "type," and "typify." Again, these are from her dictionary. This is Webster.

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.

It's a sign of something to come. I remember, being in these groups before, that some of the speakers were very familiar with Christian typology; I was not. So, this is kind of new stuff for me.

Willa. Doesn't it mean that " The washing of baptism typifies the cleansing of the soul from sin" mean that they're equivalent. Baptism is a symbol of the cleansing of the soul. In baptism your soul is washed clean of original sin.

Greg. Ok, let's look at the definition of "type."

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.

I'm suggesting that Repose to typify is suggesting that, what's happening right now, in the grass, is a sign of winter to come. ... This language of the church is pretty new to me, and I find that it yields great riches when you start looking into it. :What's happening now? Remit as yet no Grace. Payback, return? You don't have to give it up - YET -

[Interlude]

Susan reads.
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

Greg. You'd better know your Bible, to read this one. And, Susan, do you have the quote from scripture?

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

Greg. So, this description is after the resurrection of Christ; he's risen from the dead, a glorious event, which Paul called "the7 first fruits of the resurrection," meaning that we're all going to rise from the dead eventually, and that Jesus is just the first. That's the context, I think, of this first stanza, that she's comparing her glorious day to this other glorious day or days.

[interlude]

The Sun, as common, went abroad,

The flowers, accustomed, blew,

As if no soul the solstice passed

That maketh all things new --

Now, that comes from Revelation.
“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. “

                                                            – Revelation 21:4-5

Remember, this is John talking, and the "he," is Jesus. But, she doesn't say "make." she says maketh. Maybe she needed the syllable. But she may have been familiar with that way of writing, as you can see in this Sam Longfellow poem.

The freer step, the fuller breath,

The wide horizon’s grander view,

The sense of life that knows no death,

The Life that maketh all things new!

So, maybe she got it from there. And, how about the third stanza? What do we find here? I'll confess that, when I first started coming to Amherst, in 2008, I read this poem, and I had to write on the EDIS website, does anybody understand what The Wardrobe of our Lord is? I had no idea. So, what is it?

[inaudible comments]

Greg. It's not necessary. Speaking was as needless as the wardrobe of our Lord at a sacrament. It's something that you don't need at a sacrament. Could it be the body of Christ - his physical body?

“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

And then we have something 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's Henry Wadsworth 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

Now you see, she wrote herself:

Perhaps they do not go so far  [These are the ones who have passed]

As we who stay, suppose --

Perhaps come closer, for the lapse

Of their corporeal clothes –

- J1399/ Fr1455/M608

It's in Job.
How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?         - Job 4:19

'Remember now, that You have made me as clay; And would You turn me into dust again? crushed before the moth?        - Job 10:9

Supper of the Lamb?
She writes to Suzie.

The bells are ringing, Susie, north, and east, and south, and your own village bell, and the people who love God, are expecting to go to meeting; dont you go Susie, not to their meeting, but come with me this morning to the church within our hearts, where the bells are always ringing, and the preacher whose name is Love - shall intercede there for us!

They were like church to each other. Each was to each The Sealed Church. We're allowed this chance this time, so we don't too awkward show/ At Supper of the Lamb. What might that be? [silence] That's Revelation also.

“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

And who's the lamb?

Jule. Jesus.

Greg. Yes, Jesus. He's the sacrificial lamb of God the Father. Jesus said that there is no marriage in heaven. You're married to Jesus, at the marriage supper of the lamb. She's using this very powerful language to express, in the strongest possible way that she knows, what's going on between these two individuals. [ interlude ] Do we have time for one more? This is a lighter one that I think we can get through very quickly. It involves knowing a little bit about Amherst. It will probably take us to looking in it in context.

Polly reads.
Where bells no more affright the morn -

Where scrabble never comes -

Where very nimble Gentlemen

Are forced to keep their rooms -

Where tired Children placid sleep

Thro' Centuries of noon

This place is Bliss - this town is Heaven -

Please, Pater, pretty soon!

"Oh could we climb where Moses stood,

And view the Landscape o'er"

Not Father's bells - nor Factories,

Could scare us any more!

                        - J112/Fr114/M70

Greg. Thomas Johnson points out, in his 3-volume set, how she's taking off on a hymn by Isaac Watts.

Polly reads.
Could we but climb where Moses stood,

And view the landscape o'er,

Not Jordan's stream, nor Death's cold flood,

Should fright us from the shore. 

Greg. What's she saying here?

Polly. I think she wants to sleep. [general agreement ]

Jule. When you're dead, you're no longer afraid of death.

Greg. Oh. I had a very much more light-hearted take on this one.

---

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