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!
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 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
- 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
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.
