Emily Dickinson: Her Poetic Method and Concerns



Martin Brown

Emily Dickinson: Her Poetic Method and Concerns

Throughout her 1,775 numerically titled poems, Emily Dickinson presents us with several elemental methods and concerns. Unusual in their substance even today, and several generations ahead of their time, these elements allowed her to find a voice distinguishing her as a truly great poet.

Dickinson told Thomas Wentworth Higginson, her long-time friend and correspondent, that the speaker of her poems was not herself, but a supposed person. This arguably anticipates a technique which is more popular among modern poets, and allows greater breadth of imagery, linking to Dickinson’s influence on the Transcendentalist writers. She was at pains to point out the persona and drama of a poem. Indeed, her dwelling on the poem rather than the voice has enriched her metaphors. Phil Roberts remarks that recognising a metaphor, or indeed any other poetic device, ‘does not in itself offer any additional pleasure to the reader, unless it is organically germane’[1], before citing Dickinson’s anthropomorphic representation of Death as a coachman in poem 712 as a prime example of this pure poetic significance.

However, whilst non-autobiographical narrative was her intention, whether it succeeds is debatable. Considering the secluded nature of her life, the poems’ constant exploration of consciousness’s dependence on a sense of self, and the depth to which they reach, it is difficult to see how Dickinson’s poems could not have been consumed by a burgeoning dominance of her own psyche. Dickinson admitted that ‘I see – New Englandly’, and many of the surroundings, animals and similar elements of her poems, in both metaphor and in descriptive narrative, are those of the environment she is used to. Indeed, the natural and small-town constituents of many of her poems remind one of the geographical territories used by Thornton Wilder. An autobiographical element is thus almost totally inevitable within the context of her methods.

Dickinson’s poems are filled with Biblical imagery. Indeed, even her character of ‘The Master’ is often linked to the Angel Gabriel. Dickinson’s views were very similar to the Romantic poets. Many of her poems praise the innocence retained during one’s childhood, and which is corrupted as we season. It is likely that Dickinson saw religion as such a corrupting influence.

Is Dickinson’s rejection of religion a self-piteous rebellion? Many of her early poems, such as 248, show a longing to be accepted and to accept Christianity, but finding the constituents as non-corresponding to her exploration of self in her depression. In poem 248 she explores this concept with a dismal zest:

Wouldn’t the Angels try me –

Just – once – more –

Just – see – if I troubled them –

But don’t – shut the door!

The poetic form is more often than not in the structure of a hymn. The ironic juxtaposition of the structural and thematic parameters of faith within her poetic arrangement and the lack of faith within her content is almost certainly intentional. Using the tenets of an institutionalised ideology and adorning it with the philosophy of attack is a satisfying exercise, and one could easily interpret this device as somewhat tongue-in-cheek of Dickinson. The most unashamed example is arguably the opening line of poem 587, ‘Empty my Heart, of Thee –’ a satirical parody of the popular hymn, beginning ‘Nearer my God to Thee’.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748) is the inventor of the Hymnodic quadruplet that Dickinson’s poetry mimics in part; an example is his poem Against Idleness and Mischief:

How doth each little busy bee

Improve each shining hour

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower!

This musical quality is similar to a technique used famously by William Blake. Indeed, Dickinson and Blake share contextual similarities; each inheriting radical Protestantism, and each poet’s work being galvanised thematically by doubt. However, whilst Blake created his own mythology, Dickinson’s emphasis is firmly upon that which is around her.

The content of Watts’s aforementioned poem also brings one to Dickinson’s perception of nature. There is a strong emphasis on the natural world within the Bible and Hymns. The Puritans believed the will of God was revealed in the events of nature. Typically, Dickinson took this concept to an exploration of the humanity of nature. She observed nature for its own sake, and was more concerned with the divinity of her own conscious reaction to it, remarking in poem 1408 that

Earth is Heaven –

Whether Heaven is Heaven or not.

Dickinson’s transcendence of God with humanity could be interpreted as consciously vindictive blasphemy. However, Dickinson’s sense of conviction in the merits of her area of exploration is unerring. She wrote that ‘To be human is more than to be divine, for when Christ was divine he was uncontented till he had been human’.

Despite her poetry regarding The Master, Dickinson is believed by some to be a lesbian. It is probable that she was at least emotionally bisexual. Some have cited a couplet in poem 508 as a subliminal admission of Dickinson’s homosexuality:

But this time – Adequate – Erect,

With Will to choose, or to reject,

Dickinson’s rhyming of ‘Erect’ and ‘reject’ could be interpreted as a subconscious rejection of the phallus. Mary E. Galvin believes that Dickinson’s religious rebellion, and therein rejecting the identity imposed upon her, is a subconscious tandem – thematically and stylistically – with her own sexuality. Galvin believes that Dickinson’s life and the literary fruits of it were an act of self-assured rebellion, and dismisses the image of Dickinson as being completely frail as a heterosexual stereotype, quipping ‘Some call this sort of existence oddity. I call it queer.’[2]

Poem 677 is a very good example of Dickinson’s views on emotional human existence:

To be alive – is Power –

Existence – in itself –

Without a further function –

Omnipotence – Enough –

To be alive – and Will!

‘Tis able as a God –

The maker – of Ourselves – be what –

Such being Finitude.

Dickinson is stressing that life as an end in itself is of inherent power, whereas a life of control can create the illusion of omnipotence but exposes fundamental weakness in human will. It is perhaps unsurprising therefore that Wendy Martin cites this poem as containing ‘the kernel of Dickinson’s cosmology’[3]. After reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Dickinson was convinced that ‘the mysteries of human nature surpass the ‘mysteries of redemption’, for the infinite we only suppose, while we see the finite’.

The emphasis on life, passion and nature’s existence to their own ends, and their ‘divinity’ being expressed via the medium of consciousness in perception echoes in part the concept of Inscape, championed by Gerard Manley Hopkins and based heavily upon the philosophy of Duns Scotus. However, whilst Hopkins believed that the ecstasy achieved in realising an object’s or environment’s ‘this-ness’ relates to God and his image of perfection, Dickinson distances herself from the theological element, appreciating the natural in full. This completeness is transcending in its comprehensiveness and yet subordinated in the eyes of some due to its naturalness. This concept of bliss as defined by Christian doctrine without the mental context of God is fundamental to Dickinson’s work. This domesticated spirituality, if that is indeed an adequate phrase, leading to the sublime, was referred to by Dickinson as ‘circumference’.

An interesting point to note is that Dickinson maintains circumference, even in situations where one would not expect it to be used, excelling further from the psychological norm of the time. For instance, in poem 465, she deals with the subject of death by placing her narrator jarringly beyond her own death, opening with ‘I heard a fly buzz – when I died –’.

A similar exponent of the exploration of consciousness in American literature is the novelist Henry James. The heroine of his novel Portrait of a Lady, the meditatory Isabel Archer, is one whose consciousness is seen as the central theme of her heroism. By contrast, for example, Eliot or Shakespeare’s heroines are heroic in their relation to other characters. Archer’s heroism is not only very similar to that seen in Dickinson’s more self-assured poems, but also in her more tortured work. Many of her poems convey a sense of invasion by brooding and meditation, resulting in a turbulent and traumatic inner conflict.

Dickinson was not only enthralled by the ecstasy of life, but terrified by its sensorial potency. Middlemarch speaks of how little reality the human frame can bear, using physical imagery to describe this emotional concept. Dickinson’s fear is often expressed in her poems, such as the explicit sentiment of poem 1620 ‘Circumference thou bride of awe.’

The level to which Dickinson took her ideas about consciousness is nothing short of pioneering. Her fear of her unfettered imagination, whilst connecting strongly with her ideas about consciousness could also be influenced by the social Puritanism which she criticised so forcefully. This brings one onto the subject of The Master. The Master is a character who appears in several of Dickinson’s poems, and in her letters. She wrote several letters to this allegorical male focus, each one more desperate and frantic in its tone and content. There are several possibly candidates for whom the real Master and object of Dickinson’s affection is, but this is irrelevant to the character’s impact. The Master is an outlet for Dickinson’s exploration of heterosexuality and the traditional role of the female taking an angle from which she may become sympathetic to both. It is clear that The Master is someone whom she longs for very greatly, but as poem 640 shows, she cannot seem to trust herself to bear this:

I cannot live with You

It would be Life –

And Life is over there –

Behind the Shelf.

She explores the idea of her beloved dying in the same poem:

And I – Could I stand by

And see You – freeze –

Without my Right of Frost –

Death’s privilege?

Dickinson seems unable to conceive of having and losing someone. Indeed, she remarked in poem 1732:

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell.

Could it also be the sinfulness of the sexual acts involved in a romantic liaison, or the flurry of imagination and ecstasy within sexual contact that frightened Dickinson? Or perhaps her apprehension regarding The Master is because he is aesthetic in thought, but she is deterred by her natural homosexuality. Poem 640 does not make the latter clear, as it could be applied to a lesbian relationship as well. The Master is perhaps the tenets of perceived masculine control over her life which Dickinson is attempting to transcend with circumference, but finds herself at times unable to resist.

As Gerard Manley Hopkins realised the sprung rhythm device to portray his concept of Inscape, Dickinson also uses a distinguishing and unusual stylistic method to put her ideas into poetry. Dickinson’s poems are distinctive in their excessive use of hyphens. When examining the original manuscript, it has been noticed that the hyphens are not all written thus: –, but often as / or \. This fits in with rhetorical books of the time, – denoting monotone, and / and \ denoting a rising and falling intonation respectively. Whilst it could indeed be a rhetorical device, her experimental language and frequent capitalisations are widely believed to be an exhibition of her linguistic uniqueness.

Wendy Martin believes that ‘By disrupting conventional linguistic habits, her condensed phrases, inverted syntax and frequent dashes bring words that might otherwise be ignored to our attention, and her highly individualised poetic method and style forces us to examine our language and our lives’[4]. Denis Donoghue notes extremely astutely that ‘the strongest link in Emily Dickinson’s chain is invariably the common word, taken from a domestic language and applied, with the force of courtesy, where ostensibly it does not belong. This is why her triumphs so often appear, on first reading, to be wrong; and then we know them to be incalculably right’[5]. Mary E. Galvin places a structural emphasis on her observations, noting that Dickinson ‘works through an accumulation, rather than a sparseness – it also works towards undermining categorical distinctions, dissolving the distinction between poetry and prose.’[6]

Dickinson also uses synecdoche; for instance, her geographical reference to ‘Himmaleh’ in poem 252, which is of course the Himalayas. This modernist use of structural minimalism is also manifested in her use of ellipsis. For instance, she concludes poem 489 with

But State – Endowal – Focus –

Where – Omnipresence – fly?

Like W.B. Yeats did after her, Dickinson introduces her general rhyme scheme from the beginning of the poem. This highlights off rhymes as minor deviations, aiding the jolting and uneven nature of the poems, within the parameters of a generally accepted poetic form.

The exploration and transcendence of linguistics to provoke and stimulate response relevant to poetic sentiment is a common theme throughout American literature. William Carlos Williams’s desire to ‘create a new language’[7] is based upon very similar ideas to Dickinson’s.

Freud’s concept of ‘the super ego’ speaks of a parasitical sense of word practice, which Dickinson’s jolting contextualising of language is attempting to break down to achieve her poetic ends. The exploration of language, within the context of literature, is an exploration of the writer’s full consciousness. Such a technique has gone so far in the sphere of American literature, that we can see its existence well into the twentieth century: William Burroughs’s cut-up techniques of the 1960s sought to combat the practice of language for literary and cultural enlightenment. It is worth noting that Dickinson’s few published poems were made grammatically correct, and Dickinson was furious and hurt as a result, declaring in poem 709:

Publication – is the Auction

Of the Mind of Man.

Galvin’s categorical emphasis on Dickinson’s linguistic experiments is an interesting point. Dickinson’s use of poetry contradicted the social expectation of the time, and it is no coincidence that her poetry is so private. Prose was seen as the medium for women, and Dickinson uses this repression in poem 613:

They shut me up in prose –

as when a little Girl

They put me in the Closet –

Because they liked me “still” –

This feminist conscience of Dickinson’s poetry is typical of her belief in the power of the poem. Dickinson was enthralled by the poetry she read, and was a great admirer of, among others, John Keats and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Dickinson frequently wrote poems praising her fellow poets, including no less than three devoted to Barrett Browning, and one to George Eliot. It is perhaps connected with her ideas about artistry provoking a euphoric and powerful effect, thus allowing her and others to further their own awareness of their consciousness. Poem 569 explores her love of poetry by prioritising it as the sole elemental need of the world, for the poet can create any state of mind, whereas nature can only do so at certain times.

The intensity at which Dickinson wrote her poetry mirrors her internalised and reclusive existence in its meditation upon the finite. Groundbreaking writer Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that a poet should live his or her art, and there is arguably no greater exponent of this than Dickinson. It is ironic therefore that the two disagreed vehemently over the subject Dickinson’s poetry tended to revolve around: circumference. Emerson believed that man was capable of furthering himself to divine endeavour and artistry was the best vehicle for doing so. Dickinson’s existential concurrence and yet thematic betrayal of Emerson’s beliefs on art is a deeply intriguing paradox.

Whilst Dickinson’s themes are often spoken with powerful conviction, there is always a sense of the delicate and fragile, perhaps due to her use of nature and sensitivity. This contrasts heavily with her contemporary male poets, such as Walt Whitman, whose work is laced with such vitriolic, self-assured phrases as ‘I challenge’, ‘I see’, and ‘I say’. Perhaps it is Dickinson’s femininity which has resulted in her more slight tone, yet still achieving an extremely potent effect. The notion of allowing total expression on the page to shout or scream a sentiment within whatever choice of tonality and expression, elaborated upon in Allen Ginsberg’s so-called ‘liberation of the word’, is firmly entrenched into the fundamental creative freedoms of Dickinson’s work.

Dickinson is one of an extremely select group of writers who transcended literary norms around her time and produced an entirely new way of conceptual thought and voice. Whilst obviously influenced and comparable with other writers, there is a fundamental uniqueness about Dickinson’s poetry that is conveyed with such conviction, acumen and beauty that she will be remembered as a truly great writer. It is her numerous explorations in method and concerns that has allowed Dickinson to reach this astonishingly original eminence.

-----------------------

[1] Phil Roberts: How Poetry Works

[2] Mary E. Galvin: Poltergeist of Form: Emily Dickinson and the Reappropriation of Language and Identity

[3] Wendy Martin: An American Triptych

[4] Ibid

[5] Denis Donoghue: Emily Dickinson, University of Minnesota pamphlet

[6] Mary E. Galvin: Queer Poetics, Introduction

[7] William Carlos Williams: How To Write

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download