|
EMILY DICKINSON:
Judge tenderly – of Me
 Emily Dickinson (1830-1856) lived and died a recluse in her father’s
home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her ongoing personal relationships were
confined to her immediate family circle. The few she had beyond this
were maintained mainly through correspondence. She may have experienced
unrequited love early in her life, and a mutually warm relationship that
developed in her later years was cut short by the death of the widower
concerned. This added to a succession of family bereavements that drove
her increasingly into seclusion till, towards the end, she literally
kept to her room.
Yet, she was never alone. “Alone, I cannot be – For Hosts – do visit
me – Recordless Company – Who baffle Key – …..Their Coming, may be known
By Couriers within – Their going – is not – For they’ve never gone – ”
Poetic inspiration haunted her and compelled her to communicate. Thus,
famously, “This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me – The
simple News that Nature told – With tender Majesty Her Message is
committed To Hands I cannot see – For love of Her – Sweet – countrymen –
Judge tenderly – of Me” The appeal of the last line and the reference to
unseen hands has a particular pathos, for only a handful of her 1775
poems was published in her lifetime.
Poetic diction
The lack of an audience meant that she did not have the pressure of
stylistic conformity. As in the case of Hopkins, this led to technical
innovation far ahead of her time and to her becoming a notable influence
in modern poetry. Words were what she lived for, and they lived for her.
“A word is dead, when it is said Some say – I say it just begins to live
That day.” If FR Leavis had taken American poetry into account, he would
surely have placed Dickinson between Keats and Hopkins in his tracing of
the tradition of those who have enriched English poetic diction in the
manner of Shakespeare.
|
Emily Dickinson |
One of Dickinson’s many poems about the poetic process compares it to
the production of rose perfume. “Essential Oils are wrung – The Attar
from the Rose Be not expressed by Suns alone – It is the gift of Screws
– ” As perfume is not extracted by natural process alone (Suns) but by
an effort of manufacture, poetry arises not only from inspiration but
from craftsmanship, such as is evident from this verse itself.
Alternative meaning
A bare minimum of words is used with the shortest of lines, but they
are chosen to produce the maximum meaning. “Wrung” conveys the laborious
process of deriving oil from a plant as well as of distilling poetic
meaning from experience. “Expressed” has the idea of poetic
communication but is also a pun on its alternative meaning of being
squeezed out by the action of “Screws”, emphasising the great effort
that such communation involves. This laconicism, both verbal and linear,
semantic charging of words and figurative brilliance are typical of her
modernism. Not to be overlooked is the resort to dashes in lieu of
conventional punctuation, evidently to enforce pausing for emphasis
while reading. Also, the propensity for capitalisation even greater than
in the previous century, again for emphasis.
Despite the prevalent preoccupation with Nature following
Wordsworth’s discovery of it as a Presence in its own right, Dickinson’s
vision of Nature is very much her own. She has a Hopkinsian feel for the
uniqueness of natural things, but her descriptions are likewise
unique.The most famous is that of a hummingbird: “A Route to Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel – A Resonance of Emerald – A Rush of Cochineal –
” This first of two verses fixes the inscape of the tiny bird’s
evanescent or fleeting appearance.The revolving wheel captures the
optical illusion created by wings beating nearly 5000 times per minute
while hovering.
Hostile remoteness
The juxtaposing of the auditory “resonance” with the visual”emerald”
conveys the dual-sensory impression of a whirring flash of colour..And
the cochineal (scarlet dye) rush spotlights the iridescent blaze of the
bird’s throat. The whirring of the wings is throughout echoed by the “r”
words, route, revolving, resonance, rush.
But this sympathetic vision of Nature becomes fearful in the equally
famous poem about a snake. “A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally
rides – You may have met Him – did you not His notice sudden is – The
Grass divides as with a Comb – A spotted shaft is seen – And then it
closes at your feet And opens further on – …...Several of Nature’s
people I know, and they know me – I fell for them a transport Of
cordiality But never met this Fellow Attended or alone Without a tighter
breathing And Zero at the Bone – ” Apart from being “evanescent”like the
hummingbird, the snake raises a chilling sense of hostile remoteness
that is quite different from the fascinating otherness of Lawrence’s
snake. That evokes awe, this the dread-(zero at the bone)-that Nature
can arouse when it becomes the unappeasable enemy of man.
Famous poem
As with her first-namesake, Emily Bronte, the contemplation of Nature
ultimately leads Dickinson to the contemplation of death, and this is by
far the overriding concern of her poetry. Her most famous poem on the
subject has also been described as one of the greatest poems in the
English language, so it is appropriate that we consider it in full.
“Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – ” This
is surely one of the most arresting openings in all English poetry! Like
most people, the poet is too preoccupied with life, and too accepting of
the received notions of afterlife, to contemplate the reality of death.
Hence, death considerately stops for her in the sense of her making the
effort to consider the implications of dying “The Carriage held but just
Ourselves – And Immortality.”
Terrifying stop
She imagines herself being driven by Death to her funeral, with
Immortality - the universal post-death expectation – as the coachman.
“We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labour and my
leisure too For His Civility – ” Labour and leisure are the occupations
with which the living usually put off all thought of death. The next
verse is a marvel of condensed description:
“We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring
– We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun – ”
She “passes” in a quick retrospect the stages of the day of her life;
restless childhood, the cultivated achievement of adulthood – now
unharvestable so that the grain gazes after her in wonderment, and
finally sunset. Now the reality of death sinks in: “Or rather – He
passed Us – The Dews drew quivering and chill – For only Gossamer, my
Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle – ” The final “passing” is not actually
hers but by the sun’s, for the cycle of day and night now leaves her
behind. She realises how ill prepared (attired) she had been for the
prospect of death.
Then comes the terrifying stop at death’s barely visible underground
house, the grave: “We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of
the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground
– ” And at last a lessening of the tension as she sees her death in
retrospect: “Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than
the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity – ” The
centuries that have passed seem as short as the day she died, when she
finally realised that the horse-drawn funeral carriage was not just
“pausing” at the grave en route to Immortality, as she had first
imagined, but committing her to the Eternity of the grave. Because of
her consequent “existlessness ( to use Hardy’s coinage), the passage of
even centuries of time in the grave is not felt.
This realisation of death’s finality seems, in the more relaxed
rhythm and mood of this last verse, to bring a sense of surprised
relief. The courtesy of Death in the first verse can now be better
understood.
Thus, since the “simple news that Nature told” Dickinson to convey in
her “letter to the world” is ultimately discomfiting to her
“countrymen’s” conventional views of life and death, we can even better
understand her appeal to “judge tenderly of me.” On the strength of her
equally unconventional but strikingly effective mode of communicating
this news, we are undoubtedly obliged to do so. |
