Emily Dickinson- a logical start

So, here I am with pages of notes but no posts…I shall do my best to post all of my thoughts, although some…don’t make…sense…

Logical starting place: the Brain.

We start: #556

The brain, within its groove, runs evenly and true

but let a splinter swerve

’twere easier for you

to put a current back

when floods have slit the hills

and scooped out a turnpike for themselves

and trodden out the mills

The brain tends to develop habits, Emily duly notes in the first line, and follows it faithfully. But one small change… it’d be easier to put water back once a flood has covered the hills, and created a new rut for itself than to change the way that the brain thinks.

It brings to mind the passage: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Granted, the needle which the parable tells us of is not, in fact, a sewing needle, but a passage through a blockade to a city, which was at the time called a needle. The blockade was the wall around the city that protected the city from the desert winds and kept the wild animals away from the oasis around which the city sprang up…and the entrances to the cities were tiny, thus limiting the amount of trade that could come to the city, promoting the city’s own artisans. So, in fact this whole anecdote brings us back to the fact that Emily was noting the occurance of human habit, and the difficulty of breaking that, and the habit of merchants to overload their camels and pack animals, causing trouble when they wanted to reenter civilization.

Rather long winded, but it works. What is interesting, out of context, about this poem is that it is applicable almost anywhere, if one can get past the flowery language. Everywhere there is evidence of human consistancy, and its interesting that Emily thought that this was of enough relevence that she wrote it down…

#632 Also comments on the brain, which is why I felt it necessary to link the two poems some way…

The brain is wider than the sky

for put them side by side

the one the otehr will contain

with ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea

for hold them blue to blue

the one the other will absorb

as sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God

for heft them, pound for pound

and they will differ, if they do,

as syllable from sound.

The first thing that I realized as I read through this opening stanza is that the underlying statement being made is that the human mind, and the possibilities that spring from it are greater than the sky or sea, or even, as Emily dares to suggest, greater than God. For in recognizing and naming such a thing, you measure up to it. You can only realize how big something is if you yourself realize how big you are- its a study of opposites. In order for something to be like something else, you have to realize the potential of both. Its another human characteristic, one we do as unconsciously as all habits; in order for something to be light, something else must be dark, or else how could there be comparison?

The ending of this poem is quite stunning, really, as Emily suggests that the mind is as great as God, for she continues the comparison of mind and religion, and states that they are as different as sound and syllable, which are not very different at all. In fact, they are more different names for the same thing…which is a remarkable conclusion for someone in her time period, especially with the preordained stereotypes in place during her epoch.

The last poem that I looked at by Emily Dickinson was something that caught my intention and I originally planned to just scan through…but I really enjoyed it, and kept referring back to it.

I dwell in possibility,

a fairer house than prose

more numerous the windows

superior, for doors

Of chambers as the cedars,

impregnable of eye

and for an everlasting roof

the gambrels in the sky

of visitors the fairest

for occupation this

the spreading wide my narrow hands

to gather paradise.

The openeing phrase is quite attention grabbing, and one wonders- possibility?

Does she mean literally, or figuratively? Possibility…the closest I could come to an understandable synonym was imagination, where she dwells within her mind and explores the possibilities. For someone such as her self, who was so secluded, this is not far from her truth… Her use of the metaphorical windows and doors draws ones mind to the quote “when God shuts a door he opens a window,” from which we can imagine the door to be reality and the windows vantage points to her ‘possibilities’ or imagination.

She reverts back to her comparison of the mind as a house with the image of solid oaks building up the walls, and the heavens being the limit of the possibilities. This also invokes the image of the sky as timeless and the source of inspiration for many civilizations, which is and interesting note on her part. She finishes off the poem with mention of her visitors, which could only be idea, and the fact that this is all she needs, the sanctity of her own mind.

Quite an interesting read, all in all, with many correlations to the outside world that can be compared with the current ‘modern’ world.