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The Poet's Tool - The Words of Emily Dickinson
A poet couched in mystique and controversy--that is Emily Dickinson. But amidst all
the disagreement, one idea critics seem to agree upon is the recognition of this remarkable poet's
love of language. Emily Dickinson's love affair with words fed her desire to master their use
whether individually or combined in phrases until they said exactly what she wanted them to say.
For Emily Dickinson words were a fascination and, in her hands, they become the poet's tool.
The Gospel of John opens with the statement, "In the beginning was the word" (1:1).
Donald Thackrey takes this phrase and applies it to Emily Dickinson's fascination with the
individual word (1). She "is one of the foremost masters of poetic English since Shakespeare"
(Rupp, 93). The determination shown in the masterly quest to discover the right word is one of
the primary means of defining what makes Emily Dickinson's poetry distinct from all other
poetry (Rupp, 93).
In her poem "I dwell in Possibility--" (#657) she wrote:
I dwell in Possibility --
A fairer House than Prose --
More numerous of Windows --
Superior -- for Door -- . . . (1-4)
The use of the word "possibility" illustrates Dickinson's personal awareness of the range of
ideas, feelings, and images to be found in the combination of words into phrases and the linking
of those phrases into poems. "Possibility is Emily Dickinson's synonym for poetry" and, since
the possibilities are endless, Dickinson's poetry presents no final truth (Weisbuch 1). Further
describing her attitudes in "They shut me up in Prose --" (#613), it can be discovered that for
Dickinson "The House of Prose" represented "conventional and prosaic conformity" which for
her were "a punitive closet" while "the House of Possibility . . . exists wherever the mind is"
(Weisbuch 5).
In one poem Emily Dickinson wrote specifically about the choice and use of specific
words (Thackrey 11).
Shall I take thee, the Poet said
To the propounded word?
Be stationed with the Candidates
Till I have finer tried --
The Poet searched Philology
And when about to ring
For the suspended Candidate
There came unsummoned in --
That portion of the Vision
The Word applied to fill
Not unto nomination
The Cherubim reveal -- (#1126)
This poem does much to enlighten readers as to Dickinson's careful search for words and
suggests "the relationship between rational labor and inspiration" both of which pervade her
poetry (Thackrey 11). She "discovered that the most ordinary word, tenderly nurtured int he
mind's rich soil, could become a signifier of utmost mysteries" (Weisbuch 1).
Cristanne Miller uses the fullness of word meaning to interpret "How many time these
low feet staggered -- " (#187) where she notes that the word "'low' also means 'flame' in
Dickinson's 1841 Webster's dictionary" (Juhasz 135).
The idea of flaming poetic feet in line one helps to explain the "soldered
mouth" of the second line: poetic feet are spoken, and flame solders; poetry burns the reader, or
poet, into silence . . . . the poem of death becomes a poem of celebration: death brings the
housewife rest, and the staggering poetry removes its reader, or creator, from the world of
housekeeping as absolutely as death does. . . . The staggering "low feet" of weakness, read
differently, become the staggering "low feet" of poetic power. (Juhasz 135)
Through the existence of her manuscripts Dickinson's verbal-mindedness is fully
revealed (Rupp 93). "It became her custom to weigh words with the utmost meticulousness,
sometimes writing nine ore ten in the place of one to scrutinize more closely which should be
preferred" (Rupp 93). This is demonstrated in "The Bible is an antique Volume -- " where line
13 reades "Had but the Tale a warbling Teller -- " (#1545). However, Millicent Todd Bingham,
an early editor of Dickinson's manuscripts, cites that Dickinson's line reads "Had but the tale a
thrilling, typic, hearty, bonnie, breathless, spacious, tropic, warbling, ardent, friendly, magic,
punget, winning, mellow teller" (Thackrey 10). Thomas H. Johnson, editor of Dickinson's
complete works, adopted the policy of using the underlined selection as an apparent indication of
her own preference (Dickinson x). In another instance her search for "the exact word" is shown
in the variations listed for a phrase ultimately written as "In eddies of the sun" where she
included as choices "In fathoms in the sum / In rapids of the sun / In gambols with the sun / In
frenzies with the sun / For frenzy of the sun / [and] In antics in the sun" (Pickard 47). Thus "her
manuscripts present some of the most amazing records of scrupulous rewriting recorded in
literary history" (Rupp 93).
According to Johnson a few instances occur where no text can be called "final." The
example he uses is "Blazing in gold" (#228) where the "poem describes a sunset which in one
version stoops as low as 'the kitchen window'; in another as low as an 'oriel window'; in a third
as low as 'the Otter's Window'" (Dickinson x). All of these choices indicate Dickinson's
constant search for the precise words to fully express the idea, image, or sound she wished to
communicate at that given moment.
One of Dickinson's poems which has been preserved in two very distinct versions
showing differing outlooks in "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -- " (#216). Dickinson wrote
the first version in 1859 which reads as follows:
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers --
Untouched by Morning
And untouched by Noon --
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection --
Rafter of satin,
And Roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze
In her Castle above them --
Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear,
Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence --
Ah, what sagacity perished here!
The first stanza deals with a religious view of death in which she "links these elect to a
smug, self-satisfied piousness" (Pickard 120). "Those waiting to be reborn are now safe in their
graves, preserved from the movement and changes of time" (Ferlazzo 38). They are dead "safe
from sin in their cold, white, and sterile tombs of alabaster" yet untouched, lacking the vitality of
life and denied sensation (Ferlazzo 38, Pickard 120). Pickard believes that with "the image of
the 'meek members,'" she satirizes the biblical account of resurrection and presents the elect as
"timid time-servers, whose goodness resulted from fears of damnation and society's pressures"
(120) while Ferlazzo sees them as "meek in their expectations, for they realize that they are
unworthy and that only through God's generosity will they be reborn. But we can discern here
Dickinson's skill at subtly depicting the inconsistencies of human virtue." (38).
In the second stanza she presents a look at death as the "terrible deprivation of
physical vitality" according to Pickard (121) while Ferlazzo sees a continuing of "a mood of
promise and security" (38). He interprets the nature references as Dickinson's reference to the
"endless cycle of renewal" and an inference that it is foolish to desire death's coldness to the
beauty of the earth (Ferlazzo 38, 39).
In the second version of this poem written two years later, the first stanza is altered
only slightly while the second stanza is totally changed. This version reads:
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers --
Untouched by Morning --
And untouched by Noon --
Lie the meek members of the Resurrection --
Rafter of Satin -- and Roof of Stone!
Grand go the Years -- in the Crescent -- above them --
Worlds scoop their Arcs --
And Firmaments -- row --
Diadems -- drop -- and Doges -- surrender --
Soundless as dots -- on a Disc of Snow --
In the second stanza of this version, Dickinson "bypasses religion's assurance and
nature's mindless energy to suggest the actual grandeur of death" (Pickard 121). She is not
concerned with the religious concepts but the immortality that "brings a cessation of pain and
effort, an entrance into a vast, indifferent universe" (Pickard 121). The images of this version
"are drawn from the cosmos rather than from the earth's natural phenomena" (Ferlazzo 39).
With this version Dickinson has moved from the mood of promise of the earlier poem to
"suggest a force of relentless power and indifference" (Ferlazzo 39). "In the face of cosmic
power, human power appears insignificant. No religious consolation appears in this stanza, and
it stands as an antithesis to the first stanza" (Ferlazzo 39).
The poem moves from the linear, closed images of the tomb into circular,
expanding ones of crescents, scoops, and arcs, away from temporal limitations to the grandeur of
years and world and finally into the firmament itself. (Pickard 121)
The time frame and images have moved from earth time to that of "centuries" and the eons
beyond man's comprehension (Ferlazzo 39). Through the overwhelming "vastness of this eternal
cycle," Dickinson "dwarfs all other considerations and reveals the insignificance of the waiting
meek followers and the childishness of nature's babbling" (Pickard 121). Charles R. Anderson
"offers ample evidence to suggest that 'Disc of Snow' refers to the Milky Way" which would
present mankind as "insignificant specks in the great whirling cloud of solar systems" (Ferlazzo
39-40). In contrast Pickard sees the final lines to
show death's leveling power and portray man's absorption into eternity as the
insignificant dropping of a dot on a disc of snow. There is little religious consolation and no
acknowledgment of personal immortality, for in death man mingles with nature's white and alien
oversoul without personality or sensation. A numbed blankness suggests the superiority, even
the majesty, of this ambiguous existence. (121)
The 1859 version of this poem offers hope in renewed and continued life according to
Ferlazzo while the 1861 version "envisions personal annihilation and absorption by a cold and
indifferent universe" (40). There is evidence that Dickinson could not decide which poem she
preferred and as a result preserved both versions. "Taken together, they reflect the mind of the
poet who could write in later life to Judge Otis Lord, 'On subjects of which we know nothing . . .
we both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an Hour, which keeps Believing nimble"
(Ferlazzo 40).
Emily Dickinson strove to attain the standard of a master craftsman in her poetry as
reflected in her meticulous choice of words. "No one can read these poems . . . without
perceiving that he is not so much reading as being spoken to. There is a curious energy in the
words and a tone like no other most of us have ever heard" (Rupp 38). Miller says of Emily
Dickinson that she "sees and understands her world through her manipulation of words.
According to her logic, if one is to be anything more than a passive observer of the world, one
must exercise some essential control over those words . . ." (Juhasz 134). All of these qualities
result from the working of a master craftsman requiring that even a partial grasp of her poetry
demands a complete knowledge of the words selected and their precise meanings -- "studying her
poems a word at a time" (Thackrey 10). Dickinson saw "A Word dropped careless on a Page" as
a sickness breeding infection (#1261). No word Emily Dickinson uses is ever careless or to be
dismissed. Rather, through her words "her attitudes represent diverse feelings through whicht he
poet engaged her central theme" (Rupp 20). Her theme is not the usually envisioned abstract
ideas of fame, love, immortality, or death, "but rather the act of the mind in the quest of
all of these . . . For the poetic faculty, the ideal is literary achievement" (Rupp 20).
Dickinson attempts to build up the possibilities of personal choice and
control in her poems. To her mind powers, like meaning themselves, do not remain stable or
balanced for long; nonetheless, her ideal seems to be a kind of balance. The poet attempts
formally to create that fragile equilibrium in which two forces -- . . . a word's grammatical,
lexical rules and its metaphorical meanings attain a temporary reciprocity. (Juhasz 134)
In one of her letters to Professor Thomas Higginson, Dickinson "told him that her business was
'Circumference' and that she could not organize or control her poetic power" (Pickard 3).
In the world of art . . . she believed man was the master, the poet standing
toward his poem much as God did toward His created world. The modesty of the final clause of
her famous aphorism "Nature is a Haunted House -- but Art -- a House that tries to be haunted"
should not prevent one from seeing how close a parallel she draws or conceal her implication that
the poet shapes the dust of language and, if successful, breathes life into it. (Sherwood 201)
Emily Dickinson's ultimate goal in writing was to create poetry that "breathed"
according to her early correspondence with Professor Higginson (Pickard 2). That her careful
attention to detail particularly in the area of language allowed her to be successful is reflected in
the continuing controversy that surrounds the interpretation of her poetry and the conflicting
views that can come from reading the same poem.
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Ehomas H. Johnson.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1960.
Ferlazzo, Paul J. Emily Dickinson. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976.
Juhasz, Suzanne, ed. Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson. Bloomington: Indiana UP,
1983.
Pickard, John B. Emily Dickinson: An Introduction and Interpretation. NY: Barnes
and Noble, Inc., 1967.
Rupp, Richard H., ed. Critics on Emily Dickinson: Readings in Literary Criticism. Coral
Gables: U of Miami P, 1972.
Sherwood, William R. Circumference and Circumstance: Stages in the Mind and Art
of Emily Dickinson. NY: Columbia UP, 1968.
Thackrey, Donald E. Emily Dickinson's Approach to Poetry. Brooklyn: Haskell House
Publishers Ltd., 1976.
Weisbuch, Robert. Emily Dickinson's Poetry. Chicago: The U of Chicago P,
1975.
Additional Works Consulted
Luce, William. The Belle of Amherst: A Play based on the Life of Emily Dickinson.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1976.
Moore, Geoffrey, ed. Great American Poets: Emily Dickinson. NY: Clarkson N. Potter,
Inc., 1986.
Robinson, John. Emily Dickinson: Looking to Canaan. London: faber and faber,
1986.
© 1992, 1998--Faye Kiryakakis
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