Through which Men reach
Where Presence — is denied them –
They fling their Speech
By means of it — in God's Ear —
If then He hear —
This sums the Apparatus
Comprised in Prayer —
F623 (1863) J437
In this short poem Dickinson depicts prayer as the recourse of Men to communicate with a God who remains hidden from them.
The tone is breezily dismissive and ironic; the import sad. What is both incisive and sad about the poem is the word choice. Prayer is no powerful medium; only a "little implement". How can such a paltry device ever crack the heavens – particularly when God has "denied" his presence. Shut out from divine "Presence", Men desperately "fling" their prayers. Dickinson says "Speech" here, not only for the rhyme with "reach" but to make quotidian what might otherwise be considered sacred.
Flinging speech into God's Ear is done on the chance that He hears it. "If then He hear" can be read, "In case He hears". It is as if we were to unceasingly throw messages in bottles into the sea hoping the intended recipient would receive and read them. To extend the analogy, suppose the intended recipient had purposefully removed himself from anywhere we could find him. We don't even know if the message would be read if the sea cast the bottle up at his feet.
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| W.Holman Hunt, 1859: Morning Prayer |
This isn't the first Dickinson poem about prayer. Most recently in "Of Course – I prayed – " (F581), she says that she had indeed prayed but that God cared about as much as if "A Bird – had stamped her foot". But while Dickinson dismisses prayer, she does not dismiss the divine. In "My period had come for Prayer —" (F525) the poet does her best to find and talk to God but finds instead "Infinitude" and "Creation" – an experience of such awe that she abandons the idea of prayer and instead simply "worshipped".
In "At least – to pray – is left – is left –" (F377), Dickinson adopts a dismissive and rather flippant tone towards prayer. She is "knocking – everywhere –" and finally wondering why God can cause wars and storms but seems to take no interest in her.
With regard to line I/2-3 „...Men reach | Where Presence – is denied them –” you write: #God has "denied" his presence. Shut out from divine "Presence", Men desperately...# You seem to read: Men reach out into somewhere where God’s presence is denied them by God. Right? Well, ED’s writing is mostly (in a serious way, of course) ambiguous. But would the primary reading not rather aim at refused human presence in numinous realms?
ReplyDelete(Dieter Wirth, Regensburg, Germany)
Such a reading would assume that God's presence can only be felt in numinous realms versus his making himself felt, being present to someone in this earthly realm. In the Pentateuch there are several instances where God is present in human lives on earth (Moses, for example, or Abraham), and where prayer does seem answered. This is a far cry from the lack of any response Dickinson has described in other poems and suggests in this one.
DeleteIf I take your meaning properly, you say a 'primary' reading leaves open the possibility that if only we could get through some numinous realm, then we could perhaps gain God's presence. Perhaps. But taken as a whole, I stand by what I wrote: "How can such a paltry device ever crack the heavens – particularly when God has "denied" his presence." Making the heavens or numinous realms off limits to humans is one good way of denying presence.
Considering the continuation with “in God's Ear”, there seems to be no denial of God’s presence (his being somewhere). My reading was: A prayer is the little device by which men (♂♀) try to reach out ... but in that space men’s presence is denied men (by God or by ...); presence in a sense near to “access”. By the way, in this thematic context we have two German equivalents: “Anwesenheit” (so.’s being in a place) and “Gegenwart” (≈ so.’s being (experienced) nearby – interestingly, you wrote: being present to(!) someone). I had in mind the simple first meaning in relation to men. But I do acknowledge the vagueness of the referent (which should be preserved in a translation).
DeleteMaybe, our little controversy is due to a different reading of the expression “...where...” I take it in its simple spatial sense, as the direction-object of “reach”. (Maybe, this is not adequate.) You seem to refer it to the whole preceding sentence (“on the earth where”); you even write “[particularily] when”. (But ED did not insert a one-syllable “when” or “while” in this poem!) Anyway, the final word will be yours, of course. I’m not the expert of (ED’s) (19th century) (Am)English, but I am very fond of your language. (D.W.)
I agree with your parenthetical comment that interpreting "where" in a 'simple spatial sense' might be inadequate.
DeleteTrue, the passive structure of "Where Presence – is denied them" doesn't explicitly say God himself is denying his presence. It may simply mean that God is somewhere that people can't go. And it is also true that I get more excited about the poems when I sense a railing against the underpinnings of Christian or Calvinist dogma. So my reading bias influences my commentary.
Still, the word "deny" is pretty strongly suggestive of a Denier. I find it the key word of the poem. It doesn't lead to a reading that, say, God is inaccessible because of the nature of things, or that that 'veil' between the mundane and the divine, between life and death, that Dickinson writes about in other poems is just a foundational part of the universe. No, I think Dickinson means us to read "is denied them" as oppositional.
But I think I have a better understanding of what you meant and it caused me to read the poem in a different way -- which I appreciate! The whole poem takes on a different tone when the "Where" is read spatially. Being open to this reading makes me confront my reading bias, which is important.
This is a perfect little poem, powerful in its way. Fresh and alive.
ReplyDeleteIt is not prayer that is flung. Prayer is the apparatus, the implement. The last line of the first stanza is enjambed with the first line of the second. So, they "fling their Speech [b]y means of [prayer]". This creates a distinction between speech and prayer. What is the difference? What is the mechanic of prayer (to continue the metaphor)? Intention? Devotion? Imagination? Speech is earth bound. It is the apparatus of prayer that aspires for transcendence.
But, you are right, ED is completely unafraid to acknowledge that it is unknown, perhaps unknowable whether man's speech is heard by God. And, not only that, if the speech were to be heard what would be the reaction? The existence of God as compassionate is not taken for granted, that too is unknowable. What would be the human reaction to having something flung in our ear? Perhaps we should wish that God does not hear!
Susan, I just want to comment on how Dickinson inspires great writing in others. I see it in your sentence, "How can such a paltry device ever crack the heavens?" This comment in itself stood out to me as poetic. It's pleasing to my ear, and little things like this make it fun to read your blog, in addition to the fact that I like getting another perspective on ED's poems. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Shane!
DeleteDear Susan Kornfeld, I'm always delighted by your website. It's actually becoming a great "implement" to my translations of the Complete Poems to Portuguese.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to stress the relationship of the second stanza with the first one. I feel that there are things to consider which are of greater extent:
1) What's the difference of "implement" and "Apparatus"?
I believe that these words are related to "Prayer" in different senses: a) In God's perspective (his "denied Presence") it's a "little implement"; but in men's perspective, it's an "Apparatus". This could lead us to understand that "Prayer" is a human matter, it is effective to men themselves – not to an intervening God as in the Old Testament.
2) I believe we ought to consider the philosophical weight of words here if we read this poem nowadays (and I believe we only can read it as such, as I'm translating it to my Brazilian readers, mostly educated readers). You might know that "Presence" and "Apparatus" are central words in post-structuralist debate. Derrida, for instance, condemns what he can the "metaphysics of Presence" in Western Philosophy. Instead, he says, "Presence" always "denies Itself", it leaves just "trace" (une trace). In the other hand, "Apparatus" are human devices to control and to be controlled according to Foucault and G. Agamben. What "sums" (make it work) the Apparatus is the act of pray itself, and the only thing we know is that the Apparatus works for us as act of faith ("Faith is a fine invention..")
I'm aware this is all too philosophical, but I can't avoid thinking about it when I hear such strong words in the poem, and most especially when I have to translate it. Anyway, I still believe that at the end ED is as ambiguous as always towards God and Religion, she denies and accepts at the same time, as it happens in the tradition of mysticism (especially with her Mexican antecessor, Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz).
Lots of food for thought to thank you for here. First, the distinction between 'implement' and 'apparatus' being the former is from God's perspective while the latter is from humanity's.The implication is that an Apparatus is somehow grander or at least more complex than an implement. That would be my thinking, too. However, I checked the Dickinson Lexicon for the meanings of ED's day and they are too similarly defined for such a distinction. 'Apparatus': tool, device, instrument, structure, system;
DeleteImplement': procedure, method, protocol, process, apparatus. With this in mind, a paraphrase of the poem's point might be, "Prayer is the procedure by which we try to deliver our words to a distant and unapproachable God. That's it. That's what's included in the mechanism of prayer.'
As to your second point, although I was introduced to post-structuralism, in obtaining my MA in Eng. Lit., it was a passing acquaintance. But it is truly interesting that 'Presence' and 'Apparatus' figure so centrally. I think your Derrida-enriched (never thought I'd say that...) reading of this poem works well.
Finally, thank you for the reference to Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz.
The thing that strikes me as most interesting in this poem is the hinge of that word "then". One of the interesting things about ED's dashes is they sometimes can function syntactically in a more versatile way than traditional punctuation can. When you first read this poem you want to read the "then" forward to qualify the "apparatus comprised in prayer".
ReplyDeleteIf then He hear —
(then) This sums the Apparatus
Comprised in Prayer —
Meaning something like, if He hears, then the hearing itself sums up the apparatus. The hearing is what sums up the prayer. To me this reading points toward listening itself, as opposed to the "Flinging of speech".
But then the "then" works backwards too, to modify the iffiness of God hearing anything.
Do you hear, God? I don't know, says God, do you hear ? No, I don't hear anything! Listen closer, I just said something.
I've been wondering if there is a good name for these kinds of moments in poetry, where one word or line could qualify the lines above or the lines below. If not, what might a good one be? A sliding modifier?
Such an interesting idea and, specifically, way of reading Dickinson. You've pointed out these loosely tethered modifiers (thanks to the dashes which float a bit themselves), enriching the read. The ambiguity of the placement does seem, as I re-read, intentional.
DeleteI'm not sure I'm reading your 'Do you hear, God?' comment correctly: the last sentence is said by God?
I like 'sliding modifier'. Had some fun thinking up alternatives -- but none better.
Ha, yes, that was meant to be God's reply. I was having fun imagining the conversation. So often the "saying something", or the Presence, is in the silence itself, if you'll just quit flinging speech and listen.
DeleteIt occurs to me that the idea of the sliding modifier, or "hinge" is part of the apparatus of this poem itself. William Carlos Williams said that a poem is a machine made of words. It's an insightful way of looking at them. A great poem is a new invention, a unique apparatus for expressing content through form.
As ED poem succeeds ED poem, it feels she moves gradually from “God the loving Father” to “God the Watchmaker” to “God the Unconcerned” to “God the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind” to “God the Human Invention”. The latter sure simplifies “numinous” expectations, to use the latest TPB adjective-du-jour.
ReplyDeleteThat nihilistic tenet leaves us expecting nothing, nada, nichts after death. I wonder whether ED ever reached that entirely reasonable, relieving, and simply stated belief: there is no there there.