Size circumscribes—it has no room
For petty furniture—
The Giant tolerates no Gnat
For Ease of Gianture—
Repudiates it, all the more—
Because intrinsic size
Ignores the possibility
Of Calumnies—or Flies.
-F707, J641, Fascicle 33, 1863
"Size circumscribes." To circumscribe means to limit, or to define. So the size of something, say a room, defines what you can fit in that room. But Dickinson is getting at something more than just size here. "Size...has no room for petty furniture." Since there is only so much room in your room, you will want to maximize the space. You will want everything in that room to be worthy of being in that room. If you are an interior decorator, say, then you want every piece of furniture to be just right. Get rid of the petty furniture.
"Size circumscribes" is a very pithy and memorable way of saying that the form should fit content. If you have something to say, for instance, then say it in the best and most efficient way you can. Just as every piece of furniture should count in a room, so should every word count in a poem. And if possible, try to make each word count twice, or even thrice. Likewise, every note in a song or brush stroke in a painting should be perfectly placed.
But lest you think this about making the most of a small space, the next lines tell you that even within a giant space you still must be careful about keeping the gnats out. I take this as encouragement from Dickinson to go big if that's what your content requires.
And speaking of going big, it's ironic that Dickinson wrote this poem directly after F706, her longest poem ever. If you read the poems in order, as they are presented in the fascicle, this poem reads as an arch apologia for the previous poem. The poem I just wrote, she seems to be saying, is a behemoth, but I assure you every word is necessary. There is no wasted space.
"The Giant tolerates no Gnat/ For Ease of Gianture—" There are a couple alternatives for the latter line: "For simple Gianture" and "Because of Gianture". How about that word “Gianture." Did Dickinson make that up? Looks like it. And it’s a perfect word to describe her too.
In the second stanza the idea of calumnies enter the poem. Calumnies are lies and slander. What should you do if your words evince slander? This poem is suggesting that you ignore it. And more than just ignore it, you should repudiate it!
That’s what I think this poem is saying. It's not warning you to beware of scandal so much as telling you to reject it out of hand. The first few times I read this poem I misread it. I took it as a warning not to get too big for your britches. I read it as saying keep to your own size. Don’t try to be such a giant, because if you get too big you won't be able to ignore the flies and lies. The bigger you get, the more you are susceptible. If you get too large, you lose track of your ability to keep track.
But eventually it clicked, as Dickinson poems eventually will, and I read it differently. I see it now as saying that INTRINSIC size, which is to say, the right size, a size which fits the content, is what you should be going for. You want a good fit, like Frank O’hara says in his great essay on Personism, "If you're going to buy a pair of
pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with
you."
This is a poem which tells us to go big if we are feeling big, but just make sure all the details count. Then ignore all the little annoyances and repudiate the inevitable malice and lies that come with the territory.
- /)dam Wade l)eGraff
This is Emily's handwritten "possibility" from the
MS of this poem. That "ty" is a thing of beauty.
Where is the missing dot on that second "i"?
***
I’m really enjoying the diversity of this fascicle so far. We've had a poem about the joy of receiving a letter and reading it in private. Another taking on the persona of a bride anticipating her wedding night. We’ve had the tragic horrors of war writ large. We’ve had a long excuse to a lover for why they may not live together. And now we have this little brain teaser. After fascicle 32, with its intense focus on heaven and judgment, it feels like Dickinson is getting loose and experimenting with subject matter more in this one. Let's see where she goes from here! It's always an adventure with Emily.
I read the poem somewhat differently.
ReplyDeleteThe giant’s size circumscribes – when the giant is in the room, no gnat/calumnies will squeeze in. And even if the gnat was able to get in, the giant (self-assured person, person with intrinsic size) wouldn't mind. He will ignore the calumnies and act as if they don’t exist, they cannot harm him.
That's the basic gist I get too.
DeleteI love the 'Size circumscribes' - that two-word combo just sizzles on the tongue.
ReplyDeleteSizzles is the right word with that double Z sound in Size Circumscribz.
DeleteED invents vocabulary with impunity. Neither OED nor Google recognizes “gianture” as a word. Howard (1957) counts 159 such ED-invented words in the 1775 poems known at that time. Apparently, her dislike of crossing Homestead’s boundaries did not extend to lexicography.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Howard. 1957. Emily Dickinson's Poetic Vocabulary. PMLA 72(1): 225-248.
Line 3 in ED’s manuscript introduces two actors, “Giant” and “Gnat” and two alternative verbs, “tolerates” and “entertains”. Both verbs are judgmental, one harsher and one gentler.
“The Giant tolerates [entertains] no Gnat”
Line 8 introduces “Flies”, apparently equivalent to “Gnat” and both an annoyance to “Giant”.
ED’s trademark, ambiguity, leaves us wondering who the Giant and who the “Gnat”/“Fly”. Two possibilities for “Giant” come to mind, ED the poet and Wadsworth the preacher. Given ED’s obscurity as a poet and Wadsworth’s fame as a superstar preacher in both Philadelphia and San Francisco, he would seem to be the “Giant”.
The “Gnat” or “Flies” could be lesser preachers harping about Wadsworth’s box-office-busting sermons or ED, who occasionally was a pesky gnat / biting fly, both personally or poetically. Just ask Higginson. After his first two meetings with her (August 16, 1870, morning and afternoon), he wrote his wife, Mary, “I never was with any one who drained my nerve power so much. . . . I am glad not to live near her.”
Habegger, A. 2002. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books. p. 622. Kindle Edition.
ED’s two alternative words in Lines 7-8 make more sense to me than Johnson’s and Franklin’s choices:
“Repudiates it, all the more -
Because intrinsic size
[Excludes] the possibility
Of [Jealousies]-or Flies –“
Finally and possibly apropos:
“He [Wadsworth] impressed believers and unbelievers alike, including Mark Twain, who heard him in San Francisco and liked his humorous glare.” (Habegger 2001). Given Twain’s well-known antipathy toward Christianity, his “humorous glare” is high praise for Wadsworth.
Habegger, Alfred. 2001. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson (p. 377).