Her sweet Weight on my
Heart a Night
Had scarcely deigned to lie —
When, stirring, for Belief's delight,
My Bride had slipped away —
If 'twas a Dream — made solid — just
The Heaven to confirm —
Or if Myself were dreamed of Her —
The power to presume —
With Him remain — who unto Me —
Gave — even as to All —
A Fiction superseding Faith —
By so much — as 'twas real —
Had scarcely deigned to lie —
When, stirring, for Belief's delight,
My Bride had slipped away —
If 'twas a Dream — made solid — just
The Heaven to confirm —
Or if Myself were dreamed of Her —
The power to presume —
With Him remain — who unto Me —
Gave — even as to All —
A Fiction superseding Faith —
By so much — as 'twas real —
F611
(1863) J518
The narrator suspects
the bliss of sleeping with her beloved happened in a dream. She takes the
disappearance of her "Bride" philosophically, however, for she has
the God-given gift of making dreams seem as real as if they had truly happened.
And who needs the complications of reality if dreaming makes it so?
The nighttime experience raises the
usual philosophical questions: how can we tell dream from reality? Could the
dream have been enfolded in another's dream – in this case, was the narrator
experiencing her beloved's dream?
Dickinson resorts to God: he is the
only one who can "confirm" what really happened. But in addition to
being all-knowing, God gives the narrator / Dickinson / all of us the ability
to experience "Fiction" so vividly as to seem real. This hyper-real
Fiction supersedes Faith.
The Dickinson Lexicon
defines "Faith" in this line as "Knowledge; sentiment based on
concrete evidence" and this makes a commonsense reading: the imaginative
world is potentially more real than the knowledge-based. In this case, the
dream creation was more "solid" than the empty bed.
I take that last stanza as Dickinson broadly accounting for her powerful
poetic imagination. Whether it is a lover, an Abyss, or death, she experiences
it as truly – more truly – than a 'real' experience. Dickinson does concede
that God gives this ability "to All", but this strikes me as an
afterthought.
I am reminded of of Marianne Moore's famous "Ars Poetica" in
which she writes that good poetry should have "imaginary gardens with real
toads in them". That is the
landscape Dickinson inhabited, too.
Judith Farr argues
convincingly that the poem is written with Sue in mind. In The Passion of Emily Dickinson, she has this to say:
""When Lavinia first gave [Sue] Emily's manuscripts, Sue marked them
in pencil according to theme: Love, Nature, Death, and so on. She marked this
poem with the initial 'S', appearing to acknowledge its relevancy to herself"
(p.160).
I don't think a biographical
interpretation adds much to the poem, however. Certainly Dickinson spent no
effort on fleshing out the beloved. She is just an exemplar of the poem's
greater point about Fiction vs. Faith.
The biographical interpretation allows to see the poem through another lens. If one posits Sue for "My Bride," then one must at least entertain Austin for "Him" in the third stanza. Austin then "[g]ave" Emily the "Fiction" of Sue. For Austin courted Sue, and in doing so he succeeded in bringing Sue to the Evergreens. Though he might have brought Sue for all in the family, it was Emily's "Fiction" that trumped the "Faith" that Austin and Sue had for one another (at least in this poem and in Emily's heart). Her power to presume makes this dream or fiction solid or more real than happenstance.
ReplyDeleteThat whole Sue / Emily / Austin triangle is fascinating. It's hard to imagine just how complicated and difficult things got when Austin took Mabel Loomis Todd as his lover.
DeleteI wish ED had kept the notes and letters she received from Sue (and other correspondents).
I think the shadow of Austin can be read into this poem. But the "Even as us all" is so broad as to be surely the provenance of God.
I see your point.
DeleteSome of ED's poetry is so general that it's difficult to posit a life event that inspired the poetry. The phrase "My Bride had slipped away -" can be interpreted as a euphemism for death. If one does accepts this interpretation and compares it the literal interpretation of a lover leaving a partner for another partner or an old one, it opens up the poem slightly for making an analogy between the Austin-Sue-Emily triangle to Father-Son-Holy Spirit trinity.
The way I'm currently reading the last stanza is "she remains with him." (Sue remains with Austin). "Who unto Me -" can be interpreted in two ways: Austin (as godhead--father in holy trinity) gave everyone the ability to meet Sue by courting her; or, Sue (as a Jesus-like figure) gave ED a fiction. A fiction that ended up effecting all that were close to Sue or ED ("even as to All-." Or, one could consider this poem giving unto all the message of the love ED felt for Sue; thereby, ED immortalizes Sue.
Wonderful blog! Thank you so much for your elucidations!
ReplyDelete