That Man and Woman know –
Each Other's Convert –
Though the Faith accommodate but Two –
The Churches are so frequent –
The Ritual – so small –
The Grace so unavoidable –
To fail – is Infidel –
Each Other's Convert –
Though the Faith accommodate but Two –
The Churches are so frequent –
The Ritual – so small –
The Grace so unavoidable –
To fail – is Infidel –
Fr671 (1863) J387
I've read a few takes on this poem and really there are but two. The first is that Dickinson is playfully portraying a good marriage. Two people convert to each other and are so in love that nothing seems left for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Heresy, maybe, but sweet.
Their services and rituals together are so simple and easy that Grace between them in unavoidable. It would be a real act of denial to fail in the simple gestures of marriage. With 'Infidel', Dickinson cleverly implies that failing in such accommodations is not only another bit of heresy but one akin to infidelity.
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| Probably an illustration form an Austen book |
Ah, but reading number two is much more fun. We're talking about marital bliss. The poem becomes clever rather than anodyne. The frequent 'Churches' suggest an alternative form of worship; the 'Ritual' is 'small' – nothing difficult or disagreeable here. Best of all, the resulting 'Grace' is 'unavoidable'. Marital bliss indeed. Only an 'infidel', a denier, would fail to achieve this Grace when the churches are so frequent and the ritual so small.
The poem is generally unremarkable. There is an odd line break in the first stanza: the third line is truncated, meter-wise, in favor of giving the last line a couple of extra feet. It makes poetic sense, however, delivering a sort of punch line.
I have to admit to enjoying "The Churches are so frequent" – as a bit of delicious naughtiness. And I like the way "To fail– is Infidel –" sounds.
This poem following, "There is One Crucifixion recorded only" makes for two heretical poems in a row.
ReplyDeleteThe idea in this poem, of romantic love conflated with religion, can be seen in a number of ED's poems and letters. "Congregation" in ED often means two things at once. I just started reading the amazing collection of letters from ED to her friend and sister-in-law Susan in "Open Me Carefully". In one early letter to Austin, the book notes, ED says she hopes Austin has "enjoyed" "sanctuary privileges" with Susan. Then later when she is writing to Susan she writes, "How vain it seems to write, when one knows how to feel -- how much more near and dear to sit beside you, talk with you, hear the tones of your voice -- so hard to "deny thyself, and take up they cross and follow me --" give me strength, Susie, write me of hope and love, and of hearts that endured, and great was their reward of "Our Father who art in Heaven."
Those letters were written over 10 years before this poem was written, so this particular "heresy" had been fomenting in the poet for awhile by the time this poem comes around.
This one is notable for the idea of making someone a convert to the religion of yourself, even while they are making you a convert to the religion of them. That's an intriguing and romantic idea.
I also love all that is implied in "The Grace so unavoidable/ to fail is infidel". And yet, how many of us do? The Grace is unavoidable!
Ha. As long as we go "to church" regularly and keep up our small rituals we can keep the faith this poem implies.
Letter L73, "How vain it seems to write, when one knows how to feel" is dated about 6 February 1852, while Sue was teaching math in Baltimore.
ReplyDeleteOn her return rail trip from Manchester, NH, on Wednesday, March 23, 1853, Susan arrived in Boston for a tryst with Austin at the Revere Hotel, and the couple became engaged. ED learned of the engagement within 2-3 days because the “sanctuary privileges” letter, L110, is dated March 27, 1853.
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ReplyDelete‘The sweetest Heresy received’ (F671) simultaneously wishes and chides. Both of ED’s closest love relationships, Sue Gilbert and Charles Wadsworth, began in her imaginative mind as a sacred promise between two people to love each other on Earth, and, in Wadsworth’s case, especially in Heaven. In her perfect dyad the two become “Each Other’s Convert –” in a private “Faith [that] accommodate[s] but Two –”. Such holy dyads are so frequent, such sacred ceremonies so simple, such perfect happiness so “unavoidable” that “To fail – is Infidel”!
ReplyDeleteOf course, each dyad ended painfully for ED, and her final line chides each partner sarcastically. Nevertheless, being the person and poet she was, she remained faithful to each her entire life, writing poems for Sue and wearing only white for Wadsworth.
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ReplyDeleteAm I understanding this commentary right, Susan? Is your second take (that is, your “much more fun” take) on this poem that it is referring to sexual relations between a man and a woman as the “Sweetest Heresy”? Are these the “Churches… so frequent”?
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic. I had entirely missed this possibility on my first reading of the poem. No doubt both readings can be considered playfully blasphemous (SOMETHING crowds out the Lord, that’s for sure — for it’s a faith that can “accommodate but Two”). But this second take is so delightfully specific about what it is to love another person! (It feels like a companion to F706: “Because You saturated sight.”)
Dickinson’s characterization of sexual union as a ritual “so small” strikes me as extraordinarily her own. It is so modest and loving. She recognizes that the fumbling and hurried breathing and caresses of two lovers (in a bed at night or in a meadow at noon, or wherever she might have experienced it) is a private act like no other — sometimes unseen even by the lovers themselves. It is, in its intimacy, “so small.” And shouldn’t we find it encouraging that Dickinson considers “The Grace” which sexual union brings to be “unavoidable”? Someone, sometime, must have loved her tenderly.
When I first read the poem, I considered its subject the spiritual union of a man and woman, and the rituals as little domestic acts and habits, as you say. Reading it this second way gave me something of the shock of an optical illusion — one vase or two faces. Now when I begin at the top again, I almost feel, each time before I dive in, that I have to make a choice whether to read with reference to spirit or body. On repeated readings, these two readings begin to blur together, as they do in life.