I play at Riches—to appease The Clamoring for Gold— It kept me from a Thief, I think, For often, overbold
With Want, and Opportunity— I could have done a Sin And been Myself that easy Thing An independent Man—
But often as my lot displays Too hungry to be borne I deem Myself what I would be— And novel Comforting
My Poverty and I derive— We question if the Man— Who own—Esteem the Opulence— As We—Who never Can—
Should ever these exploring Hands Chance Sovereign on a Mine— Or in the long—uneven term To win, become their turn—
How fitter they will be—for Want— Enlightening so well— I know not which, Desire, or Grant— Be wholly beautiful—
-Fr856, J801, Fascicle 38, 1864
A recurring theme of Emily Dickinson’s poetry is that true wealth may best be found in poverty.
In this one she adds a wrinkle and admits to playing at riches. I play at Riches—to appease The Clamoring for Gold—
Playing at riches is like the woman on welfare who spends precious food money to play the lottery. She loses, of course, but the fantasy of winning is enough to keep her honest. It quells the clamoring for gold.
There are so many ways to play at riches. I do it, for example, when I go to the theater to see a big blockbuster. Recently I played at riches when I luxuriated in the lavish decor of Nia DaCosta’s film adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, a scandalous update on Ibsen’s scandalous play. (I wonder if Emily saw or read any of Ibsen’s plays? They were contemporaries. He was 2 years older than she was, but outlasted her by several. “Hedda Gabler” was written after she died, but she might have read “A Doll’s House” or any of a dozen others.)
“Mothers of America/ Let your kids go to the movies!” wrote Frank O’hara in one of his best poems, Ave Maria. “They may even be grateful to you/ for their first sexual experience/ which only cost you a quarter/ and didn’t upset the peaceful home.”
Fantasies fulfill us enough to keep us away from the kind of overwhelming deprivation that leads one to theft.
The poem continues,
It kept me from a Thief, I think, For often, overbold With Want, and Opportunity— I could have done a Sin
And been Myself that easy Thing An independent Man—
If you were to actually go after your fantasies, to pursue that billion, you would likely have to take it by force, no matter how subtle the means.
It is worth noting that Emily’s father was a land speculator. He was driven to do this in part to make up for the debts of his father. But it is also worth noting that Emily’s Grandfather went into debt for the sake of a cause, Amherst College, which he practically financed and built himself. Emily takes after her grandfather.
The idea here is that if you can allow yourself to fantasize and “play at riches,” then temptation will no longer be too great to resist. You have relieved the pressure enough to get through the greater temptation.
There’s another poem by Dickinson with a similar idea, Fr784, in which she says, "a Quick…Anonymous Delight…Consoles a Wo so monstrous/ That did it tear all Day,/ Without an instant’s Respite –/ “Twould look too far – to Die –” However, in that poem, unlike this one, there follows a stern warning about the dangers of becoming sated and falling asleep at the wheel.
The speaker of this poem is male, which ties this poem to the male gaze. If you want to “steal” the girl, which might mean anything from paying for her to something more sinister, that would be “easy.” That would be the domain of the “independent man.”
With the word “independent” we have a crux in this poem, the conflict the poem hinges on. To have the love of a woman (or man) it takes a certain kind of dependence. In other words, it takes being dependable, which in turn takes integrity. Integrity, as opposed to theft, is hard.
But often as my lot displays Too hungry to be borne
I don't think Dickinson was speaking of actual hunger here, as she was never physically hungry for food as far as I know, but rather, lack of love.
A lack of love (“too hungry”) is something so difficult that it can’t easily be “borne,” or carried. You feel wildly tempted to fulfill the hunger for love through ignoble means. Therefore,
I deem Myself what I would be— And novel Comforting
My Poverty and I derive—
What can you do instead of thieving? You pretend, and “deem” yourself what you would be if you had the wealth you so desire. In some “novel” (new) way, you, with the help of your poverty, figure out some way to be comforted, (“My poverty and I derive”). That “novel Comforting” may be found in the sublimated fantasy.
The word “novel” here is especially good because reading a novel, like watching a Hollywood film, makes for a potent fantasy. Have I ever luxuriated in absurd wealth of language and society more than when I was reading Proust? Or how about "Middlemarch," which was Emily’s favorite novel?
We question if the Man Who own Esteem the Opulence As We Who never Can
Can the man who “owns” ever appreciate wealth as one can who lacks it? True appreciation comes from want. Ownership, and therefore possession itself, is here called into question.
Should ever these exploring Hands Chance Sovereign on a Mine
I love how the hands of the impoverished poet are ever exploring here. That’s part of the play of fantasy, no? You are feeling the world. It might come to pass that these hands just so happen upon a mine. “Mine” has a double valence here, meaning both a “mine” of precious gems and minerals, and “mine” as in ownership. But notice that the hands here did not steal. Rather they “chance sovereign.” Macbeth could have waited for his chance to become king after the witches predicted he would be one, could have “chanced sovereign," but because of his ambition, he killed the good king and stole the crown. He turned thief and, consequently, paid dearly.
Or in the long uneven term To win, become their turn
“The long uneven term” is the term of life itself. In this long uneven term you win some and you lose some, as my father was fond of saying. Sometimes it is your turn to win. When that happens, if it happens of its own accord, you will fully appreciate it because of your poverty. That it’s why fasting is such a powerful practice. Hunger is the best spice, as they say.
How fitter they will be for Want
If you fully inhabit your lack, then when it is your time to have plenty you won’t be jaded. It is only the thief that has everything who becomes jaded.
In preparation for Emerald Fennell’s upcoming film, “Wuthering Heights,” I went back and watched her film “Saltburn.” I enjoyed the fantasy in it, playing at riches, but it also sickingly portrays how terribly meaningless great wealth becomes to the jaded rich.
Or how about Joyce Carol Oates’ recent tweet about Elon Musk?
"So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book; pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the most wealthy person in the world."
Perhaps that is a little overly judgmental, but it makes a point. The poorest persons in the world may well be richer than than the richest man.
(By the way Joyce Carol Oates has her own Emily Dickinson selected on the market. I sat in a bookstore in an airport once and read the entire introduction. It was terrific.)
The poem goes on stating that our deprivation…
Enlightening so well I know not which, Desire, or Grant Be wholly beautiful
Desire and grant are so inextricably tied to one another it is hard to say which of the two is wholly beautiful. The idea here is, I think, that they are only whole, wholly beautiful, together. Granting relieves want, but wanting makes the granting more meaningful.
Two—were immortal twice— The privilege of few— Eternity—obtained—in Time— Reversed Divinity—
That our ignoble Eyes The quality conceive Of Paradise superlative— Through their Comparative.
Fr855, J800, Fascicle 38, 1864
After a lot of working-out of the meaning of this poem, which you can read about below, I've come to understand it, in the most simple terms, as saying that there are a special two that were immortal twice, once before death, in love, and once again, after death. It is through the first state, in that rare, but ignoble, privilege of being in immortal love that we get a glimpse of the second state, that superlative Paradise of Immortality to come. Either that, or you could read it in the reverse, with the immortality of being in love, however ignobly, being superlative to the immortality to come. The syntax allows for both. How you read it depends on your belief of which Immortality is superlative, the one felt now or the one that comes later. Perhaps the vanishing point can be found in the vector effected by the opposing viewpoints.
Figuring out this poem was a bit like learning complex algebra, where you have to do a lot of work to get to the sum. The following is the story behind that work. My original take on the poem was very different than it is now. (And I'm aware that it is still evolving.)
This summer I was looking online at the original MS of this poem and noticed that it was owned by the Morgan Library in NYC. I wondered if it would be possible to look at the original, so I wrote the museum. They got back to me and informed me I had to fill out an application and make an appointment, which I duly did, and few weeks later, on June 13, I went with my friend Tyler Burba to see the poem.
When we arrived at the museum we were told that there was something wrong with the temperature control in the rare manuscript room and we would have to wait for the temperature to come down a few degrees before we could go in. This gave us an hour to walk around and see the two current exhibits, which happened to be on Jane Austen and the photographer Julia Cameron Mitchell. Mitchell, who was a contemporary of Dickinson's, was a revelation. Among many beautiful photographs there was one of the astronomer, Frederick Herschel. I had never heard of Herschel, but it's a name I would soon come across again when I was writing about Fr803. He shows up in that poem. It turns out Whitman and Keats were fans of Herschel's too. I wrote about all these connections here on Prowling Bee. So it was fortuitous, I would say, that we had to wait to see the poem. (What actually happened to the temperature system? Was it the long white fingers of Dickinson that tampered with it?)
When we were finally able to sit with the poem it was as electrifying as I imagined it would be. The piece of paper the poem was on was dainty, a little note. It was protected by vellum, but still, to be able to hold it, and pretend, for a moment, to be Sue, who was the original recipient of the poem, was a thrill. It was instructive to be able to study it closely. The following is a transcription of the conversation Tyler and I had about the poem as we were looking at it. We get pretty deep into the minutia. The conversation winds all over the place, but since it all stems out of the poem, I will include it. It gives a good sense of both the difficulties of the syntax of this poem, and the possibilities of it.
***
Adam: Tyler Burba and I are here having breakfast in the New York Diner on Northern Boulevard in Astoria Queens. After breakfast we are going to hop on an R train to the Morgan Library in Manhattan to see the original handwritten poem that Emily Dickinson sent to or gave to her sister-in-law/ soulmate Sue Gilbert Dickinson. It’s a difficult poem to understand. It starts off with the lines, “Two were immortal twice.”
Tyler: Two were mortal twice, the privilege of few, eternity obtained in time, Reversed Divinity.
Adam: Reversed Divinity. That to me is the mind blowing part, Reversed Divinity.
Tyler: Well, I don’t know, maybe it’s just my cloudiness right now, but I read that as the sublime or the eternal felt through the corporeal mundane.
Adam: But how? Why is Divinity reversed?
Tyler” Because maybe instead of Divinity coming from the outside, from above or something…
Adam: Mm-hmm.
Tyler: It’s emitting from itself, so it’s in a reverse direction. So instead of God giving us divinity, it’s coming from us. We’re viewing the world with divinity, from our Love-state of mind.
Adam: Reversed Divinity.
Tyler: If you read that as about being in love or having a connection with someone...
Adam: Yeah.
Tyler: "That our ignoble eyes the quality conceive of paradise superlative." It’s really not giving us much. There are no lifesavers in this one.
Adam: It seems like Emily Dickinson had two different modes of poems. She had ones that were for the general reader, I mean, I think all of them are meant at some level for a general reader, a very special general reader because it takes a lot of work, but obviously she’s got legions of fans, so not that rare, but still pretty special. Yeah. Maybe one out of 1,000 are willing to do that work.
Tyler: I think also, because she writes short poems. And people like that.
Adam: Yep.
Tyler: That makes her more accessible.
Adam: That's a good point. There’s a riddle-like quality too and I think people like puzzles. Some people enjoy trying to work it out, trying to figure it out.
Tyler: I’ve got a children’s book about an Emily Dickinson poem and at the bottom it says, “Can you figure out what animal she’s talking about here?” So yea, it’s all that. Basically every poem is presented as a riddle.
Adam: Yeah. Which is why that one poem about the snake, when they put the title on it, when they published it in The Springfield Republican and put a title on it, Emily Dickinson was like, no, no.
Tyler: Yeah. You don’t give it away.
[Little did we know at the time that the Morgan ALSO has the snake poem.]
Tyler: Speaking of that poem, I think the title of my new album is going to be Zero at the Bone.
Adam: Nice! I had a conversation with Truck Darling about that line recently. I use that phrase sometimes, but I think I mean something different by it than Emily did. What I mean by it is something closer to just getting down to rawness, down to the pure, just the bone, right? Just like letting go of everything except for life, like absolute being. But I think Dickinson meant it differently, right? She’s talking about fear.
Tyler: I think it’s both, right? It’s like when you have those encounters… it’s just like jumping into really cold water…It’s like all thought vanishes, and you’re at this kind of zero level.
Adam: Yeah.
Tyler: Where you’re like confronted with reality, but in a way, without any conceptual framework where you’re just like full of shit.
Adam: Fear is one way into that, I guess.
Tyler: Yeah. There "notice sudden is," you know.
Adam: Right.
Tyler: And then like, it’s just like, uh, wake up. I think it works like that too.
Adam: Yeah. Yeah. It brings you back to that zero, meaning, in Dickinson’s conception, freezing. The freezing point.
Tyler: Yep. Right.
Adam: But it could also just be emptiness. Zero.
Tyler: Yeah. I think it works in both ways. That’s why it’s it’s such a good choice.
Adam: Yeah.
Tyler: As opposed to first chill then stupor, then the letting go. You know, she could have used the word chill like she uses in other poems.
Adam: Great Title. Zero at the Bone.
Tyler: Are you still doing those Dickinson essays?
Adam: Mm-hmm.
Tyler: That’s a great project. It’s a good slow read of Dickinson. She deserves that.
Adam: She does deserve it. So some poems, it seems to me, like this one, she is making a general statement, but she’s also doing it in this very private language that she shared with Sue. And the thing about Sue is that she was, if it’s even possible, an intellectual equal with Emily.
Tyler: I don’t know much about Sue. Is she a poet as well?
Adam: She did write poems, and she was often the first and only reader of Emily’s poems. We even have evidence of Sue offering Emily editing advice. There’s a letter where Emily says that the only person she’s ever learned more from than Sue is Shakespeare. That’s the only company she puts Sue in. And Sue is a mathematician, you know? So a lot of the poems to Sue will have Mathematical language in it, like this poem does with it’s doubling of doubles, “Two were immortal twice.” The other thing about Sue is that she was married to Emily’s brother. She was a believer. She was a professed Christian. So you get tons of poems that deal with this, like Emily saying to her, basically to effect, this [earthly sphere] is what we know, this is what we have. This is it. She says in one poem that her conception of heaven is that it would be boring like Sunday-school and so what’s the point of eternity? That kind of eternity is kind of horrifying.
Tyler: Sure. Just basking in the glory of God for eternity.
Adam: So for her it’s like, don’t miss this. You know, this, THIS. So one of my favorite poems of hers goes something like, “The life we have is very great. The life that we shall see surpasses it, we know, because it is infinity, but when all of space has been beheld, and all dominion has been seen, the smallest human heart’s extent reduces it to none.” You know, so this, right here, between us, is greater than all of eternity could be. Right? Which is a powerful way of putting it. So there are a lot of poems where I think she’s trying to convince Sue of this truth.
[voice memo paused]
Adam: All right, now we are walking to the Morgan Library from the R train and just thinking about how one of the things that’s special about this poem is that it was transactional. Actually, that’s really the wrong word to use because one of the recent blog posts on Prowling Bee [Fr799] is about Emily saying to Sue that relationships aren’t transactional. I mean, it’s not about being economical. You could give me the world but still hold back a star. But you’re holding back the star, right? I want the entire you, I don’t want a transaction. Why are you holding on?
Tyler: Yeah. Give it, give it all, uh, how dare you pay for breakfast and say, "You got it last time," God dammit.
Adam: Haha. Yeah, exactly. There’s another one where she’s talking about economy too [Fr687]. It’s a very similar poem, but she’s talking to the Mighty Merchant and the Merchant is like, can I interest you in Brazil? And she’s like, no, I don’t want Brazil. I want the world. So then in the later poem, she’s like, no, I don’t just want the world, I want the star too. I want the whole universe of you. Both of them were about economy and merchandise and I think Emily’s about this idea of all or nothing, where I think for Sue it was a little bit more necessary to think about finances. I mean, Sue had to marry for money, probably. I imagine one reason she married Austin is partly because he gave her financial security. I’m sure she loved him probably because it was Emily’s brother too. Like she probably...
Tyler: Did she know Emily well before she knew Austin?
Adam: Yes. They were school friends and very close.
Tyler: Okay, so it was like marrying the closest thing to Emily, the closest thing that was possible at that time was marrying her brother.
Adam: Exactly. And she got to live next door to her for her whole life. If she hadn’t married Austin, their intimate friendship probably would’ve split apart.
Tyler: Right.
Adam: So in a way it was a way for them to maintain their relationship.
Tyler: Yeah. Pretty brilliant solution.
Adam: Unusual, right?
Tyler: Very. Yep. Living in the house next door, getting to secretly carry on this deep relationship.
Adam: Poetry. And what’s amazing is at the end, Sue made Emily’s funeral shroud, you know, and arranged her in the grave and even put certain flowers on the body that meant certain things, like loyalty, etcetera. So in a way Emily got the world as well as the star.
Tyler: Um, incredible.
Adam: But anyway, the transactional aspect of it is that Sue's family was gone, and she didn’t have a way of existing in the world financially.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: Emily did. She lived in her father’s house her whole life.
Tyler: Yeah.
Adam: You know, she never had to worry about money. I mean, that’s a beautiful thing. I don’t think Emily ever made any money. She has that poem that goes, "Publication is the auction of the mind of man," so there's a certain beauty in the fact that she never sold a poem, never auctioned her mind. And the crazy part is that we all have access to all of them now for free right? On the other hand, in the mentality of the modern world, this seems wrong. What? She never got paid. Really? Her poems are priceless.
Tyler: Yeah.
Adam: What’s that? Oh wait, we’re supposed to go in on 37th street.
Tyler: let’s go to the next block. Yeah, there’s a service entrance. I know that Robert Duncan also distanced himself from publishing. He said, I’m not publishing anything for 15 years, just to like change the mindset, you know, to actually become free to say whatever you want to say and do whatever you want. Be really experimental or not, and not have the audience in the back of your mind. It’s probably not wise to do that, but think it’s nice that you can, and that’s one of the pieces of advice I give in my videos is like, if you don’t show it to anybody, you can say whatever you want.
Adam: Yeah.
Tyler: It can be as embarrassing as you want to be because you’re not gonna show it to anybody. And then of course, that’s the good stuff.
Adam: That’s the good stuff. Yeah, that’s insightful.
Tyler: Once you do it and then you are like, oh, okay, I guess I can show this to people, but you gotta kind of get in that mindset bucket. I’m gonna be totally naked here and be vulnerable.
Adam: Because I’m not gonna show it to anybody. Yeah. These students of mine sent me a song the other day they recorded. They did that Moldy Peaches song, "Anyone Else But You." In their rendering they mess up a couple times, which cracks them up and they giggle. And as I’m watching the video, I’m thinking, that’s the best part, just them laughing.
Tyler: That's also what's nice about the recording we did last spring in Boulder, like the mistakes are there. You’re not like this Frankenstein monster of all these different parts, where you get rid of all the mistakes.
Adam: Is this it?
Tyler: What's the number?
Adam: 24. 24 East 37th. Must be it.
Morgan employee: How can I help you?
Adam: We have an appointment to see a poem.
Morgan Employee: What’s the name?
Adam: It’s Tyler and Adam, here for Prowling Bee.
Employee: Okay, follow me.
[Voice memo pause]
Adam: [In a whisper] Here we are in the special reading room of The Morgan. There are 4 or five people in here looking at manuscripts. We have the poem in front of us.
Tyler: Tell me about that "Eternity."
Adam: That "Eternity." Well, in Emily's handwriting there's always that magisterial E. And then the T is crossed and swoops down through the duration of the word.
Tyler: Which is broken in the middle.
Adam: Which is broken in the middle, like Eternity itself. I mean, that looks like a pretty deliberate break, right, between the r and the n. Like, why would you?
Tyler: “Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell." Eternity is parting there. The two are split.
Adam: Like if you're not thinking metaphorically about that split, but just for practical handwriting reasons, why would it be there? I mean, can you think of a reason to split the word like that?
Tyler: The practical reason would be, in cursive, to make sure that the r and the n don't form an m together is the only reason I could think of.
Adam: Ahhh, Right. That make sense. That's a big gap she leaves though.
Tyler: I imagined her dashes, since the dashes are such a prominent part of her work, would be much larger. They're teeny tiny dashes here.
Adam: Well, some of them. Her dashes seem to have different lengths and weights.
Tyler: So reversed -dash- divinity?
Adam: Reversed -dash- divinity, yeah. Reversed -dash- divinity? I don't think there was a dash between Reversed and Divinity in the online version was there?
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: So this can read differently, right? This could read time -dash- reversed." The Reversed could be qualifying Time.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: Yeah, that changes things.
Tyler: Yeah, I wonder why they did that?
Adam: If you have the reversed coming after time and then "divinity that our noble eyes the quality perceive," It's a different thing. Yeah, the online version is different. That’s a very clear dash between reversed and divinity there.
[Long pause]
Adam: Eternity obtained in time reversed. I think you can read it as Eternity being reversed. Since we are are alive, and subject to time, we are the reverse of Eternity, which is beyond any measure of time. We are an inversion of Eternity, which is Divinity. It's the opposite of how you normally see Divinity. So Divinity has been reversed too I guess.
[Long pause]
Tyler: An interesting editorial decision too. Look at “through” on the last line.
Adam: Oh, where it’s just “thro'”
Tyler: And in the online version it is “THROUGH.”
Adam: Yeah, see, come on!
Tyler: Because "thro'" can be read a couple different ways. It can be read as “throw.”
Adam: "Throw their comparative." Yeah, throw it away! I think it is meant to be "through," but I still think you should leave her spellings alone. Like she often spells "upon" as "opon."
[Long pause]
Adam: I just love those Ys on Eternity and Divinity.
Tyler: Yeah. Looking at this now, I see this is not a formal gift, like I’ve written you this formal poem. This is more like, I’m passing you a note.
Adam: Yeah,
Tyler: I mean, if you were gonna make this into a gift for somebody, you would rewrite it and you wouldn’t, like, you would not let the space run at the end right there. This is just like, I’m gonna pass her a note today.
Adam: And yet it is incredibly tightly written, metrically. Like, no, you’re not just dashing this off. This has been composed, right, down to the dashes.
Tyler: But it shows this is a first draft, as opposed to something that she labored over, and then wrote out a good draft to pass on.
Adam: Right. The ending is a bit squished onto the page here, so maybe the presentation wasn't essential. But I bet there were drafts. Maybe it was worked out in her head first. Or maybe it’s like Chinese calligraphy.
Burba: mm-hmm.
Adam: Where it’s just like they do it very quickly, but they’ve been working at it for years, so they can capture nuances quickly you know?
Tyler: I see. All these other little dashes, are they just pen mistakes, like between reversed and divinity?
Adam: They could be.
Tyler: You also have that little mark right there, but then you have these other little dashes throughout. Like look between there and comparative.
Adam: Yeah.Yeah. I think that’s meant to be there.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: But it’s a strange place to put a dash; "through their -dash- comparative."
Tyler: Mm-hmm. It's almost like sometimes they're not meant so much as syntax, but as a place to pause, take a breath or something like that, "through their -pause- comparative." But it changes the meaning though, right? "Though their Comparative" versus "through their - Comparative."
Adam: It does change it. And it makes it even more difficult to make sense of them poem.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
A: It's already a syntactically difficult poem. But I think Sue was just so adept at being able to get the nuances of Emily’s poems.
[Long pause]
Tyler: So who was the main editor that took all these formulated and put them in the line breaks where they are.
Adam: Well, this is a long history. The first woman was Mabel Loomis Todd. She was Austin's lover. She was kind of Sue's rival in a way, right? Although I think part of the reason Austin didn’t stick with Sue is possibly because Sue was really in love with Emily. He complained about her being frigid. By the way, Sue was also known as being like this amazing hostess. Like you know, Emerson would come by her salon, and Frances Hodgson Burnett, who wrote "The Secret Garden." All these amazing writers and artists would come by, and they all talked about what an amazing hostess Sue was. So anyway, she was someone on Emily’s level, you know.
So this women Mabel Loomis Todd, that's her name, she came into town, young and beautiful. Emily's nephew was in madly love with her, but she herself fell in love with Emily's brother, and Sue's huband, the much older Austin. So her and Austin had this long affair, but she herself was obsessed with Emily. She never got to see her in person because Emily was so reclusive, but one time she was playing piano in the Dickinson library and Emily was in her room and, reportedly, Emily sent her a glass of sherry as a way of saying thank you for the music.
So then after Emily dies, Mabel devoted her life to her getting her published. I mean without her it's possible that we wouldn't have Emily's poems today, so it’s a great wrinkle to this whole thing that Austin’s lover becomes obsessed with Emily and ends up being his wife's lover's literary executor.
Tyler: She could never get out of her shadow!
Adam: Yeah. And then ends up devoting her life to her. It's a wild wrinkle to the whole thing. So, yeah, she reformatted a lot of the poems to help them get published.. And she partnered with this guy, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who is an amazing writer in his own right, an abolitionist and feminist. A lot of Emily's most famous letters are to him. So he helped Mabel Loomis Todd with this project of getting her published. And, you know, he also changed some of the poems and regularized, normalized, the poems.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: But strangely, to truly read them, you almost have to see them handwritten. And it helps to hold them in your hands!
Pretending to be Sue
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: You know, it changes them, as we see here. Like, at least for me, there is a suggestion because of that dash there, that it's time that's reversed.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: And then it could be read as "Divinity that our ignoble eyes the quality perceive," right?
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: But also, again, it goes back to this idea, at least my theory is, that these were composed to a melody. So that plays into it too, right? Like if you're thinking melodically, "reverse divinity" is one melodic unit. It's not "time reversed" you know?
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: I'm looking back at the beginning of the poem. There's something about that doubling of the double. There’s almost like a sense of the way that Shakespeare uses it in Macbeth, where there's a constant use of the word double, where doubling is always being doubled. It's signalling that there's a proliferation unto eternity. And remember the thing I said about Sue being a mathematician?
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: Like two becomes four, becomes eight, becomes, you know what I mean? There's a proliferation in the first two lines of two becoming more, two doubling, then the next line, "the privilege of few," brings it back down to rarity. So it's like a proliferation and then a slimming back down. It's math.
Tyler: Right.
Adam: She's got that poem "Forever is composed of nows." [Fr690] So that idea too, of eternity, you know, like the moment being eternal, having an eternal quality, proliferating infinitely.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: I think you see that in the line here, “Eternity obtained in Time.” Forever is composed of Nows.
Tyler: It makes sense with Reversed Divinity, experience the eternal in the ephemera of the now.
Adam: Yeah.
Tyler: Which should be the opposite of the eternal because it's ephemeral.
Adam: Yeah, but if forever is composed of nows, then now is the real, like you're touching, you're constantly touching Eternity.
Tyler: mm-hmm.
Adam: You know, somehow it's got that mystical quality of tying you into the preciousness of the moment. And then again, "the smallest human heart's extent" reduces eternity to nothing. You know it's THAT precious. What a love letter!
Tyler: Incredible. The fact that there was a dash between reverse and divinity, I think is something that, uh, changes it as well.
Adam: Yeah. Reversed.
Tyler: So when there's no dash there, you see it as one unit. "Reversed divinity" becomes a unit, but when there's a dash there, they become independent of each other.
Adam: Yeah.
Tyler: So reverse could be dealing with time.
Adam: It could definitely be qualifying time.
Tyler: It could be qualifying the following line, Divinity that our ignoble eyes the quality perceive.
Adam: Because then to see divinity in each other is ignoble.
Tyler: Mm-hmm. Right.
Adam: Because it's not godly.
Tyler: It's heresy. Yeah. But it's a very romantic troubadour way of looking at Divinity.
Adam: Yeah, that's crazy that that dash gets taken out. I think even in the official version that I have, like most current one, which is called "Her poems preserved," I'm pretty sure they took the dash outta that one too. I think you gotta keep that dash in.
Tyler: I think so too. Because it allows the ambiguity or the, what's the word?
Adam: The syntactic ambiguity, you mean?
Tyler: Yeah, well that, but where you can go either way. I can't think the word. I'll think of it in a second, when it is too late.
Adam: Um, ambivalence?
Tyler: Ambivalence is not the right word. Well, taking out the dash pins down the syntax. So it's saying this should be read this way, as opposed to with having that dash there, the reverse could refer to time or it could reverse to divinity or both. There's much more play when you have the dash there.
Adam: Yeah.
Tyler: Because it's like you have these two entities, these two meanings that are gonna shoot sparks at each other, as opposed to being one entity, "Reversed Divinity," which is already a very interesting concept.
Adam: Sometimes I call it a sliding modifier.
Tyler: Hmm. There's also that dash at the end, which is also taken out. We already talked about that though, between there and comparative.
Adam: Oh, yeah. That's a clear dash. I mean, I'm sorry, but I don't think that's a pen mark.
[long pause]
And in that version, was there a dash after Immortal? Was it "two -dash- were immortal -dash- twice"?
Tyler: No, that one's taken out too.
Adam: That's an important one too.
Tyler: So you compare the two. You have "Two were Immortal twice" versus "Two were Immortal (pause) twice."
Adam: Yeah, in the second one you get a stronger emphasis on the Immortality, and the word "twice" too.
Tyler: Yeah. And look, they include the dash that's after "few" in this one, but they don't after the "immortal."
Adam: Well, the other thing that I should mention is that there are two versions of this poem. The online version is transcribed from the poem that is in the fascicle. We don't have access to that version to see what they were working with.
Tyler: Mm.
Adam: So there's a version online, and in "Her Poems Preserved," which is the one in the fascicle, and then there's this version which gave to Sue. So it's like she kept a copy for herself.
Tyler: Mm-hmm. Sort of, and she gave copy to, she gave them to other people.
Adam; But, since this is a poem to Sue, I think focusing on the extra dashes is worthwhile. I think she probably cared about Sue more as a reader than she did future unknown readers.
Tyler: Yeah. Especially as this is kind of an inside -not joke- but an inside language.
Adam: So, yeah, when I read this one, I just wanna stop for a second after "Two were Immortal," right?
Tyler: Yeah.
Adam: Whereas "two were immortal twice" just makes me think about the weirdness of the two being immortal twice. But here I just stop at two were immortal.
Tyler: and it makes more sense for twice to be referring to the next line, the privilege of few, twice the privilege of few, eternity obtained.
Adam: Why? How does that make sense?
Tyler: Well, I just mean that instead of twice being describing how many times they were immortal, it's talking about two instances.
Adam: Ah.
Tyler: this could definitely be fodder for your essay, those two readings of this. Or there's already 20,000 readings of this, but especially if there's a different reading that you can glean from if you put these dashes back in.
Adam: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if the twice is referring to two being immortal together, as in were immortal together in life, and then we'll be immortal again later after we die, or if the twice is that it's happening once for you and once for me now. You know what I'm saying? I can't quite get in her mind as much as I would like to.
I'm just imagining like, okay, you're Sue and you're reading this right. Um, I mean the two and few could even be riffing off the name Sue a little bit.
Tyler: Mm hmm
Adam: Twice is like a, a doubling of the two of them, the privilege of few. We're privileged in what we have. We've obtained eternity, in time reversed. We've reversed time. You could read it that way.
Tyler: mm-hmm.
Adam: We've reversed the effects of time and just stopped it. Reversed it.
[long pause]
Tyler: What do you make of Paradise Superlative?
Adam: Well, on one hand it's the privilege of few, like we share a paradise that's superlative to others. But I also think she's talking about effect of the ignoble; she's talking about this paradise being superlative to the idea of the paradise that everybody else has, like this is a better paradise. And again, that comes from looking at other poems of hers where she has that same idea. In another poem, she actually uses the word sordid to qualify Paradise. Because like, if our desire is ignoble, there's something sordid about our paradise, but I don't want a paradise that you're not in, that I'm not here with you. Let me find it. Here it is, Fr706,
Because You saturated Sight –
And I had no more Eyes For sordid excellence As Paradise
So there she's saying, I don't have eyes for that kind of Paradise. It's excellent, but it's sordid. Right?
Tyler: Because Sue saturated her sight.
Adam: It continues,
And were You lost, I would be – Though My Name Rang loudest On the Heavenly fame –
So that gives a new quality to this, that paradise is superlative, but it's ignoble, right? Instead of looking at what we have is as ignoble, the heavenly Paradise is ignoble.
Tyler: You're reversing divinity, Adam. Careful. You get kicked out of your Catholic school for that.
Adam: Ruh roh. The quality perceived of paradise superlative through their comparative. I think she's comparing the two paradises, but how she's doing it is a little hard to figure out.
Tyler: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? You're more lovely and more temperate.
Adam: Yeah. Another comparison.
Tyler: I think that's a good reading.
Adam: Yeah. I don't know that I have clarity on it. I mean my original take on it, which I thought was beautiful, but now I think is totally wrong, was that comparison is what's ignoble. You know, because she has other poems that eschew the idea of comparison.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: Like once you start comparing, you've lost the thread, you know? So I don't know if that rings completely wrong here, that it's ignoble to compare, but I think it's probably wrong looking at how the syntax works. But maybe the idea's in there.
Tyler: I'm reading it as that's how they are reversing divinity, right, is through the flesh and bones, and it's through these fallen bodies. Yeah. In the fallen state. That's what make the eyes ignoble. That's how it's reversed divinity. because they've reentered the Garden of Eden without the permission of God.
Adam: It's like she trafficked in the heretical. You know, they're very bold poems because she is reversing divinity often. I mean, it's almost part of her project. It's so fascinating because I think she has a real feel of the Christ idea.
Tyler: Mm-hmm.
Adam: And at one point, in a couple poems, she's like, "Christ is now and here, like I am, you know? She's got a bunch of interesting poems about that Christ, inferring that he didn't just live then, it's a current thing in each of us. She identifies with it, you know, she has a poem about the Martyr poets for instance [Fr665]. She identifies with this idea of sacrifice of self, and yet she seemed to have no real love for God the father.
Tyler: Burglar banker father.
Adam: Right!
Tyler: Yeah. Or the little tippler. I don't know if that little tippler is supposed to be God or some other type of angel.
Adam: I always thought Dickinson was talking about herself.
Tyler: But it's also being like the paradise of nature. So God's kingdom is on earth. Men do not see it. You know, that old thing, just like that mystical union, that there's eternity and paradise is not out there or up there. It's right here, which is the reversal of the doctrine
Adam: Reversed Divinity.
[Here the voice memo ends]
So that's the deep dive into this poem Tyler and I took while holding the original poem in our hands. You can check out Tyler Burba's new album (which he did not, after all, title Zero At The Bone) here. It's amazing. You can also find his other albums here. All incredible.
Despair’s advantage is achieved By suffering - Despair - To be assisted of Reverse One must Reverse have bore -
The Worthiness of Suffering like The Worthiness of Death Is ascertained by tasting - As can no other Mouth
Of Savors - make me conscious -
As did ourselves partake - Affliction feels impalpable Until Ourselves are struck -
-Fr854, J799, Fascicle 38, 1864
Here is the last of the four commentaries for Prowling Bee written by Anthony Madrid. Anthony is a poet and critic and wrote the introduction for Face to Face, by Martha Dickinson, which is an account of Martha (Mattie) Dickinson growing up with her favorite Aunt, Emily.
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The meaning is: You cannot benefit from another person’s death or despair. Those things have to be yours, if you’re to learn from them or whatever. If you’re to get their benefit.
Part of Emily Elizabeth’s strength is she thinks that suffering and despair and death are all worthy. To be “struck” is not entirely bad. She compares it to a good flavor.
The philosopher David Hume liked to use the taste of pineapple as an example of something one must know for oneself. He says, in the Treatise on Human Nature, that no amount of verbal description will get you anywhere near the sensation of pineapple. If you wanna know, you have to taste. — And, of course, he’s saying many, many things are like this.
Not saying Dickinson had read Hume. She never gave a damn about 18th-century literature; her thing was Shakespeare. And Shakespeare loves to have his characters say “Don’t try to advise me, unless you’ve been there.” That’s not the same concept as the Dickinson, but it’s related.
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