A Coffin — is a small Domain

A Coffin — is a small Domain,
Yet able to contain
A Citizen of Paradise
In it diminished Plane.

A Grave — is a restricted Breadth —
Yet ampler than the Sun —
And all the Seas He populates
And Lands He looks upon

To Him who on its small Repose
Bestows a single Friend —
Circumference without Relief —
Or Estimate — or End —


    -Fr890, J943, 1864

The first stanza is pretty straight forward, though it is made complicated by the word "Paradise." Does Paradise refer to the once living body’s time on earth, or does it point forward to a heavenly Paradise afterward? That’s one of the poignant puzzles of this particular poem. 

Another one is to ask who "He" is in the second stanza? Is it the "Sun" or the "Son" that populates the Seas and looks upon all the Lands? In other words, Christ of Paradise to come? Or is the literal sun of Paradise lost? 

One more problem to solve. Who is the Him in the third stanza? Is it the Sun/Son from the second stanza who is looking upon all of the earth? Or is it the one, the poet, who “Bestows a single friend” upon the grave’s “small repose?” Because of the enjambment (the lack of punctuation) between the second and third stanza, I read it is the latter: the one burying the body sees their friend as more ample than all that the Sun/Son looks upon. In other words, this one in the grave meant more to the poet than all of kingdom-come does.

The lack of “relief” in the penultimate line, then, is the lack of relief from grief felt by the friend mourning the loss. There is no estimate to the love. And there is no end for it, except the grave.  

It’s worth noting that this poem is one of the many that explore the word “circumference” in Dickinson’s poetry. It may be her favorite word. She tells T.W. Higginson in a letter, “Circumference is my business.”

Circumference in this poem would be a relief because at least it would be an end to the grief. Compare this to the end of the poem preceding it, Fr889, which sees the misery of Being itself, minus love, as infinite. The circumference of our lives, the little grave, we realize, is not an unwelcome one.

On the other hand, look at the largesse of Paradise! This leaves the reader with a pertinent question. Is Paradise lost, or is it yet to be gained? 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff


P.S. When researching this poem I came across the following video essay about it by Adrian Fort. I got a kick out of Adrian’s perspective so I transcribed the video for your pleasure here. 

"I am Adrian Fort, and we are here for another poetry discussion. This poetry discussion comes to us by way of Emily Dickinson. This is not one of the better-known, more widely read Emily Dickinson poems. This is somewhat of a niche in the field of Dickinson, but we are going to do it anyway because it’s Emily Dickinson.

Before getting into the discussion, I want to define a key concept: paradox. A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself or that must be both true and untrue at the same time. Paradoxes are quirks in logic that demonstrate how our thinking sometimes goes haywire, even when we use perfectly logical reasoning to get there. But a key part of paradoxes is that they at least sound reasonable. They’re not obvious nonsense, and it’s only upon consideration that we realize their self-defeating logic.

This poem, I think, is a paradox that does not have self-defeating logic, and I’ll get into a little bit about what I mean by that. But when we look at this poem, Emily Dickinson is at times completely impenetrable for a reader, so if this poem doesn’t mean a whole lot to you, don’t worry about it. Get a coffee, grab yourself a cookie, and eventually this poem will make sense to you—at least insofar as it does speak to you.

Here is what I will tell you I believe the poem is talking about. A coffin is a small domain, yet able to contain a citizen of paradise in its diminished plane. Here we’re talking about a coffin being a small thing, but what it contains is vast, is large—it is the actual thing which was alive. People. It contains a person. A coffin contains a person, right?

People are all we really have. People are our entire reality, for the most part, right? Some of us are hermits, but even a hermit like Emily Dickinson is able to talk about a citizen of paradise—paradise being the next world. That citizen of paradise is contained in this little box.

Then we get: a grave is restricted breadth. It’s a small thing, a restricted breadth, yet ampler than the sun and all the seas he populates and lands he looks upon. To him who on its small repose bestows a single friend, circumference without relief or estimate or end.

So this part of the poem, as opposed to the first part of the poem, is talking about the great big thing that a grave is. A grave contains a coffin. A coffin is a small thing. A grave is dug exclusively for a coffin—it is meant to fit the coffin. It is a small thing that contains a large thing. The grave is a small thing that contains the large thing.

That is the paradox here. But I don’t think it has to be self-defeating logic, because it is literal versus idea, right? The literal thing—the literal coffin, the literal grave—is a small thing, but what it contains is so very large, is so very important. The grave, the coffin—they are small little things. The grave, the coffin contain everything that matters. The grave, the coffin contain everything there is to be had.

So this is a paradox, but it is not necessarily self-defeating, and this is the brilliance of Emily Dickinson.

So what is a paradox? A paradox is self-defeating, but if you include that self-defeating mechanism in a completely different type of reading, then you contain the original thesis. So a paradox is essentially thesis and counter-thesis in one idea, right?

Here we have the thesis that a grave and a coffin are both small things. We have the counter-thesis that the thing inside that little bitty thing is a great big thing. But when you dichotomize literal from literary—literal little thing, literary great big thing—the paradox can stand.

Emily Dickinson is my favorite poet. Emily Dickinson is able to do these things because these things exist in almost an astral plane, right? Emily Dickinson is able to create an entire world that is the literary. Emily Dickinson creates an entire existence outside of life.

It is difficult, I think, to reconcile this type of genius in today’s world. So one of the examples that I always like to give when speaking about true genius: Isaac Newton. Brilliant guy, right? Sort of a loner, kind of crazy.

Isaac Newton lived in a world where the plague was breaking out, and he had gotten into an argument with his friend over whether or not you could really try—I think it was track, don’t call me out on it, I’m not a math guy—track where the moon would be. The plague breaks out, both of these gentlemen are confined inside their own places, and basically on a dare, on a whim, on a “oh yeah, I bet I can,” Isaac Newton invents differentiated calculus—maybe that’s not the right term, again, I’m not a math guy—but decides yeah, you can figure that out with equations, and I’m going to invent a math. And he did it.

That type of brilliance, that type of genius, is something that is difficult for us in today’s world to really grapple with.

Emily Dickinson exists in that same space. Now, Emily Dickinson did not revolutionize physics, did not single-handedly craft a math, okay, I get it. What I mean is that everything Isaac Newton would have done to create a math was so mystifyingly cerebral that I don’t think many people have those tools. I think we are entering a world where fewer and fewer people will have those tools, because of what is necessary there.

It is so necessary to create that astral plane in your mind. Basically, each time you sit down to do that work, you have to invest some parabolic number of minutes or hours re-entering that space. So Isaac Newton starts making this math, has to take a sleep, wakes up, and in order to refine his place, to re-establish where he left off, he doesn’t just sit down and do it. He doesn’t just walk through the door. One does not simply recreate math.

He has to go through his notes and retrace those mental steps. Einstein was very good at this as well. Einstein, however, used what were known as thought experiments as shortcuts. So when he was thinking about the speed of light, one of the things he did was imagine he was on a train traveling at the speed of light—Jesse James style, hanging onto the top of the train—and he turns on a flashlight. What happens?

That’s a really useful shortcut. You still have to get back in that place, and that is what is, to me, so mystifying about 1,775 poems from Emily Dickinson.

Now, I started this off by saying maybe this poem won’t make any sense to you the first time you read it. That’s fine. It is sort of like Shakespeare and William Faulkner in the way that it helps to read Emily Dickinson out loud—but for different reasons. With Faulkner and Shakespeare, it’s the employment of the language itself. With Emily Dickinson, it is all of those dashes that screw you. Some of the line breaks screw you. A lot of what’s going on in Emily Dickinson screws you.

So to reclaim the place, reading it out loud is sort of like Einstein’s thought experiments, in that it is a cerebral shortcut. You are undermining the work it takes to silently read the words on the page, and you are short-circuiting the mental fatigue it takes to get there.

And here’s the thing: I might be absolutely wrong about what this poem is about. It might be that one of these line breaks that I’ve misinterpreted, one of these dashes that I sped right through, changes the entire composition of one or more of these stanzas. So I could be completely wrong here. I don’t know. I can’t say."