Yesterday I published a post on the recent birthday tribute to Emily Dickinson at the Folger Shakespeare Library on December 11. At that event, poet and literary critic Sandra Gilbert presented poems and commentary on Dickinson’s poetry of death and grief. Her first selection was Dickinson’s curious watch over a neighbor’s home in “There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House.”
Gilbert’s observations (HERE) focused on the unusual use of pronouns in the poem and the need to examine “every syllable” of Dickinson’s "under the microscope."
One word that came into focus under the figurative microscope as she recited the poem was “mechanically” in the 8th line. For me, it elicited a connection to one of my favorite Dickinson poems about grief, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.” In that poem, the experience of significant grief triggers a stiff, ceremonious response where “the Feet, mechanical, go round,” not unlike the involuntary “numb look/Such Houses have” in “There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House.” This is “the Hour of Lead” (one of favorite images in all of Dickinson’s poetry) when time all but freezes for the bereaved.
Later, Gilbert discussed approaches through time on the part of publishers of Dickinson’s poetry. Early editors would often change words and punctuation to make the poems more conventional; however, the prevailing approach is to publish the works as faithfully as possible as Dickinson wrote them. Again, for me, this point put “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” under the microscope.
For the most part, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” is the same in both the 1955 Johnson edition of Dickinson’s poems and the more recent Franklin edition – except for two details.
JOHNSON VERSION: After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs – The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, And Yesterday, or Centuries before? The Feet, mechanical, go round – Of Ground, or Air, or Ought – A Wooden Way Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone – This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go – | FRANKLIN VERSION: After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs – The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’ And ‘Yesterday, or Cen turies before’? The Feet, mechanical, go round – A Wooden Way Of Ground, or Air, or Ought – Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone – This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go – |
2) The sixth and seventh lines are reversed in the two editions. In the Johnson tome, the mechanical feet go round “Of Ground, or Air, or Ought / A Wooden Way.” In the Franklin edition, the feet go round “A Wooden Way / Of Ground, or Air, or Ought.”
Are these differences significant -- or inconsequential?
Just curious: Under the poetic microscope, does the addition (or omission) of the quotation marks and/or does the exchange of the two lines alter the meaning of the poem in any way?
What do you think?