Yesterday I posted Dickinson’s poem “‘Nature’ is what We see" (HERE), and in Cristanne Miller’s edition of Dickinson’s “complete poems,” the editor included this note: (This poem) “echoes ideas Emerson develops in ‘Nature’ (1863); ED called a book of Emerson’s essays ‘a little Granite Book you can lean upon!’ (L481)”
I included a link to Emerson’s essay – and I also mentioned a poem by Emerson that I remembered reading back in my college days. That poem was “Each and All,” and I Googled it yesterday to re-read it.
Yikes – there was some pretty weird stuff going on there that I didn’t remember at all.
Below: "Each and All" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I included a link to Emerson’s essay – and I also mentioned a poem by Emerson that I remembered reading back in my college days. That poem was “Each and All,” and I Googled it yesterday to re-read it.
Yikes – there was some pretty weird stuff going on there that I didn’t remember at all.
Below: "Each and All" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
I knew that it was a nature poem, and I remembered that Emerson depicted all things in nature – living and non-living – as being interconnected.
I recalled that the poem included various images to support the idea that “All are needed by each one / Nothing is fair or good alone.” Specifically, I remembered the lines about the sparrow – and how its song diminished when the speaker captured the bird and brought it home – for “I did not bring home the river and sky; He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye.”
I also remembered the shells from the shore that lost their luster once removed from their setting (“the poor, unsightly, noisome things / Had left their beauty on the shore”).
What I did NOT remember was the red-cloaked clown atop the hill – what in the world is that all about? Nor did I recall the heifer, the sexton tolling his bell, or the mention of Napolean (I assume he’s there to represent worldly news?).
And then –
And then came lines 29 to 39 – when the lover’s graceful maid lost her beauty and her “gay enchantment” when they married and she became a housewife. Alas, the hausfrau lamented, “Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat / I leave it behind with the games of youth.”
Okay, so that might be true – LOL, I look in the mirror daily to see what aging and gravity have done to my stunningly good looks (LOL again) – but c’mon Emerson – this truth is applied to the woman alone? I’m sure all the old men in Emerson’s time retained their youthful looks, spirit and enchantment (let me throw in a third LOL).
I did not remember that part of the poem at all – and I can’t remember if back, in my college days, we were all appalled by those lines or not. I do remember discussing the notion of “the each and the all” in our class – but did we express disgust for such a misogynistic view – which, very obviously, was the accepted norm of Emerson’s day?
After all, Emily Dickinson’s disgust of similar societal notions and norms was evident in her poems about housewives – so if she recognized such stereotypical and sexist dictates in the late 1800s, did we recognize it in the late 1900s? I just can’t remember.
I recalled that the poem included various images to support the idea that “All are needed by each one / Nothing is fair or good alone.” Specifically, I remembered the lines about the sparrow – and how its song diminished when the speaker captured the bird and brought it home – for “I did not bring home the river and sky; He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye.”
I also remembered the shells from the shore that lost their luster once removed from their setting (“the poor, unsightly, noisome things / Had left their beauty on the shore”).
What I did NOT remember was the red-cloaked clown atop the hill – what in the world is that all about? Nor did I recall the heifer, the sexton tolling his bell, or the mention of Napolean (I assume he’s there to represent worldly news?).
And then –
And then came lines 29 to 39 – when the lover’s graceful maid lost her beauty and her “gay enchantment” when they married and she became a housewife. Alas, the hausfrau lamented, “Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat / I leave it behind with the games of youth.”
Okay, so that might be true – LOL, I look in the mirror daily to see what aging and gravity have done to my stunningly good looks (LOL again) – but c’mon Emerson – this truth is applied to the woman alone? I’m sure all the old men in Emerson’s time retained their youthful looks, spirit and enchantment (let me throw in a third LOL).
I did not remember that part of the poem at all – and I can’t remember if back, in my college days, we were all appalled by those lines or not. I do remember discussing the notion of “the each and the all” in our class – but did we express disgust for such a misogynistic view – which, very obviously, was the accepted norm of Emerson’s day?
After all, Emily Dickinson’s disgust of similar societal notions and norms was evident in her poems about housewives – so if she recognized such stereotypical and sexist dictates in the late 1800s, did we recognize it in the late 1900s? I just can’t remember.
RSS Feed
