Yesterday I shared a poem by Dickinson which greatly impressed – and disturbed – her early editor, Mabel Loomis Todd. Following the publication and positive reception of the first editions of Dickinson’s works, Todd gave public talks on the poet and her poetry, and in a letter to her co-editor Higginson following a talk to a “Women’s Club” in Springfield, Massachusetts, Todd spoke of conversations she’d had with individuals following her presentation. She disclosed that “The (poem) most often verbally quoted to me as a favorite is, ‘The heart asks pleasure first.’ Oh how could Emily epitomize life so perfectly and with such bitter force! With hardly a shadow of form, this poem almost breaks my heart; and it seems to appeal to many others similarly.”
The eight line poem is divided into two four-line stanzas. For the most part, it is a mix of lines of iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter; syllables progress as 6 – 6 – 8 – 6 / 6 – 6 – 8 – 6 – or 5 syllables in the final line if you pronounce “privilege” as “priv-lij” – i.e., two syllables. I suppose this construction along with the poem’s line-to-dash ratio (8 lines, 10 dashes) prompted Todd to characterize the work as one with “hardly a shadow of form.” As for the tenor and message of the lines, I suspect that the they do – especially for many less-than-cheery souls – “epitomize life so perfectly and with such bitter force.”
Dickinson seems to have been ahead of her time with her premise, though. It wasn’t until the 1940s that Maslow presented his hierarchy of needs (physiological > safety > love/belonging > esteem > self-actualization), and it wasn’t until the late 1960s that Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief (denial > anger > bargaining > depression > acceptance). Perhaps they'd both read Dickinson? ED’s poem seems to suggest an analogous hierarchy characterized by Pleasure/Joy > Safety > Physiological Care > Sleep/Death.
Yikes – at the end of line 5, is that “sleep” akin to Hamlet’s supposition, “by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to”? Hamlet adds, “'tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wish'd” – which echoes the chord struck in Dickinson’s final line.
The Dickinson-Shakespeare connection is certainly possible as Dickinson loved reading Shakespeare. In a letter to her friend Joseph Lyman in early 1870 she described a time when she was being treated for eye trouble in Cambridge and said this: “Then I settled down to a willingness for all the rest to go but William Shakespear (sic). Why need we Joseph read anything else but him.” Evidently, she repeated this language about Shakespeare to Higginson too. He passed on this anecdote in a letter to his wife sent in August of that same year: “After long disuse of her eyes she read Shakespeare & thought Why is any other book needed.”
To jumble Dickinson and Shakespeare, is it nobler for the heart to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and to take anodynes against a sea of troubles and drift – toward sleep?
Happily, guidance on all of this appeared out of the blue this morning as I completed my daily crossword puzzle. The clue for the 15-letter answer read, “Encouragement to a writer who shows an early penchant for rhyme?”
The answer:
YOUCOULDDOVERSE
Dickinson seems to have been ahead of her time with her premise, though. It wasn’t until the 1940s that Maslow presented his hierarchy of needs (physiological > safety > love/belonging > esteem > self-actualization), and it wasn’t until the late 1960s that Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief (denial > anger > bargaining > depression > acceptance). Perhaps they'd both read Dickinson? ED’s poem seems to suggest an analogous hierarchy characterized by Pleasure/Joy > Safety > Physiological Care > Sleep/Death.
Yikes – at the end of line 5, is that “sleep” akin to Hamlet’s supposition, “by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to”? Hamlet adds, “'tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wish'd” – which echoes the chord struck in Dickinson’s final line.
The Dickinson-Shakespeare connection is certainly possible as Dickinson loved reading Shakespeare. In a letter to her friend Joseph Lyman in early 1870 she described a time when she was being treated for eye trouble in Cambridge and said this: “Then I settled down to a willingness for all the rest to go but William Shakespear (sic). Why need we Joseph read anything else but him.” Evidently, she repeated this language about Shakespeare to Higginson too. He passed on this anecdote in a letter to his wife sent in August of that same year: “After long disuse of her eyes she read Shakespeare & thought Why is any other book needed.”
To jumble Dickinson and Shakespeare, is it nobler for the heart to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and to take anodynes against a sea of troubles and drift – toward sleep?
Happily, guidance on all of this appeared out of the blue this morning as I completed my daily crossword puzzle. The clue for the 15-letter answer read, “Encouragement to a writer who shows an early penchant for rhyme?”
The answer:
YOUCOULDDOVERSE
Below: Other sociological hierarchies developed, I'm sure, from interpretations of Dickinson:
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