In a few posts back at the start of September, I highlighted a couple of poems by Dickinson that used the word “arid” in an unexpected way. The first, when I discussed “There is an arid pleasure,” is HERE. That post includes this:
“I LOVE that comparison of ‘arid Pleasure’ and Joy to Frost and Dew: similar elements, but fundamentally opposed (‘one – rejoices Flowers / And one – the Flowers abhor’). I find it interesting to note that Dickinson is not talking about the opposite of joy, something like misery or despair; instead she’s pairing joy with pleasure, ‘like elements,’ but asserting that they are antithetical – and it all boils down to that word ‘arid.’”
In a later post, HERE, I included thoughts on the poem “Rather arid delight,” and I noted this:
“Well great googly-moogly – will you look at that pairing of words in the first line, ‘arid delight’; they certainly echo ‘arid pleasure.’ And take a look at line 4: ‘Not so good as joy.’
Hmm. When were these two poems written – and what was going on in Dickinson’s life?”
Johnson dates “There is an arid pleasure” from 1863; Franklin dates it from 1864; both editions list “Rather arid delight” as undated.
So what was going on in Dickinson’s life around 1863/64?
The Dickinson Museum provides three bio-pages centered on the poet’s life, and they have divided her years as follows:
Of course, it was in April 1862, when the poet so famously wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?” She was responding to his article in The Atlantic entitled “A Letter to a Young Contributor.”
Higginson did write back with comments about the four poems she had included with her letter. “Thank you for the surgery- it was not so painful as I supposed,” wrote Dickinson in her follow-up letter, dated April 25, 1862.
In that missive, she responded to various questions Higginson had asked – about her age, her companions, her favorite books. At one point, though, she threw in this baffling and enigmatic line:
“I had a terror-since September-I could tell to none-and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground-because I am afraid –”
A terror? Since September 1861? And she could tell no one?
What in the world do you think was going on?
“I LOVE that comparison of ‘arid Pleasure’ and Joy to Frost and Dew: similar elements, but fundamentally opposed (‘one – rejoices Flowers / And one – the Flowers abhor’). I find it interesting to note that Dickinson is not talking about the opposite of joy, something like misery or despair; instead she’s pairing joy with pleasure, ‘like elements,’ but asserting that they are antithetical – and it all boils down to that word ‘arid.’”
In a later post, HERE, I included thoughts on the poem “Rather arid delight,” and I noted this:
“Well great googly-moogly – will you look at that pairing of words in the first line, ‘arid delight’; they certainly echo ‘arid pleasure.’ And take a look at line 4: ‘Not so good as joy.’
Hmm. When were these two poems written – and what was going on in Dickinson’s life?”
Johnson dates “There is an arid pleasure” from 1863; Franklin dates it from 1864; both editions list “Rather arid delight” as undated.
So what was going on in Dickinson’s life around 1863/64?
The Dickinson Museum provides three bio-pages centered on the poet’s life, and they have divided her years as follows:
Of course, it was in April 1862, when the poet so famously wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?” She was responding to his article in The Atlantic entitled “A Letter to a Young Contributor.”
Higginson did write back with comments about the four poems she had included with her letter. “Thank you for the surgery- it was not so painful as I supposed,” wrote Dickinson in her follow-up letter, dated April 25, 1862.
In that missive, she responded to various questions Higginson had asked – about her age, her companions, her favorite books. At one point, though, she threw in this baffling and enigmatic line:
“I had a terror-since September-I could tell to none-and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground-because I am afraid –”
A terror? Since September 1861? And she could tell no one?
What in the world do you think was going on?
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