Recent posts have been about Dickinson & trees, and yesterday I shared her ode to the hemlock, “I think the Hemlock likes to stand.” A few things jumped out at me about this poem, and I said that I’d clue you in about that this morning.
 | On this surface, these lines celebrate the majesty of the stately trees which thrive in their preferred climate of cold austerity; however, the work also pays tribute to the constitution of a character type, perhaps an individual person? Perhaps her father? In letters, Dickinson described her father as a stern, controlling figure who was both respected and feared, though she also acknowledged his deep love and complicated nature. “His Heart was pure and terrible and I think no other like it exists,” she wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Info on Dickinson’s father is HERE. I love that opening image in the first stanza of “I think the Hemlock likes to stand,” and I can appreciate how the lines very well might describe Edward Dickinson, but what caught my eye was that second line, “Upon a Marge of Snow.” Huh? What’s a “Marge”? I have to admit – that’s one that was new to me. |
I looked it up to find a “marge” is an edge or border of something; esp. a river bank, shore.” Above the entry, the OED added, “Now chiefly poetic.” I was surprised, though, by the OED’s frequency graph. The word itself is not a frequently used word, usage from the 1850s (per million words in written English) decreased by only .05 percent by 2010 – or 50,000 times.
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Really? For a word that is “chiefly poetic,” it is still used 100,000 times per written word? Oh – maybe that has to do with the secondary definitions. LOL – I had no idea. Hmm…I wonder if this has anything to do with “Large Marge” from “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.” #justasking
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’Twas a “Marge of Snow” piqued my interest in the poem, but wait – there’s more! I would venture to say that this poem is not necessarily “readily accessible” to today’s general public. Dickinson definitely had a robust vocabulary, plus – as you can see throughout the poem – she was highly intelligent. Was she being purposely profound or esoteric in this work? Not really. Of course, she did use terminology more readily accessible to those of her age, and she did write for an educated reader, but I would not aver that she was being deliberately complex so as not to be understood – say, like Ezra Pound.
So here we are on Dickinson’s Marge, and tomorrow, I’ll continue my discussion in an attempt to slake one’s interest in this poem.
So here we are on Dickinson’s Marge, and tomorrow, I’ll continue my discussion in an attempt to slake one’s interest in this poem.
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