Yesterday, I posted two “titanic” poems, “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’” and “I think I was enchanted”: both use the word “titanic,” and ”both are quite powerful (HERE).
Of course, neither poem refers to the White Star liner, the Titanic. That ship sailed – and sank – in 1912, and Dickinson’s “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’” was written in 1860, and “I think I was enchanted” was written in 1863.
Today I have some info on “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes,” and to start, I found this comment on a blog site I linked yesterday:
“‘I have never seen volcanoes’ (F165, 1860) is the first of ED's eleven volcano poems: F165, F207, F425, F517, F764, F1161, F1429, F1472, F1691, F1703, F1776. The year of the last volcano poem in Franklin’s numbered list is unknown. No copy in ED’s handwriting exists, but Mabel Todd transcribed a printer’s copy for her 1896 edition of ED’s poems. That is all we have.”
Some of this info needs a bit of correction, though.
First, the list is missing F1743, one of Dickinson’s five poems which actually uses the word “volcano,” “On my volcano grows the grass” – so that would bring the number of volcano poems noted above to twelve.
However two of the eleven poems listed by the commentator are not volcano poem – at least not that I could tell: F425, “was like a Maelstrom, with a notch,” and F1429, “I shall not murmur it at last.” Sooo…that brings the volcano list down to ten.
Of these ten, five actually use the word “volcano” (as I mentioned earlier), and the other five either feature volcanos (like F1161, “When Etna basks and purrs”) or they include volcanic images (F764, “My life had stood a loaded gun” – with its line “it is as a Vesuvian face”) or volcanic language (F207, “I taste a liquor never brewed” – with it’s image “Reeling – thro’ endless summer days / From inns of molten blue”).
The same commentator also noted that “During 1860, the year ED wrote ‘I have never seen volcanoes’, French archeologists were excavating Pompeii” (FYI: On August 24, 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii) and “ED must have followed the excavation news closely because she used volcanoes and Pompeii as metaphors for the rest of her life.”
One other correction: From what I could find, the devastation in Pompeii had been studied since at least 1748, but excavations proceeded arbitrarily. Haphazard digging was brought to a stop in 1860, when the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli became director of the excavations, and it was he who pioneered the technique for fashioning plaster casts by pouring cement into the hollows formed in the volcanic ash where the bodies had disintegrated – so it is likely that Dickinson read about this work.
Sooo…in 1860 Dickinson pens a poem about volcanoes – and likens such planetary ruptures to the human penchant to harbor “pain Titanic” and “smouldering anguish” under the surface – while our “Features keep their place.”
Hmm…was something going on in Dickinson’s life in 1860? Stay tuned.
Of course, neither poem refers to the White Star liner, the Titanic. That ship sailed – and sank – in 1912, and Dickinson’s “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes’” was written in 1860, and “I think I was enchanted” was written in 1863.
Today I have some info on “I have never seen ‘Volcanoes,” and to start, I found this comment on a blog site I linked yesterday:
“‘I have never seen volcanoes’ (F165, 1860) is the first of ED's eleven volcano poems: F165, F207, F425, F517, F764, F1161, F1429, F1472, F1691, F1703, F1776. The year of the last volcano poem in Franklin’s numbered list is unknown. No copy in ED’s handwriting exists, but Mabel Todd transcribed a printer’s copy for her 1896 edition of ED’s poems. That is all we have.”
Some of this info needs a bit of correction, though.
First, the list is missing F1743, one of Dickinson’s five poems which actually uses the word “volcano,” “On my volcano grows the grass” – so that would bring the number of volcano poems noted above to twelve.
However two of the eleven poems listed by the commentator are not volcano poem – at least not that I could tell: F425, “was like a Maelstrom, with a notch,” and F1429, “I shall not murmur it at last.” Sooo…that brings the volcano list down to ten.
Of these ten, five actually use the word “volcano” (as I mentioned earlier), and the other five either feature volcanos (like F1161, “When Etna basks and purrs”) or they include volcanic images (F764, “My life had stood a loaded gun” – with its line “it is as a Vesuvian face”) or volcanic language (F207, “I taste a liquor never brewed” – with it’s image “Reeling – thro’ endless summer days / From inns of molten blue”).
The same commentator also noted that “During 1860, the year ED wrote ‘I have never seen volcanoes’, French archeologists were excavating Pompeii” (FYI: On August 24, 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii) and “ED must have followed the excavation news closely because she used volcanoes and Pompeii as metaphors for the rest of her life.”
One other correction: From what I could find, the devastation in Pompeii had been studied since at least 1748, but excavations proceeded arbitrarily. Haphazard digging was brought to a stop in 1860, when the Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli became director of the excavations, and it was he who pioneered the technique for fashioning plaster casts by pouring cement into the hollows formed in the volcanic ash where the bodies had disintegrated – so it is likely that Dickinson read about this work.
Sooo…in 1860 Dickinson pens a poem about volcanoes – and likens such planetary ruptures to the human penchant to harbor “pain Titanic” and “smouldering anguish” under the surface – while our “Features keep their place.”
Hmm…was something going on in Dickinson’s life in 1860? Stay tuned.
| Dickinson's poems which use the word "Volcano": F165 I have never seen “Volcanoes” F517 A still – Volcano – Life – F1691 Volcanoes be in Sicily F1776 The reticent volcano keeps F1743 On my volcano grows the Grass | Dickinson's poems which include volcanic imagery: F207 I taste a liquor never brewed (“Reeling – thro’ endless summer days / From inns of molten blue”) F764 My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – (“it is as a Vesuvian face”) F1161 When Etna basks and purrs F1472 How good his Lava Bed F1703 The wind drew off (“Volcanic cloud”) |
Two other poems were mentioned as "volcano poems" in the list above, though I could not find any connection to volcanoes in the lines: F425: ‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch -- and -- F1429 I shall not murmur it at last.
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