A few days ago I posted early reviews of Dickinson’s work – those written between 1890 and 1900 – and many, but not all, were quite harsh. That post is HERE.
About those reviews:
In a February 1891 letter to Dickinson’s sister, Lavinia, from Thomas Wentworth Higginson, one of the early editors of Dickinson’s poetry, Higginson thanked Lavinia for sending him a portion of the first royalty check she had received from Roberts Brothers, the publishing firm that published and distributed the first edition of Poems in 1890.
About those reviews:
In a February 1891 letter to Dickinson’s sister, Lavinia, from Thomas Wentworth Higginson, one of the early editors of Dickinson’s poetry, Higginson thanked Lavinia for sending him a portion of the first royalty check she had received from Roberts Brothers, the publishing firm that published and distributed the first edition of Poems in 1890.
| In his letter, Higginson also stated this: “One thing strikes me very much in the book-notices. No two critics quote the same poems. Each finds something different. That is a much surer guarantee of permanent interest than when all fasten on one or two poems.” At the right: Higginson's letter as shown in Millicent Todd Bingham's book Ancestors' Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson. (Click the image to enlarge.) Interestingly, in my exploration of the early reviews, I found that when it came to poems the critics spurned, the opposite was true. One poem stood out as a lightning rod for critique, “I taste a liquor never brewed.” |  |
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 | In his review in Harper’s in 1891, William Dean Howells does not ravage the poem; instead he perceived influences from other poets: “(Higginson) notes ‘the quality suggestive of the poetry of William Blake’ in her, but he leaves us the chance to say that it is a Blake who had read Emmerson who had read Blake. The fantasy is as often Blakian as the philosophy is Emersonian; but after feeling this again and again, one is ready to declare that the utterance of this most singular and authentic spirit would have been the same if there had never been an Emerson or a Blake in the world. She sometimes suggests Heine as much as either of these; all three in fact are spiritually present in some of the pieces; yet it is hardly probable that she read Heine, or if she had, would not have abhorred him. |
Here is something that seems compact of both Emerson and Blake, with a touch of Heine too...."
And then he shared the poem “I taste a liquor never brewed.” Afterward he added, “But we believe it is only seeming; we believe these things are as wholly her own.”
And then he shared the poem “I taste a liquor never brewed.” Afterward he added, “But we believe it is only seeming; we believe these things are as wholly her own.”
Interestingly, in a letter from August 1862, Dickinson wrote to Higginson about the possibility of being influenced by other writers: "I marked a line in One Verse - because I met it after I made it - and never consciously touch a paint, mixed by another person-."
In a review in the London Daily News in January 1891, an anonymous commentator said this of Mr. Howells’ assessment:
“Here is a piece which Mr. Howells regards as a compound of Emerson, Heine, and Blake” – and then he shared the first stanza from the poem.
“’Alcohol’ does not rhyme to pearl, but Miss Dickinson is not to be regarded as responsible for mere rhymes. Nor for grammar! It is literally impossible to understand whether she means that she tastes a liquor never brewed at all, or a liquor never brewed ‘from’ tankards scooped in pearl. By ‘from’ she may mean ‘in.’ Let us give her the benefit of the doubt, and she still writes utter nonsense. It is clearly impossible to scoop a tankard from pearl. The material is inadequate. Now, neither Blake, nor Mr. Emerson, nor Heine was an idiot. Miss Dickinson must bear her own poetic sins; she reminds us of no sane nor educated writer.”
OUCH!
“Here is a piece which Mr. Howells regards as a compound of Emerson, Heine, and Blake” – and then he shared the first stanza from the poem.
“’Alcohol’ does not rhyme to pearl, but Miss Dickinson is not to be regarded as responsible for mere rhymes. Nor for grammar! It is literally impossible to understand whether she means that she tastes a liquor never brewed at all, or a liquor never brewed ‘from’ tankards scooped in pearl. By ‘from’ she may mean ‘in.’ Let us give her the benefit of the doubt, and she still writes utter nonsense. It is clearly impossible to scoop a tankard from pearl. The material is inadequate. Now, neither Blake, nor Mr. Emerson, nor Heine was an idiot. Miss Dickinson must bear her own poetic sins; she reminds us of no sane nor educated writer.”
OUCH!
In his review from January 1891, Maurice Thompson said this:
“Her limitations show plainly in her work and much study of Emerson has colored and shaped her vision; it has also cramped her methods of expression…Her lack was intrinsic and constitutional. Mere functional derangement of the organ of expression is curable; but here was organic lesion of the most unmistakable type. Her vision was clear and surprisingly accurate, but her touch was erratic and at frequent intervals nerveless, while her sense of completeness was singularly dull.”
OUCH!
Thompson bemoaned her unconventional rhymes, “failing often just at the point where a perfect rhyme is absolutely necessary to complete the turn of grace or the point of lyrical surprise.”
He then quoted the first stanza of “I taste a liquor never brewed,” and added, “The rhyming of ‘pearl’ with ‘alcohol’ is ludicrous.”
“Her limitations show plainly in her work and much study of Emerson has colored and shaped her vision; it has also cramped her methods of expression…Her lack was intrinsic and constitutional. Mere functional derangement of the organ of expression is curable; but here was organic lesion of the most unmistakable type. Her vision was clear and surprisingly accurate, but her touch was erratic and at frequent intervals nerveless, while her sense of completeness was singularly dull.”
OUCH!
Thompson bemoaned her unconventional rhymes, “failing often just at the point where a perfect rhyme is absolutely necessary to complete the turn of grace or the point of lyrical surprise.”
He then quoted the first stanza of “I taste a liquor never brewed,” and added, “The rhyming of ‘pearl’ with ‘alcohol’ is ludicrous.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote this in The Atlantic in January 1892:
“In her first volume of her poetical chaos is a little poem which needs only slight revision in the initial stanza in order to make it worthy of ranking with some of the odd swallow flights in Heine’s lyrical intermezzo. I have ventured to desecrate this stanza by tossing a rhyme into it, as the other stanzas happened to rhyme, and here print the lyric, hoping the reader will not accuse me of overvaluing it:
I taste a liquor never brewed
In vats upon the Rhine;
No tankard ever held a draught
Of alcohol like mine.
“In her first volume of her poetical chaos is a little poem which needs only slight revision in the initial stanza in order to make it worthy of ranking with some of the odd swallow flights in Heine’s lyrical intermezzo. I have ventured to desecrate this stanza by tossing a rhyme into it, as the other stanzas happened to rhyme, and here print the lyric, hoping the reader will not accuse me of overvaluing it:
I taste a liquor never brewed
In vats upon the Rhine;
No tankard ever held a draught
Of alcohol like mine.
He then shared the rest of the poem and continued:
“Certainly those inns of molten blue, and that disreputable honey-gatherer who got himself turned out-of-doors at the sign of the Foxglove, are very taking matters. I know of more important things that interest me less. There are three or four bits of this kind in Miss Dickinson’s book; but for the most part the ideas totter and toddle, not having learned to walk. In spite of this, several of the quatrains are curiously touching, they have such a pathetic air of yearning to be poems.
By the way – and I’ve reported this before – Aldrich concluded his review with this:
“Miss Dickinson’s versicles have a queerness and a quaintness that have stirred a momentary curiosity in emotional bosoms. Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”
OUCH!
“Certainly those inns of molten blue, and that disreputable honey-gatherer who got himself turned out-of-doors at the sign of the Foxglove, are very taking matters. I know of more important things that interest me less. There are three or four bits of this kind in Miss Dickinson’s book; but for the most part the ideas totter and toddle, not having learned to walk. In spite of this, several of the quatrains are curiously touching, they have such a pathetic air of yearning to be poems.
By the way – and I’ve reported this before – Aldrich concluded his review with this:
“Miss Dickinson’s versicles have a queerness and a quaintness that have stirred a momentary curiosity in emotional bosoms. Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”
OUCH!
| In a review from October 1896, poet Bliss Carman shared an anecdote from when the chief editor of the Nation rushed into his office “like a whirl of October leaves” to share his “bright discovery,” the first volume of Dickinson’s poetry. The chief recited “Belshazzar had a letter,” and Carman asked, “But can your wonderful prodigy turn off another verse like it?” “Can she? To be sure! Listen again,” and he shared “I taste a liquor never brewed.” Carman continued: “Well, we are convinced, indeed. There can be no doubt of the genuineness of this writer. Such work is fresh from the mint; not immediately current without some scrutiny; yet stamped plainly enough with the hall-mark of genius. We could but give unqualified assent; put the new book on the old shelf at once, with its peers, the acknowledged classics of American literature.” |  |
Toward the end of Blake & Wells' The Recognition of Emily Dickinson, they include an article by Charles R. Anderson that discusses "I taste a liquor never brewed" in his work Emily Dickinson's Poetry: Stairway of Surprise. The section on the poem begins, "In an early poem, drunk with the joy of living, she expresses her transport in terms of a cosmic spree," and it concludes with, "Cosmic inebriation is another deliberately extravagant metaphor to go along with thunder, fires, and volcanoes." In between he discusses an odd comparison to Emerson: "The temptation can hardly be resisted to read this as a parody of Emerson's transcendental rendering of poetic inspiration in 'Bacchus" (a philosophical poem that uses the symbol of mystical wine to explore spiritual awakening and union with the divine) which begins:
Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape. . .
Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape. . .
The entire poem is HERE.
For your reading pleasure, I have posted the section of Anderson's article which focuses on "I taste a liquor never brewed" below. Click the images to enlarge.
For your reading pleasure, I have posted the section of Anderson's article which focuses on "I taste a liquor never brewed" below. Click the images to enlarge.
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