I’ve had a busy week, and I’m behind on a few things – including various paths I plan to explore with my #DickinsonDaily posts – so I thought today maybe I’d do a quick check on Dickinson’s use of the word “Friday” – that would make for a nice and easy post, no?
No – cuz there’s a bit of confusion.
First I checked on how many poems Dickinson wrote with the word “Friday.” There were none (so that part was easy).
Next, I decided to check the other days of the week, and it turns out that only two days were ever named in Dickinson’s poems: Sunday and Wednesday.
“Sunday” was used in two poems, “I never felt at home – below” and “If anybody’s friend be dead.”
“Wednesday” was used in three poems, “Dew is the freshet in the grass,” “I never felt at home – below,” and “We spy the Forests and the Hills.”
SIDE NOTE: “Freshet” is the flood of a river from heavy rain or melted snow, and the pic below shows its rise and then decline in use over the years
No – cuz there’s a bit of confusion.
First I checked on how many poems Dickinson wrote with the word “Friday.” There were none (so that part was easy).
Next, I decided to check the other days of the week, and it turns out that only two days were ever named in Dickinson’s poems: Sunday and Wednesday.
“Sunday” was used in two poems, “I never felt at home – below” and “If anybody’s friend be dead.”
“Wednesday” was used in three poems, “Dew is the freshet in the grass,” “I never felt at home – below,” and “We spy the Forests and the Hills.”
SIDE NOTE: “Freshet” is the flood of a river from heavy rain or melted snow, and the pic below shows its rise and then decline in use over the years
A closer look at the Dickinson archive surprised me, for I noticed that the last poem, “We spy the Forests and the Hills,” appeared only in a 1914 edition of selected poems, “The Single Hound,” so I decided to check for it in my Johnson & Franklin editions. Hmm…it’s not included in either volume.
Well, that struck me as odd – a poem that was included in a 1914 edition of Dickinson’s poetry but not included in either of the late-twentieth century volumes of the poet’s “complete works.” So much for a nice and easy post today, huh?
Well, that struck me as odd – a poem that was included in a 1914 edition of Dickinson’s poetry but not included in either of the late-twentieth century volumes of the poet’s “complete works.” So much for a nice and easy post today, huh?
It turns out that the poem “We spy the Forests and the Hills” consists of the second and third stanzas of another poem, “Dew is the freshet in the grass” (which is included in both Johnson and Franklin), and Dickinson sent those two stanzas as a stand alone poem to her sister-in-law Susan in late 1865. See the images below.
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BTW: Johnson dates “Dew is the freshet in the grass” from 1866; Franklin dates the poem as 1865 – the same year at the letter – so I wonder if the three-stanza poem came first or the two-stanza version?
Oh – and then there’s the problem with “Saturday.” As Scarlett O’Hara so famously said, “Fiddle-de-dee, I'll worry about that tomorrow!"
Oh – and then there’s the problem with “Saturday.” As Scarlett O’Hara so famously said, “Fiddle-de-dee, I'll worry about that tomorrow!"
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