My post from two days ago focused on Dickinson’s use of rhyme – albeit her unconventional use of rhyme that didn’t always sit well with early critics. One reviewer in 1891 called it her “frequent scorn of traditional rhyme.”
Skip ahead 100 years.
In the introduction to her 1990 book “Positive as Sound, Emily Dickinson’s Rhyme,” Judy Jo Small, opened her survey of Dickinson’s work with this statement, “it has taken readers some time to realize that her departures from conventional form resulted not from technical ineptitude but from deliberate art.”
However, for some – it didn't take any time at all.
Flash back to 1890.
Toward the end of that year, a review by Lilian Whiting in the “Boston Budget” lauded Dickinson’s poems for their extraordinary intensity, insight and vividness” in spite of their “startling disregard of poetic law.” Whiting went so far as to say that “the reader will find himself pursuing almost a new language.”
Back in 1990: Judy Jo Small noted, “Because her art is radically original, and frequently strange and obscure, it has taken some time to appreciate her subtle mastery and the craftsmanship she demonstrates in her selection and placement of words.”
True – in addition to her unconventional rhymes, Dickinson had unique structure to her language, her own grammar, so to speak, a “tightly compressed style” according to Small – and the amalgamation of her rhyme, rhythm, structure and “placement of words” is, at times, jarring.
Just one small example: Two Decembers ago, in 2023, a friend helped me with an event I had planned for Dickinson’s 193rd birthday. I played the piano, and my friend sang songs I had written based on some of Dickinson’s poems.
One song in particular, based on the poem “I never saw a moor,” had a line that proved to be problematic for my friend, line 3: “Yet know I how the heather looks.” My friend kept expecting the line to flow as “Yet I know how the heather looks,” but that’s not it. It is “Yet KNOW I how.”
Pictured below: "I never saw a more." Center pic: Dickinson's draft. Far right: Check out the changes made by the editors in 1890.
Skip ahead 100 years.
In the introduction to her 1990 book “Positive as Sound, Emily Dickinson’s Rhyme,” Judy Jo Small, opened her survey of Dickinson’s work with this statement, “it has taken readers some time to realize that her departures from conventional form resulted not from technical ineptitude but from deliberate art.”
However, for some – it didn't take any time at all.
Flash back to 1890.
Toward the end of that year, a review by Lilian Whiting in the “Boston Budget” lauded Dickinson’s poems for their extraordinary intensity, insight and vividness” in spite of their “startling disregard of poetic law.” Whiting went so far as to say that “the reader will find himself pursuing almost a new language.”
Back in 1990: Judy Jo Small noted, “Because her art is radically original, and frequently strange and obscure, it has taken some time to appreciate her subtle mastery and the craftsmanship she demonstrates in her selection and placement of words.”
True – in addition to her unconventional rhymes, Dickinson had unique structure to her language, her own grammar, so to speak, a “tightly compressed style” according to Small – and the amalgamation of her rhyme, rhythm, structure and “placement of words” is, at times, jarring.
Just one small example: Two Decembers ago, in 2023, a friend helped me with an event I had planned for Dickinson’s 193rd birthday. I played the piano, and my friend sang songs I had written based on some of Dickinson’s poems.
One song in particular, based on the poem “I never saw a moor,” had a line that proved to be problematic for my friend, line 3: “Yet know I how the heather looks.” My friend kept expecting the line to flow as “Yet I know how the heather looks,” but that’s not it. It is “Yet KNOW I how.”
Pictured below: "I never saw a more." Center pic: Dickinson's draft. Far right: Check out the changes made by the editors in 1890.
Dickinson’s arrangement places the emphasis on the word “know” instead of the pronoun “I” to underscore the person’s comprehension of the sea as opposed to a focus on the individual. Interestingly, this same pattern ends the poem I highlighted yesterday, “The duties of the Wind are few.” That poem concludes, “The limitations of the Wind / Do he exist, or die, / Too wise he seems for Wakelessness, / However, know not I.”
| Interestingly, Ms. Whiting’s 1890 review ends thusly: she wondered as to “what results would have been insured had the author subjected herself to careful study of poetic ideals – had she learned to chip and polish the marble.” Methinks Ms. Whiting missed the point. Dickinson was well-read and very intelligent – and very aware of the day’s “poetic ideals.” In response to the sculpture metaphor, Dickinson was more like Rodin; she abandoned the polished and idealized forms of classic poetry, and instead, produced her own rougher, “unfinished surfaces” to better express cognitive dissonance and psychological agitation. Thoughts? |  |
RSS Feed
