On Emily Dickinson

[ananda]

I remember a lecture by William Hunter (Milton expert par excellence) where he waxed rapturously on Emily Dickinson's reclusiveness in nature, where she was able to crystallize her thoughts in such unusual and mind-piercing ways. I also seem to remember an American lit professor in grad school saying he did his doctoral dissertation on the theme of death in Emily Dickinson's poetry. I never read her poetry quite the same way again, for that theme underlies nearly all of it.

Here's Joyce Carol Oates writing on the romance in Dickinson's poetry. I love the title: "Soul at the White Heat" by way of being a viaticum for the soul of humankind:

http://www.usfca.edu/jco/soulatthewhiteheat/

To quote: “For the ‘poetic enterprise’ is nothing less than the attempt to realize the soul. And the attempt to realize the soul (in its muteness, its perfection) is nothing less than the attempt to create a poetry of transcendence—the kind that outlives its human habitation and its name.”

Also, here's the source poem for Oates' title:

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door —
Red — is the Fire's common tint —
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame's conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil's even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs — within —
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge —