Ms. I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T

Been having some difficulty getting my posts to show up. Any techies out there, if you have advice please offer it forward! :-)

Let's see if this one works...


One of the best elements about Emily Dickinson and her works that I have grown to appreciate is her break from the norm. Yes, she is a product of her society in many ways, but her poetry does challenge what is accepted, especially in its form.

Most first readers of Dickinson begin by asking, "Why the hell are all of these dashes here? And what's up with the strange capitalization?"

Having now been exposed to more of the original manuscripts, I would suggest to future readers of Dickinson to return to the original, because it is always better. Though difficult to decipher, the original manuscripts really show just what our dear friend Emily intended. So much gets watered down and lost in the translation of publishing, which Dickinson herself labeled as practically a crime against the art of poetry. Beyond all of this, there is something very intriguing about looking at truly, original manuscripts. You are looking a legitimate piece of history, unaltered, unedited. It's beautiful in a way, and at least for me, I feel that it has brought me a lot closer to the poetess. (I have also gathered a kind of sympathy for her publishers, since time and time again I find myself wondering what word is what.)

To get back to the point at hand, it would seem that from the very beginning Dickinson had clear intention in her writing style. It is unique for a reason. The dashes and the capitalization certainly have held through the years and years of works read and published since even the most unseasoned poetry reader can distinguish a Dickinson poem from other authors.

I would like to argue that Dickinson's poetry reflects nothing more than her desire to be separated from the norm. I don't think she was out to prove anything, other than that the world should accept her for who she was. She didn't marry for a reason, she didn't strive to be published for a reason, she chose to stay at home and away from the socialites for a reason. She didn't really care what people thought of her or her ideas, or her poetry for that matter. In this since, she embodied her art and her beliefs in the purest of forms. She didn't really lie to her audience, but lived as she claimed in her poetry in this way.

As a side note, I found this pretty cool site. This artist has done some amazing thing with the original manuscripts from Dickinson. Check it out:

http://www.jenbervin.com/html/dickinson.html

Emily Flying Solo

I remember when I was first reading Dickinson, and reading ABOUT her, the fact that she never married was always something that stuck out. It's really not anything rare for a woman to choose that lifestyle (although one is ostracized slightly, especially in Dickinson's time period). The thing that I never really fully grasped was how Dickinson could talk about love, heartbreak, and even marriage in some ways without ever fully experiencing it. And seriously, what was all of this "wife" imagery nonsense about in her poems? To me, it kind of seemed like she was just talking, for the sake of talking. But then again ... maybe there was a reason why she never married. Maybe there is a reason why she portrays the "bride" in such a way and why she is able to talk about love, heartbreak, and the nature of the two with such painful intensity at times. For instance:

"You left me - Sire - two Legacies -
A Legacy of Love
A Heavenly Father would suffice
Had He the offer of -

You left me Boundaries of Pain -
Capacious as the Sea -
Between Eternity and Time -
You Consciousness - and me-"

Obviously, our dear friend Emily felt something...two write about heartbreak and capture it as she does, you must feel it. Then again, who has heard of an author or poet who is completely sane, without any kind of tweaks or strange behavior, without any freaky past experiences that have shaped or influenced their work in some way? I would venture to say that their work would be quite boring if that was the truth. Emily obviously had been through a lot, as was shown through poems such as this that speak a painful truth that nearly everyone who has had their heart broken can relate to. By writing about it, I believe Emily was working through her emotions and attempting to sort them out in a way that would help them make sense to her.

This same idea applies to marriage, even though she never personally experienced it. For example:

"I gave Myself to Him-
And took Himself, for Pay -
The solemn contract of a Live
Was ratified, this way -

The Wealth might disappoint -
Myself a poorer prove
Than this great Puchaser suspec,
The Daily Own - of Love

Depreciate the Vision -
But till the Merchant buy -
Still Fable - In the Isles of spice -
The subtle Cargoes - lie -

At least - 'tis Mutual - Risk -
Some - found it - Mutual Gain -
Sweet Debt of Life - Each Night to owe -
Insolvent - every Noon - "

One of the most frightening aspects about marriage, especially in Emily's society (although it is true in today's society as well in some regards) is the idea that once married, women relinquish their individuality, freedom, and identity to their husband. It begins as love and lust, but ends in the grasp of the societal norms that dictate how each party should act in a marriage. Emily is obviously a very independent person (I will talk more about this in my next post) as is shown through her work. Her poems on the "wife" and marriage may be speculative in some regard, but what is communicated is the fear of what marriage means in life, how that does or does not transfer over into death, and the painful reality of the kind of slavery that settles in once the passion wears off.

The important lesson to learn from all of this is not necessarily to judge just on experience, but to judge on how that experience (whatever it may be, even if it is a lack of experience itself) impacts you through the writing. Ms. Dickinson's fears of marriage and poems on the nature of marriage itself (as strange as some might be) should not be discounted just because she was never married. They do have something to say about Emily's nature and about what she believed was true about the union between a man and woman. More importantly, her words show her thoughts and her struggle to work through the problems to reach understanding, something we all can relate to when it comes to a big, life-altering step such as marriage.


If only Emily's world was like this:



What kind of poetry would we have from her then?

Strange things...

So today I decided to try a little bit of an experiment to see how other people interpret Dickinson, and I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVZtT9uDNM

It is, to say the very least, a creative...unique....silly interpretation of Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for death." The question I must ask is how this helps one to understand the poem? Yes, it incorporates visual aspects of the poem, and (I would only suppose) places the work in a little more of a contemporary mindset.

What I found particularly interesting about this video was how it portrayed Emily Dickinson herself. In the beginning, she is the typical dark, bothered, surly, recluse character dressed in white and sunk in a depression that separates her from the rest of the world. But, through the quirky approach they take towards the work, Emily becomes a little bit more human. Does this make the poem easier to understand at all, or is it just a creative...and, I must say again very silly in my opinion, approach to poetic interpretation.


Then, there was this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjlqWWkQ79Q

This is a much more artistic interpretation of the work. The lack of any spoken poetry will certainly make the work slightly confusing to those who are not familiar with the poem, and it would probably be a little more advantageous to watch the work as you read along with the poem. Still, all that being said, I felt that it was a really unique interpretation of the poem, obviously incorporating all of the visual elements of the work, but in a much more abstract way.

Anyways, I felt this was an interesting approach to attempting to understand a work. Creating both of these videos would require the filmmaker to have an understanding of the poem itself, but clearly the videos in of themselves are made with the intention of helping others to understand them. I think their goal was accomplished in some ways, and not in others.