709.1863.Me from Myself — to banish —

ED’s alternate word in Line 3 and phrase in Line 4 are in parentheses

Me from Myself — to banish —
Had I Art —
Invincible (Impregnable) my Fortress
Unto All (To foreign) Heart —

But since Myself — assault Me —
How have I peace
Except by subjugating
Consciousness?

And since We’re mutual Monarch
How this be
Except by Abdication —
Me — of Me?

Joyce Carol Oates’ essay (2016) on this poem in her book ‘Soul at the White Heat: The Romance of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry’’ illuminates our common quest to interpret each ED poem in a way that speaks personally. Oates, a top-gun reader of ED if ever there was one, muses, “what is challenged is, perhaps, ‘meaning’ itself.” (Thank you Adam DeGraff, webmaster at The Prowling Bee, for sharing Oates’ essay.)

An interpretation of ‘Me from Myself – to banish’:

If only I had the ability to banish my heart from my brain, my poetry furnace would be impregnable to another person’s heart, especially an impossibly “foreign Heart” like Wadsworth’s.

But if my heart assaults my brain, how can I find peace except by numbing my heart’s desire, “subjugating / Consciousness”.

But since my heart and brain both rule my life, how can one subjugate the other,

“Except by abdication –
Me – of Me -?”

Which will it be?

‘Me from Myself – to banish –’ peers into a lover’s inner quarrel of head and heart. This poem must surpass in psychological imagination anything written anywhere before 1863, except by the Bard himself.

“Me from myself to banish // But since Myself – assault Me – ”.

And then there’s that last stanza that simply leaves mid-19th century poetry in its dust:

“And since We’re Mutual Monarch
How this be
Except by Abdication –
Me – of Me -?”

What universe does ED come from? Perhaps Miranda said it best in ‘The Tempest:

“Oh brave new world,
That has such people in’t.”

By 1863, ED had failed twice at love affairs, first with Sue and second Wadsworth. If we use ÉD’s alternate word and phrase in Stanza 1,

“Me from Myself — to banish —
Had I Art —
Impregnable my Fortress
To Foreign Heart —”,

The poem could be about either Charles Wadsworth or Susan Dickinson, but Sue’s heart was not “foreign” to ED, certainly not as foreign as Wadsworth’s heart.

It would not surprise me if ED wrote two variants, one for Sue, the other Wadsworth.

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After commenting on Poems 1-763 (Franklin) on The Prowling Bee’, I am convinced that (virtually) all of Emily Dickinson’s (ED’s) poems have a factual historical level in addition to their various poetic levels of meaning. The reason for her instant and continuing public adulation (1890 - present) was and is, by far, poetic. She is one of the "Greats" that she always dreamed to be, despite her lifelong refusal to publish. That refusal freed her from criticism and allowed her to explore the outer boundaries of poetic power.

More than a century of scholarly research has resulted in somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 books and published academic papers about ED. A large majority of these publications focus only on the “poetic levels” of one or more of ED’s poems. Publications that consider both the “historic level” and “poetic levels” comprise a small minority. Publications that focus only on the factual history of her life probably number less than 100. (All numbers in this paragraph are my estimates.)

Unfortunately for ED’s universe of readers, these two basic levels (historical and poetic) cannot be separated into two ivory towers. Every history-level publication that I know of includes at least some discussion of the poetic level(s).

The reverse is not true. In fact, authors of the “poetry-level” school seem to avoid commenting on the historical level, sometimes admonishing that a poem must stand on its own, without concern for its historical roots. To my knowledge, there are (virtually) no published “history-level” books or articles that totally ignore ED’s poems and their poetic levels.

Of course, ED’s refusal to publish her poems was only possible because of lifelong financial and daily social/housekeeping support by her family, especially her father and sister, respectively. In addition, throughout her life, the Dickinsons hired servants, first Negro and later Irish, some of whom became much more than housekeepers for ED.

My point is that our appreciation of ED's poems can be enhanced by understanding both poetic and historical levels of her sound and sense. We impoverish ourselves if we ignore their historical base.