740.1863.On a Columnar Self—

ED’s alternate words/phrases in parentheses.

On a Columnar Self—
How ample to rely
In Tumult—or Extremity—
How good the Certainty

That Lever cannot pry—
And Wedge cannot divide
Conviction—That Granitic Base—
Though None be on our Side—

Suffice Us—for a Crowd—
Ourself—and Rectitude—
And that Assembly (Companion)—not far off
From furthest (Faithful) Spirit (Good Man)—God—

I prefer all three of ED’s alternate words/phrases because they illustrate how ED refuses to be pidgeonholed into “atheist” or “deist”. In this poem, God is a “Companion” for the “Faithful Good Man”.

As Sherwood (1968) said:

“The Emily Dickinson revealed in her works is complex and inconsistent, often contradictory, moving from ecstasy to desperation, from a fervent faith to a deep suspicion and skepticism, from humility and submissiveness to defiance and scorn. She is blasphemous as often as devout, and in her poetry God is accused of petty vindictiveness and cold indifference as often as He is celebrated for benevolence or admired for His majesty.”

ED Lexicon defines “columnar” as “stony; rigid, like granite; similar to a marble pillar”, and ED’s poem fits that description.

Stanza 1 states ED’s quasi-religious belief that a stiff spine in times of “Tumult – or Extremity” rewards the true believer or disbeliever with “good” feelings of “Certainty”.

Stanza 2 reiterates ED’s belief in no uncertain terms: “Lever cannot pry – / And Wedge cannot divide / Conviction – That Granitic Base – / Though none be on our side –“. ED’s refusal at age 16 to stand and accept Christ as her savior, despite Mount Holyoke’s Headmistress’s exhortation in front of a class of schoolgirls, no doubt loomed large in ED’s mind while she composed this poem.

Stanza 2 closes with royal plural; “our” means “my”. ED has a history of speaking of herself in third person. Line 8 probably means “Though none be on my side”.

Stanza 3 continues royal plural in Lines 9-10; “Us” and “Ourself” probably mean “Myself”:

“Suffice Myself – for a Crowd –
Myself – and Rectitude -”.

In Line 12, ED pulls an ace from her pocket by adding “God” to her “Crowd”, forming a trio: “Myself”, “Rectitude”, and “God”. It’s always good to have God on your side. As Adam pointed out, she also suggested three alternative words for Lines 11 & 12: “Assembly” [Companion], “furthest” [Faithful], “Spirit” [Good Man].

Editors Johnson (1955) and Franklin (1998) decided to disregard alternative words in Stanza 3 and keep the royal plural. That wording confuses me. Does “Assembly” refer to “God” or to “Myself – and Rectitude”?

Inserting all three alternative words and converting royal plural to standard singular, Stanza 3 reads:

“Suffice Myself – for a Crowd –
Myself – and Rectitude -.
And that Companion – not far off
From Faithful Good Man – God –”

Now Stanza 3 makes sense; “Crowd” clearly consists of “Myself”, “Rectitude”, and “God”. For once, ED tells us what she means with her alternative words – or does she? ED’s coziness with God, “that Companion – not far off / From Faithful Good Man”, seems strange given their troubled relations. Maybe she’s just covering her agnostic bets.

Shira Wolosky (2000) asks a rhetorical question: “Is New England self-reliance, à la Emerson, a choice preferrable to traditional social interdependence or does it devolve into cold self-defeating stoniness?”

Her answer: “[W]e can see how desperate, and how self-defeating, this “Columnar Self” [is], for all its array of certain, granitic, language . . . . Posed almost frantically against tremendous, threatening forces — “Tumult,” “Extremity” — and assaultive intrusion — a “Wedge” that threatens to “divide” — this self stands in utter isolation, “None be on our side.” And the self’s rescue costs in fact the self itself: its liberty, its mobility, indeed consciousness itself — for here Dickinsonian selfhood is lapidary [stony], a downward metamorphosis from motive, sentient, conscious being into inorganic stone. What first appears, then, to be a declaration of absolute independence, emerges instead as a defensive, ambivalent contraction of selfhood, unto its own undoing.”

• Shira Wolosky. 2000. ‘Dickinson’s Emerson: A Critique of American Identity’. The Emily Dickinson Journal, 9(2):134-141

In my experience, adherence to “That Granitic Base” of a “Columnar Self” often “emerges instead as a defensive, ambivalent contraction of selfhood, unto its own undoing”, i.e., stolid stoicism.

Sherwood, W.R., 1968. Circumference and Circumstance, Columbia University Press.

Shira Wolosky. 2000. Dickinson’s Emerson: A Critique of American Identity. The Emily
Dickinson Journal, 9(2):134-141

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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.