812.1864.Love reckons by itself—alone—

812.1864.Love reckons by itself—alone—

Love reckons by itself—alone
“As large as I”—relate the Sun
To One who never felt it blaze—
Itself is all the like it has—

EDLex defines “reckon” as “calculate” or “be defined, described”.

My interpretation of Fr812:

“Love” judges a person by comparing them to “itself—alone”, for example, “As large as I”. Furthermore, to describe “the Sun / To” [some]one “who never felt it blaze”, Love would compare the blazing Sun to blazing Love.

When reading this poem, it’s helpful to put a period after the “I” in Line 2 so that the quatrain consists of two complete sentences.

‘Love reckons by itself—alone—’, Fr812, tries to describe something indescribable, Love, but Love is not comparable to anything. It can’t be measured against anything. It “reckons by itself.” To reckon means to describe (EDLex, Def 2). So Love defines itself. much like “beauty” does: Love is Love (Fr797).

Line 3 introduces two riddles: Why is “One” capitalized and what is the antecedent of “it”? The “Sun” in Line 2 “blaze[s]” and is a logical antecedent of “it”, but “Love” in Line 1 also blazes and is also a logical antecedent . Perhaps ED intended both?

The more difficult riddle is why is “One” capitalized in Line 3. “One” functions here as a personal pronoun, and ED usually honors only God and Charles Wadsworth with capitals. Can we rule out God, leaving Wadsworth the only alternative?

These musings generate two more riddles: In Line 4, what are the antecedents of “Itself” and “it”? To me, the answer for both could be “One” in Line 3, which leaves me with a take-home conclusion: If “One” is the antecedent, Line 3 ED implies “Wadsworth never felt the blaze of Love”.

That conclusion is the opposite of universal, but why else is “One” capitalized?

On the other hand, “Itself” and “it” in Line 4 could just as well refer to “Love” in Line 1. In that case, Line 4 restates and reinforces Line 1.

Thank you Emily for your ambiguity.

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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.