781.1863. Remorse — is Memory — awake —

“Remorse — is Memory — awake —
Her Parties all (Companies) astir —
A Presence of Departed Acts —
At window — and at Door —

Its Past — set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match —
Perusal — to facilitate —
And help Belief to stretch — (Of it’s Condensed Despatch —)

Remorse is cureless — the Disease
Not even God — can heal —
For ’tis His institution — and
The Adequate (Complement) of Hell —”

ED’s alternate words and phrases are in parentheses. I prefer ED’s original “Parties all” (Line 2) because of its legal implications, ED’s alternate “Of its Condensed Despatch” (Line 8) because of the subject-verb-direct object construction of “Match facilitates Perusal of the Despatch”, and her alternate “Complement”, (Line 12) because of its parallelism with “Hell”.

Definitions from EDLex and OED:

L1 – Remorse: Sorrow; anguish; grief; regret; guilt; pain
L1 – Memory: Past events; former experiences stored in the mind.
L2 – Parties: Opposing sides in a dispute
L6 – Lighted: To provide light (OED)
L8 – Condensed: Collected
L8 – Despatch: A written message sent off promptly (OED, def. II.8)
L11 – Institution: Establishment
L12 – Complement: Equivalent

I think the pronouns, “Her” (Line 2), “Its” (Line 5), and “It’s” (alternate Line 8), refer to “Memory”.

ED’s alternate Line 8 in Stanza 2, “Of it’s Condensed Despatch”, leaves us puzzling over ED’s meaning of the word “Despatch”. Occasionally during the 19^th century, publications used the noun “despatch” to mean “A written message . . . ” (OED, def. II.8). Given the context of alternate Line 8, I think this is what ED meant by “its [Memory’s] condensed despatch”.

Here are my takes on Stanzas 1-3 in prose sentences, ED’s spelling corrected, my choice of ED’s alternatives in parentheses, and my emendations in brackets:

Remorse is memory awake, her parties all astir, the presence of departed acts at window and at door.
Its [Memory’s] past set down before the soul and lighted with a match, perusal to facilitate of its [Memory’s] condensed Despatch.
Remorse is cureless, the disease not even God can heal, for ’tis His institution, and the [earthly] complement of Hell.

‘Remorse — is Memory — awake —’ (F781) can be read as personal or universal. We’ve all said or done things we wish we hadn’t. Taken to extreme, we obsess in a woulda-coulda-shoulda spiral that goes nowhere. But poems don’t come from nowhere, they germinate from seed. I think the seed(s) for this poem was/were (1) Sue’s post-engagement estrangement from ED and/or (2) ED’s perceived abandonment by Reverend Charles Wadsworth when he and his family sailed from New York to San Francisco on May 1, 1862.

(1): ED’s remorse may stem from an unwise break-up letter she sent Susan Gilbert (Dickinson) on August 1, 1854 (JL173). Sue Gilbert and Austin Dickinson had announced their engagement in March 1853, and, after their engagement, Sue naturally shifted her attention from ED to Austin, leading ED to pen the breakup letter:

“………….. Sue – you can go or stay – There is but one alternative – We differ often lately, and this must be the last.
………….

“We have walked very pleasantly – Perhaps this is the point at which our paths diverge – then [I] pass on singing Sue, and up the distant hill I journey on………..”

(2): We don’t know what ED’s assumptions were about Wadsworth’s reason for leaving the east coast, but she reacted with poems ranging from (1) blaming, to (2) pleading, to (3) forgiving, and, 17 years later, to (4) inquiring how he was faring (Asterisks indicate poems that include ED’s codename for Wadsworth, “Calvary”):

Blaming (‘Take your Heaven further on —’, F672, second half of 1862,),
Pleading (‘A Tongue – to tell Him I am true!’, F673, second half 1863),
Forgiving (‘That I always did love’, F652, second half 1863)*; (‘Tis true – They shut me in the Cold’, F658, second half 1863),
Inquiring (‘Spurn the temerity’, F1485, 1879)*.

Asterisks (*) indicate poems that include ED’s codename for Wadsworth, “Calvary”.

Wadsworth’s real reason for leaving Philadelphia stemmed from friction with his congregation over whether the Bible condoned slavery. He believed it did and most of them did not. Civil War fever ran hot, and Wadsworth resigned from his pulpit of 12 years, despite his enormous success at filling pews.

ED was probably unaware of his real motivation and assumed he had simply abandoned her. She was wrong, hence the remorse expressed in this poem, and many others. For a fuller explanation of the biographical history between ED and Wadsworth, see comments on ‘ED-LarryB’ blog:

Biographic History of ED and Reverend Charles Wadsworth

652.1863.That I did always love

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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.