June 2026 – ED-LarryB

843.1864.It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon —

June 6, 2026 by LarryB

ED’s alternate words and phrases are in {curly brackets} in L10, L15, L19, and L20:

I prefer ED’s

L10: Original word, “perfect”, because it begins with powerful “p”, and, to me, “general” is too ambiguous, even for the Queen of Ambiguity.

L15: Alternate word , “similitude”, because of its alliteration with “seeking” and because both Line 13 and alternate Line 15 have 8 monosyllables; ED’s original L15 has only 7 monosyllables,

L19: Original 8-syllable L19 because her alternate enjambed lines have a ridiculous 14 syllables,

L19-20: Original words because “My Opportunity” makes no sense, and powerful “Past” packs more power than wimpy “Went”.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon —
The Flower — distinct and Red —
I, passing, thought another Noon
Another in its stead

Will equal glow, and thought no More
But came another Day
To find the Species disappeared —
The Same Locality —

The Sun in place — no other fraud
On Nature’s perfect {general} Sum —
Had I but lingered Yesterday —
Was my retrieveless blame —

Much Flowers of this and further Zones
Have perished in my Hands
For seeking its {similitude} —
But unapproached it stands —

The single Flower of the Earth
That I, in passing by
Unconscious was — Great Nature’s Face
Passed infinite by Me —

{L19: Was ignorant that Nature closed}
{L19-20: My Opportunity / Went infinite by Me —}

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.