857.1864.She rose to His Requirement – dropt

857.1864.She rose to His Requirement – drop

She rose to His Requirement – dropt
The Playthings of Her Life
To take the honorable Work
Of Woman, and of Wife –

If ought She missed in Her new Day,
Of Amplitude, or Awe –
Or first Prospective – or the Gold
In using, wear away,

It lay unmentioned – as the Sea
Develope Pearl, and Weed,
But only to Himself – be known
The Fathoms they abide –
……………………………………………………………………………………………

Franklin (1998) dates this poem as “about early 1864”.

In early 1864, ED was 33. She imagines what her life would be if she had married:

Here’s my full biographic interpretation of F857:

Stanza 1.

She rose to His Requirement – dropt
The Playthings of Her Life
To take the honorable Work
Of Woman, and of Wife –

S1.

She” married and began filling her husband’s requirements. She “. . . dropt / The Playthings of Her Life / To take the honorable Work / Of Woman, and of Wife –”.

Stanza 2.

If ought She missed in Her new Day,
Of Amplitude, or Awe –
Or first Prospective – or the Gold
In using, wear away,

If she happened to miss the amplitude and awe of her bygone poem days, time slowly wore away her longing, which . . . [Stanza 2 & 3 enjambed]

Stanza 3

It lay unmentioned – as the Sea
Develope Pearl, and Weed,
But only to Himself – be known
The Fathoms they abide –

S3.

lay unmentioned, fathoms below the surface of sea. It was as if her genius were coated with pearls and weeds, and only she knew how deep her poems were.
……………………………………………………………………………………..

In my comment above I wrote “only God would know what she was capable of leaving”, and, later, I wrote “only she knew how deep her poems were”. Sometimes an atheist believes God and ED are one and the same.
………………………………………………………………………………..

The last stanza of the previous poem, F856, posed a question:

{‘Tis} fitter {I will} be—{by} Want—
Enlightening so well—
I know not which, Desire, or Grant —
Be {chiefest} beautiful—

I interpret this as:

“I’ll be a better poet as a result of sacrificing an ordinary life, but I don’t know which, desire for wealth and love or achieving poetic immortality will be the most beautiful.”

[Words in {curly brackets} are ED’s alternatives that I prefer over the usual published version.]

I think F857 answers that question with its last stanza:

“It lay unmentioned – as the Sea
Develope Pearl, and Weed,
But only to Himself – be known
The Fathoms they abide –”

For ED, “The Playthings of Her Life” are her poems. Note the capitalization of every word: Poems are not “Playthings” for her or for us. I think F857 is unveiled sarcasm of what wifehood would mean for Emily Dickinson: the end of mystical beauty in her life and the opportunity for immortality in her poems. “No Thanks!” she shouts.

If ED were to put away “The Playthings of Her Life”, her dreams would be like pearls and weeds buried under so many fathoms of water that only God would know what she was capable of leaving to us, her readers.
………………………………………………………………………………………….

The spelling “develope” was widely used during the 1800s and earlier. Google AI
…………………………………………………………………………………………

Speaking of “leaving to us, her readers”, I just found this footnote in Millicent Todd Bigham’s 1945 ‘Ancestor’s Brocades’:

“[Six] editions of ED’s first book of poetry were issued on the following dates [by Harper & Brothers Publishers]:

First, Nov. 12, 1890;
Second, Dec. 16, 1890;
Third, Dec. 27, 1890;
Fourth, Jan. 29, 1891;
Fifth, Feb. 17, 1891;
Sixth, Mar. 11, 1891.

Although the number of copies in each edition was supposed to be 500, only 480 were issued of the first ·and 400 of the second.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………

HOME

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.