840.1864.Love—is that later Thing than Death—

840.1864.Love—is that later Thing than Death—

ED inserted four alternate words in the manuscript of this poem: Line 5 “pass, prove”; Line 11 “Miss”; and Line 12 “lesser”. I prefer alternate words “prove” and “lesser” over the published “hand” and “smaller”.

Love—is that later Thing than Death—
More previous—than Life—
Confirms it at its entrance—And
Usurps it—of itself—

Tastes Death—the first—to hand (pass, prove) the sting
The Second—to its friend—
Disarms the little interval—
Deposits Him with God—

Then hovers—an inferior Guard—
Lest this Beloved Charge
Need (Miss)—once in an Eternity—
A smaller (lesser) than the Large—

………………………………………………………..

Three notes before my interpretation of F840:

Stanza 1 tells us Love is “More previous—than Life” and “Confirms” itself “at Life’s “entrance”, that is, at its birth. Nineteen years after ED composed this poem, she wrote her friend, Maria Whitney, “the angel begins in the morning in every human life” (L824, May 1883 ).
.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). The “sting” of Death no longer happens when the spirit leaves the body, nor does it happen in the “grave”.
.
EDLex defines “Death” as (1) “the process of spirit separating from the body” and (2) “the transition from this world to the world beyond”. ED describes Death similarly and succinctly in the poem: “the little interval” between the moment the spirit leaves the body and the moment the spirit joins God. During that “interval” Love “Disarms (…) Death” of its “sting” and then “Deposits Him (the spirit) with God—” (Line 7).
……………………………………………………………………………………………..

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.