It struck me — every Day —

Dickinson often uses nature imagery in her poems, both directly and as metaphors for other things. Here's a great emotional poem, "It struck me — every Day —":

It struck me — every Day —
The Lightning was as new
As if the Cloud that instant slit
And let the Fire through —

It burned Me — in the Night —
It Blistered to My Dream —
It sickened fresh upon my sight —
With every Morn that came —

I though that Storm — was brief —
The Maddest — quickest by —
But Nature lost the Date of This —
And left it in the Sky —

The metaphor in this is fantastic. The speaker suffers some great grief, and its pain is never far away. Let's start at the top.

The double meaning of "struck" in the first line is absolutely excellent. We say, of course, that ideas 'strike' us--a particularly vivid memory may strike us. So too for the speaker, she is struck "every Day" by her grief. But lightning also strikes; Dickinson takes this double meaning and runs with it. The pain of grief struck her like lightning, and moreover it strikes every day as fresh as "As if the Cloud that instant slit / And let the Fire through —". Beautiful imagery.

Notice the dash at the end of the fourth line. Dickinson often uses dashes when other punctuation might have been used. Here, the dash is not final as a period would be, rather I read it as an interruption. When the second stanza begins with "It burned Me", it is as though, for the reader, the very lightning that was just let through the cloud has burned her--that sentence had never yet completed when we begin the fifth line.

The second stanza emphasizes that the pain is with the speaker in the night, in her dreams, and in the morning--always with her, and always fresh.

In the final stanza, the metaphor of lightning for grief really does its best work. The speaker says that she believed that very intense storms, and by association very intense grief, soon pass, "But Nature lost the Date of This — / And left it in the Sky —". The grief is not only still with her, it is "in the Sky", looming over her, ever-present.

The pain of grief being represented by lightning in a storm makes it seem less a personal trouble and more a fact about the world. The speaker cannot simply give up the grief--cannot 'get over' the pain--because it is still there. What she lost is still lost. It is the world that is grievous. The storm, her grief, was not created by the speaker, and no more can she put it away that she can put the storm out of the sky.

Before I got my eye put out

In a continuation of some of the past themes, I'd like to take a look at another Dickinson poem, "Before I got my eye put out":

Before I got my eye put out –
I liked as well to see
As other creatures, that have eyes –
And know no other way –

But were it told to me, Today,
That I might have the Sky
For mine, I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me –

The Meadows – mine –
The Mountains – mine –
All Forests – Stintless stars –
As much of noon, as I could take –
Between my finite eyes –

The Motions of the Dipping Birds –
The Morning’s Amber Road –
For mine – to look at when I liked,
The news would strike me dead –

So safer – guess – with just my soul
Opon the window pane
Where other creatures put their eyes –
Incautious – of the Sun –

Let's start right into the first stanza, then.

Before she got her eye put out, the speaker "liked as well to see / As other creatures, that have eyes – / And know no other way –". At first, the construction would indicate that the speaker used to enjoy seeing, but it's immediately clear that in fact she means that she used not to properly appreciate sight. That, having lost (part of) her sight, she now finds sight to be much more than she once did. Remember the similar theme in "Success is counted sweetest". Also, notice that it is nature that she wishes to see--recall the particularly excellent "I taste a liquor never brewed".

In the following stanzas, she writes of all the things that, having two good eyes, she might see, and therefore possess. The third stanza really emphasizes this: "The Meadows – mine – / The Mountains – mine – / All Forests – Stintless stars – / As much of noon, as I could take – / Between my finite eyes –". The first two lines drive it home--they're almost harsh in their directness.

Now, knowing what sight really is worth, having had her eye put out, the speaker cannot handle all this--it is too much. In the second stanza, she says that her heart "Would split, for size of me –". She, a merely finite being, cannot hold all of the sky. If she were told that she could have all of these things, she says, "The news would strike me dead –".

The final stanza particularly bears notice--so many things are happening there. First, we have the excellent image "with just my soul / Upon the window pane / Where other creatures put their eyes". When we say that the eyes are the windows of the soul, we often mean that by looking into someone's eyes, we can see the soul. I think this gives another twist to it, that the eyes are the windows by which the soul looks out, pressed against the window panes. The metaphor is maybe a little clumsy--it's hard to put it together in such a way that eyes, sight, soul, and windows each fit some precise purpose--but it's a beautiful thing. Certainly it means that the speaker sees with her soul, now.

The final line of the poem, "Incautious – of the Sun –", recalls the earlier idea that sight is really more than can be borne by a human, by "finite eyes". Directly, the sun's brightness is of course a thing to be cautious of, but indirectly, "the Sun" stands in for all of nature's beauty. The speaker, who now sees with her soul, recognizes that all of this beauty is too much--is dangerous for her soul.

What sort of harm comes from too much beauty? The speaker, now, says that it would strike her dead to have all of nature's beauty hers for the taking. But "other creatures, that have eyes" have this always. Does it some harm to them? I would posit that it does. Others, who have all of this beauty, do not appreciate it. They take it for granted. In a way, the speaker has gone from one kind of blindness to another. But is she more hobbled now than before?

I taste a liquor never brewed

Another nice and straightforward Dickinson poem, "I taste a liquor never brewed" expresses a sentiment that today we might phrase as "being high on life". Read it:

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!

Very Briefly

Dickinson writes that she is intoxicated by nature, and that it is the best of all liquors.

More Detail

This one's metaphor is simple: drunkenness stands in for exhilaration and joy at nature's beauty. Not an uncommon metaphor, either; how often is it said that beauty is intoxicating?

From the first line we know that Dickinson is speaking of no actual liquor. She says that her liquor was "never brewed", and goes on to imply it is superior to all others: "Not all the vats upon the Rhine / Yield such an alcohol!"

From the second stanza, we learn what her liquor is--air and dew, and, by extension, all of nature. Dickinson indicates that she is eternally enchanted by nature, "Reeling, through endless summer days, / From inns of molten blue."

The idea that her intoxication with nature is limitless is further reinforced in the third stanza. When bees leave behind foxgloves' blossoms and butterflies cease to drink nectar, Dickinson "shall but drink the more". For this, I support two interpretations. One, that Dickinson shall never cease in her fascination with nature, because of course, bees and butterflies will always seek out nectar. This fits well with the "endless summer days" from the previous stanza. The other, that when the bees and butterflies stop drinking nectar, which is to say, autumn or winter, Dickinson will still appreciate nature. This interpretation would have the third stanza serve as an acknowledgement of the other parts of the year besides summer.

However you read the third stanza, though, it implies that Dickinson enjoys all of nature, and intends to do so indefinitely. The final stanza leaves us with a lovely image: Dickinson, drunk on the beauty of nature, propping herself up against the sun. How striking!

Why "(Mis)understanding Literature"?

I want to clear up any confusion that may result from the title of this blog. Why "(Mis)understanding Literature"?

I'm of the school of thought that the "meaning" of a work of art (including literature) isn't something that is fixed by the creator's intentions, or by the execution of the work. Rather, a reasonable interpretation of the meaning of a work of art depends on several factors:

1. What the creator intended
2. What the creator actually did
3. What the facts of the world were when the work was created
4. What the facts of the world were when the work was read
5. How the reader understood the work
6. (Probably some other stuff, to a lesser extent)

That's a lot of stuff that's out of the control of the author! Let me give a little example to help clarify somewhat what I mean.

Imagine a book was written in 1850 about a charismatic man who is elected president of some unspecified European country. Let's imagine that this leader cements his popularity by blaming some already-disliked group of people for the recent economic trouble his country was having. Let's finally assume that this leader started a war, during the course of which he arranged the persecution and murder of many members of the scapegoat group.

Well, everyone already knows what I'm describing. But I asked you to imagine that the book was written in 1850. There's no way the author could have intended the book as an allegory for Hitler's rise to power, and no contemporary reader could possibly have read it that way. Any modern reader, though, would instantly spot the parallel--it would be practically impossible not to read the book as though the leader were an analogue for Hitler. My position is that this anachronistic reading is totally valid--it'd be more wrong to insist that people shouldn't give anachronistic interpretations of the work than to imagine that the thing is an allegory for Hitler.

To make that more clear, let's imagine one further thing: no one knows when, exactly the book was written--it might have been in 1850, or it might have been 1950; let's say the ink was smudged. Now a literary interpretation of the book that depends on a comparison to Hitler is pretty clearly valid if the book was written in 1950--but do the facts about the book as written change depending on when it was written? Clearly not.

Okay, that's enough defense of a all-interpretations-are-valid theory of literature. Of course, I don't necessarily mean exactly all interpretations... but you get it. So, why the title?

Any interpretation of a work is likely to be rejected by someone, and most interpretations will probably be rejected by most people. You're always going to find someone who'll tell you that you've misunderstood a book, and of course they know just what the correct interpretation is--their pet theory.

In view of this, let's just state it up front: we're always going to be misunderstanding literature. There are some books where I look back at what I thought of them years ago and even I agree that I was misunderstanding them. But that's no reason not to try. So let's just assume that we're going to make mistakes, and go on from there, without worrying about whether we'll look like fools five years from now. Because of course we will--we were all fools five years ago, and why should the future look any different?

Success is counted sweetest

Dickinson again! She's got a lot of poetry that's really easy to read and understand, at least superficially, so let's look at another, "Success is counted sweetest":

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

The message is pretty clear--we don't appreciate things that we have so much as things we lack. And isn't it the truth?

I'd argue that this is one of Dickinson's more straightforward poems. There are a few tricks, though. Let's look at the jump from the second stanza to the third. If we look at the second stanza in isolation, it reads that none of the victors of the the battle can tell the definition of victory, and that definition is "so clear". But taken together with the third, we might rewrite it like this:

"Not one . . . can tell the definition of victory so clear as he, defeated, dying . . ."

That is, the poem reads that the one who was defeated is better able to understand the definition of victory than those who triumphed. Why do I point out the partial reading given by the second stanza, then? I think this is important--Dickinson didn't just write an incomplete though in the second stanza because she was absent-minded. Rather, the implication that the definition of victory is "so clear" and yet the victors themselves cannot tell it is very important. The implication is that because of their victory the victors cannot tell what is so clear even to the speaker of the poem.

Dickinson implies that not only do we better appreciate what we lack, but that by gaining a thing, we lose some appreciation of it.

Isn't it bleak?

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

Let's open this investigation into how to (mis)understand literature with a look at a lovely and readable poem by Emily Dickinson, called by its first line: "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant".

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --

In Short

At first glance, the first stanza may seem to indicate that you can get ahead in life by telling things not quite how they really are. But I think that this isn't quite right. It says that "The Truth's superb surprise" is "Too bright for our infirm Delight", and the second stanza elaborates "The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind --".

The poem, then, isn't encouraging us to be economical with the truth for the sake of personal gain--it's indicating that if we want to communicate the truth, we've got to do it in such a way that people will be willing and able to understand it.

More Detail

Telling the truth slant might be written in more modern terms as "putting a slant on the story"--that thing spin doctors do. The "success" Dickinson writes about must be successful communication. Dickinson is a bit elitist here, assuming that if people are just told the truth straight up, they won't understand it.

The second stanza reinforces this feeling of elitism: Dickinson indicates that people are like children, who must have the Truth of matters "eased" to them "gradually" with "explanation kind".

Maybe more like this...

Tell all the Truth but not too soon --

First tell some little lies

Too bright for our dim audience

The Truth would sear their eyes

The Thunder is the Gods at play

A-bowling in the skies

The peasants will learn all the Truth

Though it take a few tries!