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!