I was thinking about how often I read Dickinson’s poems as hot-blooded and sarcastic. The respectable term ‘Irony’ is applied to her poetry, but that strikes me as a high brow euphemism. Hers is not a coiffed literary irony. Hers is the raw snark of a modern troll—a sarcasm meant to bait and mock. I’m not a feminist scholar or critic, but it would seem to me that this would be fertile ground. What better way for a woman, isolated and hemmed in by societal expectations, to speak truth to power? I won’t be that critic, because I don’t have the background, but there’s a graduate thesis, if not a book, waiting to be written. I can’t think of any other female poet who compares to Dickinson until, possibly, Dorothy Parker (who generally treats sarcasm as a display of wit) rather than the often furious, despondent, and scathing sarcasm of Dickinson.
An example of one of our most renowned close-readers who seems to entirely miss Dickinson’s sarcasm, again and again, would be Helen Vendler. I have to stress my gratitude for Vendler’s writings on Dickinson, but I do think she treats Dickinson too much like just another very serious poet. When John Milton, as a young man, professed his poetic ambitions, he was thinking of Paradise Lost—a very serious epic without a shred of sarcasm. Keats would go on and on about poets’ laurels and would write the Odes and Hyperion—and there is not a shred of snark in those. Emily Brontë, who Dickinson read and favored, never once let her poet’s mask fall, but adopts the elevated, lofty and literary distancing of her peers. Christina Rossetti was sometimes so elevated as to be insufferable. In a fit of righteous pique, she figuratively sent her brother and his “merry lovers” straight to the bottom of the sea. Walt Whitman? Sarcasm? You jest. The only contemporary poet, to my knowledge, who compares to Dickinson in his unembarrassed sarcasm would be George Gordon Lord Byron. Consider Byron’s skewering of Wordsworth:
What! can I prove "a lion" then no more?
A ball-room bard, a foolscap, hot-press darling?
To bear the compliments of many a bore,
And sigh, "I can't get out," like Yorick's starling;
Why then I'll swear, as poet Wordy swore
(Because the world won't read him, always snarling),
That taste is gone, that fame is but a lottery,
Drawn by the blue-coat misses of a coterie.
Or, earlier on:
Don Jòse and the Donna Inez led
For some time an unhappy sort of life,
Wishing each other, not divorced, but dead...
Which leads to Byron's beautifully snarky comments on the noble and admirable equanimity with which Donna Inez (and Spartan wives) suffer and suffered the agonies and deaths of their husbands:
And then this best and weakest woman bore
With such serenity her husband's woes,
Just as the Spartan ladies did of yore,
Who saw their spouses kill'd, and nobly chose
Never to say a word about them more—
Calmly she heard such calumny that rose,
And saw his agonies with such sublimity,
That all the world exclaim'd, "What magnanimity!"
Of lordly and aristocratic accomplishments:
Then for accomplishments in chivalry,
In case our lord the king should go to war again,
He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,
And how to scale a fortress — or nunnery.
Or
Sermons he read, and lectures he endured,
And homilies, and lives of all the saints;
To Jerome and to Chrysostom inured,
He did not take such studies for restraints;
But how faith is acquired, and then ensured,
So well not one of the aforesaid paints
As Saint Augustine in his fine Confessions,
Which makes the reader envy his transgressions.
Dickinson’s snark isn’t as urbane. Byron was an aristocrat, a Lord, and while he left England in disgust, subjected to the proto gossip columnists of the 19th century, he could nevertheless afford to leave. Not Dickinson. Hers is the snark of the caged starling. Unlike Byron, who filters his mockery and sarcasm through the conventional literary mask of Don Juan’s narrator, Dickinson speaks with the necessity of directness, less urbane humor than a biting cry to be heard. It’s what makes Dickinson feel so much more modern than her peers—to me.
My first example of this would be a poem I’ve already discussed here, I never saw a Moor.
I never saw a moor;
I never saw the sea —
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.
I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in Heaven.
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given —
As I wrote in my prior post, I read this little hymn as dripping with snark. It’s possible to read this as a piously conventional Victorian poem affirming Christian faith, but as I wrote previously, one must (in my view) ignore the obviously mocking colloquialism (even in her day) of “Yet certain am I of the spot…” Yes, Emily knows just where to go if you want to speak with God and visit Heaven. Yesireebob. There’s a “spot” alright, otherwise known as a plot—as in a plot in a graveyard (if we’re spelling this out). Dickinson will suffer none of that happy talk about some insubstantial and eternal paradise. It’s a spot. Checks are always available! Enjoy your trip.
The earnestly pious, Victorian Christian poet does not describe God in Heaven as, wait for it, a spot.
Another poem dripping with snark would be the recently discussed ‘Tis so appalling — it exhilarates —.
'Tis so appalling — it exhilarates —
So over Horror, it half Captivates —
The Soul stares after it, secure —
A Sepulchre, fears frost, no more —
To scan a Ghost, is faint —
But grappling, conquers it —
How easy, Torment, now —
Suspense kept sawing so —
The Truth, is Bald, and Cold —
But that will hold —
If any are not sure —
We show them — prayer —
But we, who know,
Stop hoping, now —
Looking at Death, is Dying —
Just let go the Breath —
And not the pillow at your Cheek
So Slumbereth —
Others, Can wrestle —
Yours, is done —
And so of Woe, bleak dreaded — come,
It sets the Fright at liberty —
And Terror's free —
Gay, Ghastly, Holiday!
The entirety of the poem concerns the joy and liberation of death! Once you’re dead, no need to fear the cold! As Emily says, the “Sepulchre, fears frost, no more —”. Yay? Once you’ve turned into a ghost. Voila! No need to fear ghosts anymore! “To scan a Ghost, is [makes one] faint —” she writes, “But grappling [becoming a ghost], conquers it [that fear]—” Aside: I should think. Let others “wrestle [with their fear of death]/Yours, is done”. Death liberates you from Fright! Death frees you from Terror! And then, all but writing “/s”, she concludes, “Gay, Ghastly, Holiday!” 🥳 Whoopee! 🎉 I haven’t read all of world literature before she wrote that line but, arguably, in the entirety of the English canon, there’s nothing quite so transparently snarky. Do please correct me if I’m wrong.
For a third example, I thought I’d turn to some pages at random, lest I be accused of cherry-picking.
Take your Heaven further on—
This—to Heaven divine Has gone—
Had You earlier blundered in
Possibly, e'en You had seen
An Eternity—put on—
Now—to ring a Door beyond
Is the utmost of Your Hand—
To the Skies—apologize—
Nearer to Your Courtesies
Than this Sufferer polite—
Dressed to meet You—
See—in White!
And I landed on this. It’s—pure, undiluted snark. That doesn’t stop the website All Poetry from treating the poem as an earnest meditation on the afterlife. They write, “This poem explores themes of loss, grief, and the nature of heaven.” The analysis goes on to write, “The use of religious imagery and language suggests the speaker’s struggle to come to terms with the idea of an afterlife. The poem’s concise and direct language emphasizes the speaker’s sense of loss and pain.” Really? The analysis, like so many, casts Dickinson as the victim of life and circumstances—a woman of endless loss and pain. As with so many interpretations, we walk away thinking to ourselves — Poor Emily.
I read this poem — very differently.
The poem expresses Dickinson’s sly power and refusal to be a victim. The final line, like the final line in ‘Tis so appalling — it exhilarates — all but drips with snark. As I read it, her poem is like a missive to a suitor who missed his chance.
Take your Heaven further on—
[Take your propositioning, promises of love, elsewhere]
This—to Heaven divine Has gone—
["Heaven divine" could be poetry or the gratitude of her own company]
Had You earlier blundered in
[If you'd had the wits to strike when the iron was hot]
Possibly, e'en You [even a fool like you] had seen
An Eternity [my erstwhile affections for you]—put on—
Now—to ring a Door beyond
Is the utmost of Your Hand—
[Now, you'll have better luck at the next house]
To the Skies—apologize—
[Apologize to God in Heaven for all I care]
Nearer to Your Courtesies
Than this Sufferer polite—
[You'll have better luck there than with me]
Dressed to meet You—
See—in White!
[FR672/J388]
And then that killer pun in the final line: White is the color of the virgin and of the bride. Look what you could have had, she says, with all the hot-blooded venom of a scorpion. (Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.) I was dressed for your company—in the white of a virgin and bride but, I have news for you, White(!) is also the color of death, my dear, of the burial shroud. In other words, your chances with me are dead, dead, dead. I’m dressed to meet you, not like a virgin, but like a corpse! Exclamation point.
This is not the poetry of a victim.
Sewall is the first biographer credited with freeing Dickinson from the perception that she was a hapless and delicate violet trapped in her room like a forlorn Rapunzel. When I read so many interpretations of Dickinson’s poetry that nevertheless portray her as an earnest, perturbed and death-obsessed damsel, I have to wonder whether critical readers have caught up?
Of course, I could be completely wrong with my interpretations. You decide.
Higginson called his meeting with Dickinson—intense. I think these poems give some clue as to why he would write that.
up in Vermont | March 3 2024
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