| A musical rendering of her poem: I dwell in Possibility – (466) | I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors – Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of eye – And for an everlasting Roof The Gambrels of the Sky – Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands To gather Paradise – |
Emily Dickinson, patron saint of the writer’s study begins her poem by drawing a distinction between two main forms of literary art: poetica and fabula, stating her preference for lyric poetry over prose narrative. The poem is an extended metaphor for a poem seen as a house which is also stands as her ars poetica.
Dickinson ‘dwells’ in a house "fairer" in shape and form. Punning she implies poetry is also more balanced, organic or ethical a structure to present ideas through than the logic box of prose. Her poetica is superior to fabula as it can also house the ethically ordered events of any unfolding narrative as in the case of epic forms. Poetry can do both because it is structurally more mysterious and subversive using “language, rhythm and melody” as Aristotle describes in the Poetics to express its meaning. As if to emphasise orality, Dickinson also uses dashes at the ends of lines as cues for the reader to flow on through incantatory phrases rather expect syntactical sentences. The way of saying is also the way of seeing. I believe many readers think of her negation of typical punctuation as a radical break with normal rules for the sake of it. This is not negation of rules, but the offering of alternative grammar. There is no paratextual evidence to suggest she was a conscious literary iconoclast. I believe she is merely cueing us pragmatically like a musical director on how to read her score. The radical move here is really one used to convey a function. This is more a song than a statement.
Eschewing fabula she installs no tables, chairs, cabinets or shelving. All would be suggestive of stories as the props of fiction. Neither is there any once-upon-a-time framework suggesting a narrative, unlike the painting of the un-named woman above. Dickinson is more interested in the poem’s formal architectural attributes. The very structure of her tight ballad four liners reinforce the overall metaphor with ‘stanza’ meaning ‘room’ in Italian.
The Dickinsonian House of Poetry develops other features that reference visionary experience. It is “numerous of windows” - transparent apertures allow for inner and outer reflection. More concretely, windows also suggest multiple points of view, just they are placed in up to four cardinal directions of any conventional dwelling. She also mentions ‘doors’, a direct gateway in and out of this house of inner revelations. Dickinson’s House alludes to the Bible: ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions’, suggesting paradises, or Pure Lands to consider the same through Buddhist parlance. It has safe chambers that are impregnable from watchful eyes. A poem is a sanctuary. There is beauty also with walls made of pleasant cedar, or perhaps invoking cedars in their original forest form. Her whole structure is topped with the double upward-slanted ‘gambrel’ roof, an elegant architectural feature typical of American period architecture, no doubt familiar to the poet sequestered in her home town Amherst, Massachusetts.
Finally, the poem is a communal space, an interior world for brief visitation by the reader and occupant poet. In the language of science it might be said that the field of a Dickinson poem is a sub-atomic one. It is both an invocation of, and invitation to enter a contemplative realm which she is also part and parcel of, just as a quantum physicist's thoughts are a contributing factor influencing the shape of any experiment.
By the end of the poem Dickinson states her role, or a belief in the role of poets in general. It is one of her explicit statements about the spiritual art of writing, depicting herself as a shaman who prays upward to the "everlasting roof", which is the sky with outstretched branch-like arms that become divining rods for heavenly electricity as well being a radial device that can share paradisal power with the tribe.
Dickinson ‘dwells’ in a house "fairer" in shape and form. Punning she implies poetry is also more balanced, organic or ethical a structure to present ideas through than the logic box of prose. Her poetica is superior to fabula as it can also house the ethically ordered events of any unfolding narrative as in the case of epic forms. Poetry can do both because it is structurally more mysterious and subversive using “language, rhythm and melody” as Aristotle describes in the Poetics to express its meaning. As if to emphasise orality, Dickinson also uses dashes at the ends of lines as cues for the reader to flow on through incantatory phrases rather expect syntactical sentences. The way of saying is also the way of seeing. I believe many readers think of her negation of typical punctuation as a radical break with normal rules for the sake of it. This is not negation of rules, but the offering of alternative grammar. There is no paratextual evidence to suggest she was a conscious literary iconoclast. I believe she is merely cueing us pragmatically like a musical director on how to read her score. The radical move here is really one used to convey a function. This is more a song than a statement.
Eschewing fabula she installs no tables, chairs, cabinets or shelving. All would be suggestive of stories as the props of fiction. Neither is there any once-upon-a-time framework suggesting a narrative, unlike the painting of the un-named woman above. Dickinson is more interested in the poem’s formal architectural attributes. The very structure of her tight ballad four liners reinforce the overall metaphor with ‘stanza’ meaning ‘room’ in Italian.
The Dickinsonian House of Poetry develops other features that reference visionary experience. It is “numerous of windows” - transparent apertures allow for inner and outer reflection. More concretely, windows also suggest multiple points of view, just they are placed in up to four cardinal directions of any conventional dwelling. She also mentions ‘doors’, a direct gateway in and out of this house of inner revelations. Dickinson’s House alludes to the Bible: ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions’, suggesting paradises, or Pure Lands to consider the same through Buddhist parlance. It has safe chambers that are impregnable from watchful eyes. A poem is a sanctuary. There is beauty also with walls made of pleasant cedar, or perhaps invoking cedars in their original forest form. Her whole structure is topped with the double upward-slanted ‘gambrel’ roof, an elegant architectural feature typical of American period architecture, no doubt familiar to the poet sequestered in her home town Amherst, Massachusetts.
Finally, the poem is a communal space, an interior world for brief visitation by the reader and occupant poet. In the language of science it might be said that the field of a Dickinson poem is a sub-atomic one. It is both an invocation of, and invitation to enter a contemplative realm which she is also part and parcel of, just as a quantum physicist's thoughts are a contributing factor influencing the shape of any experiment.
By the end of the poem Dickinson states her role, or a belief in the role of poets in general. It is one of her explicit statements about the spiritual art of writing, depicting herself as a shaman who prays upward to the "everlasting roof", which is the sky with outstretched branch-like arms that become divining rods for heavenly electricity as well being a radial device that can share paradisal power with the tribe.
RSS Feed
