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reference from the Lexicon demonstrates a highly close examination of the text itself.
Different from theological examination on Dickinson’s poem and the poet herself, the study stays focused on close reading and textual analysis which provides original and intimate responses to each piece of poetic work of Emily Dickinson.
1.4 Chapter Organization
The poems are the main support for the examination on Emily Dickinson’s figurative home. Quotations from Dickinson’s poetry follows Ralph.W. Franklin’s reading edition of The Poems of Emily Dickinson (Cambridge Mass: Harvard
University Press, Belknap Press, 1999). In all references to the poems, I cite the poem numbers following an abbreviation “Fr” which stands for Franklin. After the
introduction in chapter one, in chapter two, I start with four poems which relatively explicate the failing of the poet’s real home, and how she transfers the reclusion as a resource to her richness of inner life. In “Houses - so the Wise Men tell me - ” (Fr 139), the poet expresses her doubt of the unknown owner of the house , which causes her hesitation of going back to such home. Being unfamiliar with the house owner, the poet ultimately expresses a sense of unwillingness which makes her “trudge” on the way back home. In “You love me - you are sure - ” (Fr 218), there is a painstaking process of realizing a broken relationship. Though the poem manifests the pain after an expectation, it indeed shows how home fails to serve as a comforting place for the poet whenever she needs warmth. Later in the chapter, I focus on the poet’s reclusion, which enables her to face the innermost private presence of herself. Realizing there is a deep presence inside her, the poet probes into her inner realm, and discovers the power that lies inside her. Poems that support my idea in this part are “The Soul
selects her own Society” (Fr 409) and “One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted - ” (Fr 407).
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In chapter three, I explore how Dickinson probes into her inner realm, which consists of heart, soul, and mind, and discuss how she makes an inner realm a home with a possibility of dwelling. The inner realm, though intangible, has a power to contain and a nature of extensibility. Poems in this chapter will respectively illustrate how the poet sees the expanding nature of her inner realm. In “I thought that Nature was enough” (Fr 1269), the poet expresses her surprise of the capacity of human nature. And in “Our own Possessions though our own” (Fr 1267), the poet links the nature of capacity with possibility which enables an expansion from inside to outside.
Poem that explicates the extensibility of heart is “The Life we have is very great” (Fr 1178). It illustrates the power of a heart’s extension, which can even be greater than Life. And, “There is a solitude of space” (Fr 1696) depicts the depth of soul, which is regarded by the poet as the most profound site of the inner realm. The last poem in the chapter depicts the extensibility of mind. In “The Brain is wider than the Sky” (Fr 598), the poet expresses the strong flexibility of human mind and the measurement of its capacity.
In chapter four I select four poems to illustrate Dickinson’s home-making and how she draws the circumference of a figurative home. The loss of a center in life indeed grants the poet with possibility, which is as a threshold to construct her figurative home. Without the rigidity of a solid core of rules, the center can be built with flexibility. The poems explicating such idea are “I dwell in Possibility” (Fr 466) and “The way Hope builds his House” (Fr 1512). The possibilities that happen in the poet’s life lie in the encountering moments. The third poem “I started Early - Took my Dog - ” (Fr 656) illustrates the power of encountering moment which can be turned as a source for accumulating experiences and richness in life. As the soul, which is the core of life, is empowered with accumulations, it is able to support the figurative home. To conclude with the idea of home-making, the poem “The Props assist the
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House” (Fr 729) explicates the process of building a house. The poem is organized first with outer structure of a house, and then deals with the inner core of the house.
Each poem conveys a sense of home-making that answers to the poet’s question of
“what a home is” (L 342b).
Emily Dickinson’s figurative home is an inwardly and outwardly expanding home. It is kept secretly and carefully in privacy, and performs a high selectivity that will not be exposed easily. The home is a home within itself. Like the poems that Emily Dickinson did not intend to make known to the public, which was according to her will, she did not aim to build a home that explicitly revealed itself. By probing into her inner realm, Dickinson discovers a great possibility inside. And by the encountering moments in her life, she is able to reach out from the enclosed interior, and touches the distant exterior. Her life is not one that is confined, but is granted with possibility to communicate to the world and to those whom she loves. Though being enclosed, Emily Dickinson’s inner realm has much profundity as well as secrets that cannot be ignored.
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Chapter Two
Emily Dickinson’s Domestic Perception
2.1 Chapter Focus
There was a perplexing emotional link between Emily Dickinson and her home.
In her reclusive life which has maintained for nearly thirty years (from 1850s to the year she passed away, 1886), Dickinson remained mostly indoors, relied heavily on the house. She avoided face-to-face meeting with people, and demanded for a total privacy. In one sense, Dickinson’s home served as a secured place which provided her with dwelling space. In another sense, home was often described by the poet as a restraining prison which she expressed a desire to escape from. The perplexity of Dickinson’s emotional connection with her home lied in such contradictory responses that the poet showed in her works. Home was where she “ran to” when being
“frightened” (Fr 218). At the same time, home also failed to comfort her in this frightening moment because she “found the windows dark” (Fr 218). There was a sense that Dickinson felt estranged from home, and she was living like an independent individual in her house. Home materially and figuratively influenced Dickinson to form a conception of the interior space. She turned her face away from the external world, and faced inward. In the firm construction of the house, Dickinson dwelled in this private space, and learned to face the innermost realm of the interior—herself.
The significance of Emily Dickinson’s reclusion has long been explored by numerous scholars. It is a way of living that shapes her perception of domestic space.
In the mid-1850s, Emily Dickinson silently and slowly withdrew herself from the society, rejecting invitations of and avoiding participation in social activities. In the beginning the refusal was a decision made under a reluctant condition; however, it later became the poet’s style of living in the rest of her life. The reclusion began under
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two circumstances. One was Dickinson’s refusal to join the religious heat and the socialization of the local church. Another was the mother’s chronicle illness and Dickinson’s increasing domestic responsibility. Under the shadow of the mother’s illness, Dickinson played the role of an obligated daughter to share the domestic duty with her sister because of the mother’s heavy reliance. As the mother’s health
continued to decline, Dickinson’s domestic responsibilities weighed more heavily upon her and she required herself to remain at home. In a letter written in 1858, Dickinson kindly refused an invitation, saying that she could not make a visit to the friend because she could not leave “home, or mother” (L 191). The poet continued to explain: “I do not go out at all, lest father will come and miss me, or miss some little act, which I might forget, should I run away—Mother is much as usual. I Know not what to hope of her” (L 191). Forty years later, Lavinia Dickinson, the younger sister in the family, stated that because their mother was chronically ill, one of the daughters had to remain always with her. Emily Dickinson took up the role, and “found the life with her books and nature so congenial, continued to live it” (Habegger 342). She enjoyed the life which was withdrawing from the outside world, thus the reclusion was internalized as a life style. Though living mostly indoor, strangely, Emily
Dickinson was trying to give her own definition of “what the home [was]” (L 342b) in her entire life as if she did not know her home at all. Home could be a protective shelter that provided for her reclusion and living; home could also be a space that restricted her and oppressed her. What is a home to Emily Dickinson, and how Dickinson responds to such a home will be illustrated in this chapter.
Home, stood as a strong shelter for Emily Dickinson, molded her
comprehension of the interiority and the exteriority. Staying at home always, the enclosed space became the most intimate space that Dickinson encountered with. To explore Dickinson’s understanding of the interior, there are three words needed to be
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examined: “interior,” “home,” and “house.” According to the Emily Dickinson Lexicon, the word “interior” is figuratively defined as “internal, mental, spiritual, inward.” The definitions are not different from that of the general meanings of the word. However, in the webplay suggestion by the Lexicon,7
Indulging herself in this enclosed domestic space, Dickinson learns of staying most of the time with the profoundest site of her self. She does not confront the outside world, but chooses to explore the innermost privacy within her. Her soul stood solitarily but independently, erect but lonesome. The first half of the chapter will
the scholars connect the word with that of “apartment, house, [and] within.” Thus, in Dickinsonian study of interiority, the enclosed life style is connected closely to her domestic living. The words which are highlighted in the dissertation are “home” and “house.” The
definitions from the Emily Dickinson Lexicon of the two words are interrelated. The first explanation for the word “home” is “house, habitation, dwelling place, place of residence.” And for the word “house,” the Lexicon’s first group of explication for the word is “home, dwelling, building, habitation for humanity.” Both words are linked with the definitions as “haven and nest.” And the difference lies in that “house” can be related with “death, tomb, residence of the soul, and church,” while “home” is explicated as “one’s personal abode” and “mortal existence.” Since both words can be studied as “home,” the analysis of the poems in the dissertation can be given wider suggestions. Both words can be suggested as the dwelling that provides shelter, the definitions of home and house can be freed of limitation in meanings.
7 The use of Webplay is introduced in the Lexicon’s Introduction page: “Webplay collocations appear in parentheses after the EDL etymology. Using an electronic WordCruncher concordance program, we have systematically documented lexical ties between sets of words in Dickinson’s poems and
corresponding entries in Webster’s 1844 dictionary.” Takes the word “adore” as an example, Dickinson uses the words worship, Glory, and adore in Poem Fr 717, and Webster uses similar terms in his definitions of adore.”
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examine the moments when home disappoints an eager heart that needs comfort. Four poems will be examined in the chapter. First two poems explicate a sense of distance that home presents, illustrating how the poet finds home disappointing in different situations. Poems that are examined are “Houses - so the Wise Men tell me - ” (Fr 139) and “You love me - you are sure - ” (Fr 218). In “Houses - so the Wise Men tell me - ” (Fr 139), the poet states an ideal home that provides comfort and protection. However, not knowing who the owner of the house is, the poet expresses her hesitation and doubt to such ideal home. In “You love me - you are sure -” (Fr 218), different from the general analysis, the examination of the poem focuses on the disappointing and painstaking moment that the poet experiences when finding an empty home. The second half of the chapter will examine two poems that illustrate the enclosed interiority. In “The Soul selects her own Society” (Fr 409), the poet describes a state of an enclosed soul that is not easily accessible. In “One need not be a Chamber - to be Haunted - ” (Fr 407), the poet describes an experience of encountering the most private site of her self, stating an unforgettable moment of such confrontation. Both poems illustrate the enclosing status of the poet’s life, and how these poems reflect Dickinson’s perception of an enclosed home.