HSC English

Area of Study Belonging

Emily Dickinson

Author: Dougal Parsons

Contents

Rubric and BOS Update 3 - 6

Context of Emily Dickinson 7 - 12

Poems 13 - 21

Themes and Values 22

Dickinson’s Poetic Style 23 – 24

Useful Web Links 25

Area of Study – Belonging Rubric

The Prescriptions document states:

Area of Study

In the Area of Study, students explore and examine relationships between language and text,

and interrelationships among texts. They examine closely the individual qualities of texts

while considering the texts’ relationships to the wider context of the Area of Study. They

synthesise ideas to clarify meaning and develop new meanings. They take into account

whether aspects such as context, purpose and register, text structures, stylistic features,

grammatical features and vocabulary are appropriate to the particular text.

English Stage 6 Prescriptions 2009-2012 Board of Studies NSW, Sydney

Area of Study: Belonging

This Area of Study requires students to explore the ways in which the concept of belonging is

represented in and through texts.

Perceptions and ideas of belonging, or of not belonging, vary. These perceptions are shaped

within personal, cultural, historical and social contexts. A sense of belonging can emerge

from the connections made with people, places, groups, communities and the larger world.

Within this Area of Study, students may consider aspects of belonging in terms of

experiences and notions of identity, relationships, acceptance and understanding.

Texts explore many aspects of belonging, including the potential of the individual to enrich

or challenge a community or group. They may reflect the way attitudes to belonging are

modified over time. Texts may also represent choices not to belong, or barriers which prevent

belonging.

Perceptions and ideas of belonging in texts can be constructed through a variety of language

modes, forms, features and structures. In engaging with the text, a responder may experience

and understand the possibilities presented by a sense of belonging to, or exclusion from the

text and the world it represents. This engagement may be influenced by the different ways

perspectives are given voice in or are absent from a text.

In their responses and compositions students examine, question, and reflect and speculate on:

how the concept of belonging is conveyed through the representations of people,

relationships, ideas, places, events, and societies that they encounter in the prescribed text

and texts of their own choosing related to the Area of Study

assumptions underlying various representations of the concept of belonging

how the composer’s choice of language modes, forms, features and structures shapes and is

shaped by a sense of belonging

their own experiences of belonging, in a variety of contexts

the ways in which they perceive the world through texts

the ways in which exploring the concept and significance of belonging may broaden and

deepen their understanding of themselves and their world.

BOS Update – HSC Marking Criteria

Section III

In your answer you will be assessed on how well you:

demonstrate understanding of the concept of belonging in the context of your study

analyse, explain and assess the ways belonging is represented in a variety of texts

organise, develop and express ideas using language appropriate to audience, purpose and context

Self-evaluation: How well do you think you can perform in each of these criteria?

I gave myself to Him —And took Himself, for Pay,The solemn contract of a LifeWas ratified, this way —

The Wealth might disappoint —Myself a poorer proveThan this great Purchaser suspect,The Daily Own — of Love

Depreciate the Vision —But till the Merchant buy —Still Fable — in the Isles of Spice —The subtle Cargoes — lie —

At least — 'tis Mutual — Risk —Some — found it — Mutual Gain —Sweet Debt of Life — Each Night to owe —Insolvent — every Noon —

Understanding

Identity Relationships

Acceptance

Emily Dickinson: Context

Personal Context

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts – a

state on the north-east coast of the United States. She died in Amherst on May 15, 1886 and

was buried there. She had two siblings: Austin (1829 - 95) and Lavinia (1833 - 99).

Dickinson Homestead - Amherst

Mount Holyoke College

Dickinson attended the college from September 30 1847 – early August 1848. She was 16

years old when she began her year there.

Although she spent seven years at her previous school ‘Amherst Academy’, it is her short

time at Mount Holyoke College that served to leave a lasting imprint on her. This has a great

deal to do with the founder and then-Principal of the College Mary Lyon. Lyon divided

students into three groups: The Christians, The Hopers and the No-Hopers – this served to

ultimately alienate young Dickinson. She felt at odds with most of her classmates, who by

the end of the school year in 1848 had “found hope”.

In a letter to Abiah Root, a close friend, Dickinson stated: “I have neglected the one thing

needful when all were obtaining it.” She went on to state: “But I am not happy and I regret

that … I did not give up and become a Christian. It is not now too late…, but it is hard for me

to give up the world.”

Dickinson often felt guilty of her rejection of converting influences, yet reported to Root that “I

fear I never can.” This decision was to affect much of her later poetic output. The first stanza

of “I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs –” (1862) is a good example of this:

I'm ceded—I've stopped being Theirs—

The name They dropped upon my face

With water, in the country church

Is finished using, now,

And They can put it with my Dolls,

My childhood, and the string of spools,

I've finished threading—too—

Mount Holyoke College

1850 New England Revival

In 1850 the New England town of Amherst became awash with religious fervour. The closing

of rum-shops and a call for “self-control and discipline “ from not only local Puritan Church

leaders but also from Amherst College President Edward Hitchcock led to a community that

eschewed self-indulgence and celebrated abstinence.

In such austere spiritual settings, however, people were joyful. Dickinson herself wrote in a

letter at this time that her community was full of people who “seem so very tranquil … kind

and gentle.” Yet she also mentions sadly that she is estranged from such experience: “How

lonely this world is growing … Christ is calling everyone here …, and I am standing alone in

rebellion and growing very careless.”

A poem from 1862 exhibits a recurring theme of disillusionment with, and sense of

abandonment from God:

At least – to pray – is left – is left –

Oh Jesus – in the Air –

I know not which thy chamber is –

I’m knocking – everywhere –

Thou settest Earthquake in the South –

And Maelstrom, in the Sea –

Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth –

Hast thou no arm for Me?

She went on to describe those converted during the revival: “They seem so very tranquil,

and their voices are kind, and gentle, and the tears fill their eyes so often, I really think I envy

them.”

Staying at Home

Dickinson made the decision to remain at home upon returning from Mount Holyoke in 1848;

mainly for the reason of caring for her ill mother. It was a joyful decision however, one

chosen freely by her, and served as an indicator for her reclusive tendencies. She wrote to

her brother Austin in her twenty-first year: “Home is a holy thing ... nothing of doubt or

distrust can enter its blessed portals ... (and) fairer it is and brighter than all the world beside

it.” There are eight-six references to “home” in her poetry; it is one of the most frequently

used words in her entire lexicon It wasn’t always the most hospitable of places for Dickinson,

however; she wrote of her father in 1850: “My father seems to me often the oldest and the

oddest sort of foreigner.” This attitude may well have been due to her father’s (Edward

Dickinson) strict, prudent, unpassionate persona.

Becoming a Poet

For Dickinson it was a conscious and important decision to become a poet. Her first

recorded poems are from 1850. The year of her greatest poetic activity was 1862, coinciding

with a markedly increased isolation in the same year. All through her adult life Dickinson

wrote poetry, personal letters and correspondence from the seclusion of her own room. Only

seven poems were published in her lifetime; she was ambivalent to the publishing of her

poems. Although she desired recognition, she was repulsed by the idea of ‘selling her art’.

The first stanza of a poem written in 1863 makes this clear:

Publication — is the Auction

Of the Mind of Man —

Poverty — be justifying

For so foul a thing

It was not until 1890 that the first selection of her work was published. It would take until

1955 until all her poems were finally published (in all their forms) in one volume. In all 1775

poems were published in this volume; her creative output was immense, brought about in

part by her commitment to seclusion and isolation.

Social and Cultural Context

Dickinson in a post-Romantic literary culture

Romanticism, simply put, elevated intuition over reason. In poetry, the ability to express

spontaneously one’s experience of the world was paramount. All art was seen as a mediator

between the self and what surrounded him/her. As Coleridge states: art is “the mediator and

reconciler of nature and man.” Through expression, the self could most properly filter the

external world existing outside the self. The duality of this process is obvious: Man and

Nature.

Dickinson, however lived in a period that was reviewing such ideas. Emerson himself stated

that it is not so much that Nature exists outside of the self, but that the individual

characterised the external world according to internal disposition and vagrancy.

“Once we lived in what we saw; now, the rapaciousness of this new power, which

threatens to absorb all things, engages us … Nature and literature are subjective

phenomena; every evil and good thing is a shadow which we cast.”

- Emerson, ‘Experience’, Essays

This leads to a much more subjective experience of life. Dickinson would have felt this new

philosophy (which would later be coined “Transcendentalism”, especially in America) as both

exhilarating and alienating; it magnifies the self, whilst also isolating the self. Dickinson

moved in cloistered settings both literally and metaphorically her whole adult life. One of

Dickinson’s most famous poems typifies this attitude:

The Soul selects her own Society –

Then – shuts the door –

To her divine Majority –

Present no more –

Unmoved – she notes the Chariots – pausing –

At her low Gate –

Unmoved – an Emperor be kneeling

Opon her Mat –

I’ve known her – from an ample nation-

Choose One –

Then – close the Valve of her attention –

Like Stone -

19th Century New England Literature - A male domain

Dickinson would have felt the effects of possessing a literary gift in a society dominated by

male ideas and personas. She occasionally wrote of her aggravation over being denied

access to information and conversation because she was a woman. For example she once

wrote to her brother Austin with mock despair over not knowing who the Presidential

candidates were, presumably because she could not garner the information.

In New England names such as Ralph-Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt

Whitman were synonymous with original literary output. All three gained notoriety in their

own lifetime. Dickinson, however did not. No American female writer did for that matter, with

the exception of Harriet Beecher Stowe; and that for a controversial anti-slavery novel. It

seemed the glacial movement of ‘serious’ writing, especially poetry, was best left to men.

Dickinson did choose her solitary vocation, that much is clear. Yet, how much of her work

would she have made public had she felt more comfortable about doing so in spite of her

gender?

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)

Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)

Dates for BOS prescribed Dickinson poems

This is my letter to the world – 1862

I died for beauty but was scarce – 1862

I had been hungry all the years – 1862

I gave myself to him – 1862

A narrow fellow in the grass – 1865

A word dropped careless on the page – 1873

What mystery pervades a well – 1877

Saddest noise, the sweetest noise – ????

This is my letter to the world

That never wrote to me,

The simple news that nature told,

With tender majesty.

Her message is committed

To hands I cannot see.

For love of her, sweet countrymen,

Judge tenderly of me.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

I died for beauty but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed,

‘For beauty’ I replied.

‘And I for truth. Themself are one.

We bretheren are’ he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips

And covered up our names.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

- Keats (‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’)

-

I had been hungry all the years.

My noon had come, to dine.

I trembling, drew the table near

And touched the curious wine.

'Twas this on tables I had seen

When turning hungry home

I looked in windows for the wealth

I could not hope for mine.

I did not know the ample bread.

'Twas so unlike the crumb

The birds and I had often shared

In nature's dining-room.

The plenty hurt me, 'twas so new.

Myself felt ill and odd,

As berry of a mountain bush

Transplanted to the road.

Nor was I hungry, so I found

That hunger was a way

Of persons outside windows

The entering takes away.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

I gave myself to him,

And took himself for pay.

The solemn contract of a life

Was ratified this way.

The wealth might disappoint,

Myself a poorer prove

Than this great purchaser suspect,

The daily own of love

Depreciate the vision;

But, till the merchant buy,

Still fable in the Isles of Spice,

The subtle cargoes lie.

At least ’tis mutual risk,

Some found it mutual gain,

Sweet debt of life each night to owe,

Insolvent every noon.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

A narrow fellow in the grass

Occasionally rides.

You may have met him - did you not,

His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,

A spotted shaft is seen,

And then it closes at your feet

And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,

A floor too cool for corn;

Yet when a boy and barefoot,

I more than once at noon

Have passed, I thought, a whiplash

Unbraiding in the sun;

When, stooping to secure it,

It wrinkled and was gone.

Several of nature's people

I know, and they know me;

I feel for them a transport

Of cordiality,

But never met this fellow,

Attended or alone,

Without a tighter breathing

And zero at the bone.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

A word dropped careless on a page

May stimulate an eye

When folded in perpetual seam

The wrinkled maker lie.

Infection in the sentence breeds.

We may inhale despair

At distances of centuries

From the malaria.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

What mystery pervades a well!

That water lives so far—

A neighbor from another world

Residing in a jar

Whose limit none have ever seen,

But just his lid of glass,

Like looking every time you please

In an abyss's face.

The grass does not appear afraid.

I often wonder he

Can stand so close and look so bold

At what is awe to me.

Related somehow they may be;

The sedge stands next the sea

Where he is floorless

And does no timidity betray.

But nature is a stranger yet;

The ones that cite her most

Have never passed her haunted house

Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not

Is helped by the regret

That those who know her know her less

The nearer her they get.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,

The maddest noise that grows,

The birds, they make it in the spring,

At night's delicious close

Between the March and April line,

That magical frontier

Beyond which summer hesitates,

Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead

That sauntered with us here,

By separation's sorcery

Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,

And what we now deplore.

We almost wish those siren throats

Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart

As quickly as a spear;

We wish the ear had not a heart

So dangerously near.

Analysis / Links to Belonging:

Themes and Values relevant to ‘Belonging’

Isolation / Seclusion

Lack of Faith / Apostasy

Death / Mortality

(Connection / Disconnection with) Nature

Gender (Masculinity Femininity)

others..?

Dickinson’s Poetic Style

Punctuation

Dickinson’s use of the dash has proved one of the most controversial aspects of her poetic style. Some have thought the over-use of the dash symptomatic of stylistic ineptitude, however there are others who consider it most effective. The dash invites the reader to pause and focus more perceptibly on what has come before it. Whilst a full-stop gives definite finality to a sentence, a dash evokes the impression of continuing thought or of sudden changes in thought.

Lexicon

Dickinson rarely uses classical references or allusions in her poetry; this is quite rare for a poet of her stature. She does, however, have a distinct penchant for considered phrasing and word choice. She is very exacting when creating imagery, metaphor and description. She definitely encourages a single word’s connotations to become an integral aspect to the holistic meaning of her poems. Dickinson uses words much for their associations and provocative or evocative power. A system of interconnectedness is thus often created when various connotations and association intermingle in a complex web of meaning.

Capitalisation

It was common practice in the eighteenth century to capitalise the initial letter of nouns; this practice, however, had become redundant by the mid-nineteenth century. Dickinson does not use them for every noun anyway, so it cannot be that she is reverting to the older style when she capitalises certain words in her poetry. Why, then, does she? A persuasive explanation is that she uses them to indicate emphasis. More attention is paid to capitalised and italicised words; subsequently more weight of scrutiny is spent on them. In this way, Dickinson can be said to desire an element of ‘artistic control’ over the reading of her poetry; she may very well have employed the use of dashes and capitalisation for this reason.

Imagery

Dickinson drew poetic images from a wide range of sources including: the natural world around her; from geography, geology and biology; from a selection of texts as wide-ranging as the Bible, Longfellow’s novels and Shakespeare. The difficult part of reading Dickinson is that sometimes her poetry is like seemingly disconnected, arcane images – the poems require active participation so that meaning from one image to another can be understood and the poem’s force felt. Readers of her poetry must be open to the engagement required for understanding her work.

Verse Forms

Dickinson’s most common choice of poetic form was based on hymns or ballad form (quatrains with cross-rhymed structure of six or eight beats per line). It is interesting that it is not just the form of hymns that affected her work; she often writes about religious and / or metaphysical concerns that strangely mirror (but not replicate) Christian hymns. Whilst this

may lead people to think she was a conventional poet it is obvious she was anything but that; her style is highly individualistic and non-conformist.

Use of Rhyme

To casual readers of poetry, it may seem that Dickinson uses rhyme infrequently. They are thinking of exact rhyme (see, tree). She does use rhyme, but she uses forms of rhyme that were not generally accepted till late in the nineteenth century and are used by modern poets. Dickinson experimented with rhyme, and her poetry shows what subtle effects can be achieved with these rhymes. Dickinson uses identical rhyme (sane, insane) sparingly. She also uses eye rhyme (though, through), vowel rhymes (see, buy), imperfect rhymes (time, thin), and suspended rhyme (thing, along).

Useful Web Links

http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson

- Good biographical info on Dickinson.

http://www.emilydickinson.org/

- Some interesting journal / memoir info. (some restrictions).

http://www.emilydickinsoninternationalsociety.org/

http://community.boredofstudies.org/818/concept-belonging/186379/suggestions-belonging-related-material.html

- A forum for AOS ‘Belonging’ related text choices.

http://www.e-rudite.net/belonging.htm

- An excellent resource for the ‘Belonging’ concept and related texts.

http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/english/area_of_study/area_intro/3634/aos_intro.htm

- Official HSC online site for AOS ‘Belonging’.

There are also many useful books (biographical as well as analytical) on Dickinson and her poetry to be found in the library.