Re Emily Dickinson

I remember a lecture by William Hunter (Milton expert par excellence) where he waxed rapturously on Emily Dickinson’s reclusiveness in nature, where she was able to crystallize her thoughts in such unusual and mind-piercing ways. I also seem to remember an American lit professor in grad school saying he did his doctoral dissertation on the theme of death in Emily Dickinson’s poetry. I never read her poetry quite the same way again, for that theme underlies nearly all of it.

Here’s Joyce Carol Oates writing on the romance in Dickinson’s poetry. I love the title: “Soul at the White Heat” by way of being a viaticum for the soul of humankind:

usfca.edu/jco/soulatthewhiteheat/

To quote: “For the ‘poetic enterprise’ is nothing less than the attempt to realize the soul. And the attempt to realize the soul (in its muteness, its perfection) is nothing less than the attempt to create a poetry of transcendence—the kind that outlives its human habitation and its name.”

Also, here’s the source poem for Oates’ title:

Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door —
Red — is the Fire’s common tint —
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame’s conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil’s even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs — within —
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge —

Now then, I would also like to know more about Dickinson’s use of gnostic ideas or themes. I wonder what texts someone in America in the early 19thc. would access. Guy Davenport hints at the connection on p. 233 of Geography of the Imagination, as follows.

“The charmng little book by Carlo Collodi, La Avventuri di Pinocchio, can scarcely claim to be included in a history of Italian literature, and yet to a geographer of the imagination, it is a more elegant paradigm of the narrative art of the Meditarranean than any other book since Ovid’s Metamorphoses, rehearses all the central myths, and adds its own to the rich stock of its tradition. It reaches back to a Gnostic theme known to both Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson: “Split the stick,” said Jesus, “and I am there.” It combines Pygmalion, Ovid, the book of Johah, the Commedia dell’Arte, and Apuleius; and will continue to be a touchstone of the imagination.”

The Gnostic reference is from the Gospel of Thomas. Here is the Coptic version.

** (30) Jesus said, “Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him.”
(77b) …Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." **

I suppose that Shakespeare might have gotten Gnostic ideas and themes by way of John Dee and the Neoplatonists.

Dickinson had a natural gift for personal gnosis. If she used actual Gnostic ideas and themes, I don’t know what her sources were, but I would like to. Anyhow, here is a Dickinson poem that definitely utilizes that theme.

Split the lark and you ’ll find the music,
Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
Saved for your ear when lutes be old.

Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
Gush after gush, reserved for you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?