Redefining Wifehood: Emily Dickinson's Marriage Poems, Lecture notes of Poetry

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Abstract This essay argues a relatively new reading of Emily Dickinson’s marriage poems. The poems I have chosen to represent this category of her poetry are analyzed by combining the traditional technique of analysis with a more modern approach. In the past it was customary for critics to take the “I” in Dickinson’s poems literally by attributing each of the poems’ contents entirely to her biography. This approach assumes that Dickinson was not fit to write poetry outside of her own experience because she lived an isolated life. On the contrary, her withdrawal is one of the key elements that made Dickinson’s brilliant poetry possible. She did not need to go out into society to write about topics beyond the domestic sphere of her time period. Dickinson was intelligent enough to tackle and question different issues with the use of different personae. I find the marriage poems the most interesting because Dickinson uses the persona of a wife without having married. Some would call these marriage poems “mystical” or claim that these particular poems are Dickinson’s imagined marriage with some lover. Though I do not agree with these explanations, I believe that the marriage poems must be analyzed formally with biography in mind. Dickinson must be put into social context by understanding the role of women in society during her time period and analyzing the reason why she chose to isolate herself. In doing so, I argue that, just as Dickinson redefines domesticity by using it as a sphere for creativity rather than timidity, she also transforms the role of wife to one that suits her through the marriage poems.

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Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………....iii

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………iv

Redefining Domesticity: Emily Dickinson and the Wife Persona………………………...

Work Cited……………………………………………………………………………….

Although American literary history fully recognized Emily Dickinson in 1955, through a complete collection of her poetry edited by Thomas H. Johnson, she and her poems remained quite a mystery. This was primarily due to a perceived disconnection between her poems and life. Her marriage poems^1 played a significant part in this conundrum because they diverged from the life she actually lived as an unmarried woman. Also, in terms of form, her poems seemed strange with their lack of titles, abundant dashes, random capital letters, and the feeling of no ending. She used a style that had not been seen before, either in her own time or even by 1955. David Porter, for instance, attributes Dickinson’s style to her isolation: “The lack of architecture is a consequence of the linguistic reflexiveness, and both are part of the harsh artistic freedom that opens up when reality and language undergo a separation” (qtd. in Juhasz 58). In other words, by separating herself from society, Dickinson created her own rules in writing. A separation between reality and language, particularly in terms of her marriage poems, is also what many critics see when they look at her life. Her poems contradict much of the social reality that she lived in. Because of this disconnect between her life and poems, critics tend to fall into two separate camps when approaching Dickinson’s marriage poems. The primary form of criticism was biographical, as if every word in her poetry was a clue to the mystery of her (^1) There is no specific number of agreed upon marriage poems. Some critics call only the poems that reference the title “Wife” as being a part of this collection, while others include poems that broach the topic of marriage, even if not explicitly mentioning it. The seven I have chosen to discuss, out of the many marriage poems, fall under both categories.

method also opposes the biographical approach. She, similarly to Rich, conveys that social context should be used properly without letting it overshadow the content of her poems. Sabik argues that Dickinson’s marriage poems should not solely be studied biographically because—by incorporating different personae in her life, ones that Dickinson never experienced because of her detachment from society—Dickinson’s poems portray her as a reader, scholar, and observer capable of social commentary (Sabik 3). Though I agree with Sabik, Dickinson’s marriage poems convey much more than just how scholarly Dickinson was. A contextualized formalist study of her marriage poems takes into account the anti-feminist society that she lived in and the reasons why she chose to never marry, spending most of her time in one room in her father’s house. Dickinson’s great ability to depict and define the title “Wife” in her poetry is biographically interesting, given that she never actually married. She refused to be “... shut... up in prose” (Fr 445) through marriage, yet she paradoxically domesticated herself, much like a wife, by voluntarily shutting herself up in her bedroom to write poetry. Therefore, adding to Sabik’s argument, I claim that Dickinson redefines domesticity by using it as a means of creativity and not timidity or submissiveness. Dickinson’s marriage poems transform the role of wife to her liking. I will look at seven marriage poems alongside Dickinson’s biography and the social context of her time that I find connect and develop her vision of “Wife” to discover whether her redefinition of the role satisfied her.

R. W. Franklin^2 dates Dickinson’s earliest poems at 1850, when she was twenty years old—around the age when marriage was socially expected. Yet, Dickinson slowly withdrew from society over the years to write poetry. The question then becomes, why did Dickinson have to make the choice of isolating herself in order to write poetry? The answer lies within the social context of her life. Nineteenth century America is well- known for a term called True Womanhood, one used by society and, particularly, husbands to judge women. True Womanhood is most thoroughly analyzed by Barbara Welter, who asserts that True Womanhood “... could be divided into four cardinal virtues—piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity” (152). Without them, a woman’s accomplishments meant nothing. These virtues and their descriptions were “... presented by the women’s magazines, gift annuals and religious literature of the nineteenth century

.. .” (151). Dickinson can be said to be in conflict with all four of these virtues as defined by her society. Welter quotes Dr. Charles Meigs as saying that a woman has “... a pious mind. Her confiding nature leads her more readily than men to accept the proffered grace of the gospel” (153). This is a statement that seems to be using “pious mind” as a euphemism for “simple-minded.” “Women were [also] warned to not let their literary or intellectual pursuits take them away from God” (154). Therefore, being religious and intelligent were two traits that were not expected to coexist in women, though many nineteenth century American male intellectuals were clergymen and priests. But Dickinson’s decision to abandon the church does not signify that she left religion. Rather, she did not accept the conditions—submissiveness, piety without intellect, and timidity—

(^2) The collection of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that I use in my analysis of the marriage poems is the 1999 version edited by R.W. Franklin.

“... did not choose not to marry and bear children because she could not, or would not, love. Her choice seems to have had more to do with her greater need to maintain herself.

. .” (64) a task Dickinson accomplished through poetry. She still participated in domestic tasks, such as baking bread and desserts, cooking, knitting, washing dishes, and nursing her mother when she fell ill; however, she also took advantage of the privacy associated with the domestic sphere, by locking herself in her bedroom where she was free to write poetry. This is why Dickinson’s domesticity does not fall under the norm. It values poetry and self above traditional domestic duties by not allowing society’s expectations to erase her intellectuality and personality. According to Helen Irving and Mrs. Ann Stephens’s thoughts on how a lady should act, Dickinson’s maintenance of herself was against the notion of True Womanhood in the nineteenth century (Welter 166-67). Her family was supposed to define her just as a husband was supposed to define a wife. Dickinson wouldn’t have it. She took care of her family, but she also took care of her own deepest inclinations and desires. To do that she chose isolation, the four walls of her bedroom, to provide an allotted time for only herself. Some would characterize this isolation as a retreat from societal expectations. Juhasz’s approach of looking at Dickinson’s withdrawal is better fit than the incorrect description of retreat: Emily Dickinson, a woman who wanted to be a poet, chose to withdraw from the external world and to live her most significant life in the world of her mind. This decision... enabled her to be the poet that she became. It gave her control over her own experience, she could select, apportion,

focus, examine, explore, satiate herself exactly as she wished and needed to do, such that poetry could result. (64) Dickinson’s decision was rebellious and intelligent. She figured a way around domesticity that did not require her to travel anywhere but to the recesses of her room and mind, which paradoxically gave her the whole world to contemplate and question. What Juhasz does not mention is that Dickinson had to redefine domesticity in order to become an astute poet. It is this ability of Dickinson’s that sets her apart from her contemporary women writers. Joanne Dobson states that other women writers, even those that “preach in their writing a gospel of domesticity... [spent most] of their lives... away from the home, out toward an active involvement with society” (232). Dickinson’s women contemporaries had to physically leave the home in order to experience freer lives. I would argue that Dickinson’s approach was at least as rebellious because she stood her ground, whereas the others fled the confines of the home. Because of this, her withdrawal is at least as triumphant a freedom. Rich relates that “Her niece Martha told of visiting her in her corner bedroom... and of how Emily Dickinson made as if to lock the door with an imaginary key, turned, and said: ‘Matty, here’s freedom’” (158). Despite their differing methods of achieving freedom, Dickinson was, to some measure, influenced by her contemporaries. As Mossberg argues, “these influences are obscured because of her idiosyncratic style and her corresponding self-image as a literary oddball” (260). In her essay, “Dickinson in Context,” Cheryl Walker argues for a balanced comparison between her contemporaries, because too often Dickinson is compared to male poets, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and the women writers of her time are forgotten. Her proposal is to “not only [look] at the subject matter but also

Still! Could themselves have peeped - And seen my Brain - go round They might as wise have lodged a Bird For Treason - in the Pound -

Himself has but to will And easy as a Star Look down opon Captivity - And laugh - No more have I - (Fr 445) From the beginning, there is an undefined “They,” as opposed to “me” or “I,” that indicates that “They” have the power to silence the speaker without her approval. Since the nineteenth century was a time where women were expected to adhere to True Womanhood, it can be assumed that “They” represents societal standards in the form of husbands, ministers, teachers, critics, fathers, brothers, and mothers. The speaker then compares how “They shut [her] up in Prose” to how “They put [her] in the Closet - / Because they liked [her] ‘still’,” which suggests that prose is static, ordinary, dull, and uncreative, while poetry is expressive and powerful. Society did not want women writing in the complicated and experimental language of poetry. With her continued use of the “closet” simile, the speaker indicates that society’s exhortations will not prevent her from writing poetry. The initial “still” is put in quotations to emphasize that “They” want her still and define it physically. The speaker retaliates with her own “Still!” that conveys sarcastic astonishment and redefines the term. Physical stillness does not stop her brain

from “go[ing] round.” In fact, it encourages metaphysical movement, because in that “closet” she has nothing else to do but think. The speaker then compares shutting her up in prose to lodging “a Bird / For Treason - in the Pound,” a concept that ridicules her captors. What makes it even more bizarre is the fact that birds sing melodious tunes. The metaphor for poet suggests that shutting up beautiful language makes just as much sense as imprisoning a bird for committing a crime against a king. The speaker continues into the second stanza with the bird metaphor, embracing the title of poet. The bird has only “but to will” to be free from his captivity. It is willpower that allows him to distance himself from his physical confinement like “a Star / Look[ing] down opon Captivity,” an image that’s brightness provides hope. This moment of realization reaches culmination with the final word in the poem, “I.” The poem begins with a “They” and ends with an “I” because the speaker has found power and a voice over her captors through the exertion of her will. At first glance, the way Dickinson shut herself up in her bedroom seemingly contradicts this poem’s message. She chose four walls over the usual concept of freedom. Nonetheless, this poem exemplifies Dickinson’s choice. The prison was outside of her room—her walls kept things out, not her in. Her room was where her mind could “go round” and be free of captivity, because that is where she wrote poetry. It is the place where “I” finds precedence over “They.” She chose to not publish traditionally because “They” would “shut [her] up in Prose” or force her to write poetry that was an “acceptable” subject for women or more regular in syntax, stanza, and rhyme as was the style of the time. Instead, Dickinson self-published by making fascicles out of the

She would redefine marriage in her poetry—making it so that intellect and domesticity were not a part of two separate spheres. Thomas Foster refers to it as “testing domesticity to destruction; she both acts out the historical materiality of domestic ideology and exposes its inability to fully realize itself, to fully account for any woman’s experiences” (32). Her first step was to refuse traditional marriage. The second was to accept domestic “ideology,” while adding more layers to it. At nineteen she complained about her household chores in a letter to Jane Humphrey: “... and my hands but two— not four, or five as they ought to be—and so many wants—and me so very handy—and my time of so little account—and my writing so very needless.. .” (qtd. in Dobson 233). Dickinson even exclaimed in a letter, “God keep me from what they call households,” yet she chose her father’s home over the freer lives her contemporary women writers indulged in outside of the home (qtd. in Dobson 233). Furthermore, despite her apparent dislike of domestic chores, Dickinson was known for taking them seriously. Joseph Lyman, a friend of Dickinson’s sisters, said, “Em is an excellent housekeeper” (qtd. in Dobson 234). This inconsistency portrays Dickinson’s experiment: she wanted to make it so she could go through her daily domestic chores and still have time for writing, intellect, and creativity. With over one thousand poems written, she succeeded, even if she did not intend for them to be published. Yet, Dickinson sought more than transforming domesticity in her life. She wanted to transform it on paper by challenging the perceived notions of marriage. In her marriage poems she sets out to understand the accepted definition of marriage and redefine it once that initial step is complete. David Porter says,

Wifehood was the cultural label at hand which Dickinson deconstructed and appropriated for her own use.... The wife poems, then, were the poet’s attempt to do for herself what she plaintively asked [Samuel H.] Higginson to help her do: “Could you tell me how to grow?” The terms “My Husband,” “Wife,” and “Woman,” were part of a restless attempt to name herself, to find the sign that would stand for her, to give herself a title. (qtd. in Sabik 7-8) What Porter does not emphasize is that Dickinson manages to deconstruct and appropriate wifehood although she never married. He does not say that Dickinson remakes a title so that it fits her despite society’s disapproval. Sabik refers to Pamela Annas’s examination of the practice of “unnaming and renaming” in poetry written by Audre Lord, Pat Parker, Sylvia Plath and Adrienne Rich to present how Dickinson accomplished deconstructing and appropriating the cultural label “wifehood” (8). Though Annas never specifically refers to Dickinson in her article, what she says about women poets applies to Dickinson. She must

... reclaim words and images, to revise the way words are put together as well as the words themselves, to review the whole tradition of poetry, to repossess and reinhabit language... it is the process of renaming.... (qtd. in Sabik 9) According to Annas, there are five steps that women poets must take in order to work their way through this process. Sabik provides these steps: (1) acceptance of the definition imposed by the dominant culture; (2) development of the dual consciousness in which an inner awareness

It lay unmentioned - as the Sea Develop Pearl, and Weed, But only to Himself - be known The Fathoms they abide - (Fr 857) The first verb of the poem is “rose,” which on its own is uplifting, yet the rest of the line immediately makes the word harsh, because in order to rise as a wife, the woman must drop something in return. What she particularly drops are the “Playthings of Her Life,” a representation of her childhood. The poem suggests that a girl can only become a woman when she marries, with no stage in between childhood and wifehood. The following two lines indicate that not only does she acquire two titles, “Woman” and “Wife,” but her work is also honorable; the two titles a woman gained through marriage come with respectability. However, the following stanza diminishes the “She” by conveying that more than just her playthings were “dropt.” “Amplitude,” “Awe,” and “first Prospective” have also been sacrificed for “His Requirement,” which essentially means she gave up her ability to fully realize herself, her sense of wonderment and curiosity, and her strive to be someone new in the future. All of these sacrifices are what characterize her and give her a reason for living that is not dependent on someone other than herself. By stripping these abilities away from her, nineteenth century society makes it so that once she claims the title “Wife” she has reached her maxim and is defined by her husband’s requirements— ultimately taking away the elements that make her human. Yet, the poem tries to patch up these negative effects of traditional marriage in the last stanza. At first, the stanza articulates that if she misses the things she dropped, “It lay unmentioned - as the Sea

Develop Pearl, and Weed,” which complies with the uncomplaining and submissive nature of True Womanhood. Yet, her husband can see past her “docile nature” and understands her sacrifices, because only he knows “The Fathoms they abide.” This thought is endearing, because it shows that the husband pays attention to his wife, but whether he does anything about his wife missing her past self is not mentioned. If the poem were to mention that he noticed but did not do anything about it, it would suggest that his understanding her was for nothing because he did not care. Nonetheless, by not mentioning how he reacts to his understanding of her, the poem shows the husband in a favorable light, just as nineteenth century society would. Therefore, Dickinson depicts a definition close to the one favored by True Womanhood, which she deconstructs and transforms in other poems. Poem 426 (I gave Myself to Him -) does the opposite of poem 857 (She rose to His Requirement - dropt) by portraying the husband negatively. In this poem he is never given the endearing title “Husband,” but equated to a “Purchaser.” Because of this, the poem is a poetic cost-benefit-analysis of marriage. 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,