Readings of Dickinson, Poe and Thoreau and Emerson

Readings of Dickinson, Poe and Thoreau and Emerson Shandong University March 2, 2012

MY life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.

Emily Dickinson （1830-1886） • Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.

Her Poems • Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of --- some documents say it is 7 --- her nearly eighteen hundred poems --- around 1770 --- were published during her lifetime. • The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. • Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent.

Typical features of Dickinsonian poems • Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote, both in form and content: • They contain shorter lines, concise, direct and simple diction. • They typically do not bear any titles. • Slant rhymes as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation are pretty common. • Question: What is slant rhyme? • Words that sound the same but don't exactly rhyme, such as “lover” and “brother”, or, “fish” and “promise”, “won” and “done”.

(to be continued) • Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality (about one thrid), two recurring topics in letters to her friends. • They explore the inner world of human the individual, to epxress the speaker’s attitude towards love, death and nature. • The outlook represented by the poems are regional in comparison with contemporary poets like Walt Whitman. (p.96) • They show a clear influence of religion on the perspective of the poet, who expressed a passionate yearning for religious certitude. • The basic tone of many poems are tragic and pessimistic.

Some important events and people in her life • During the 1850s, Emily's strongest and most affectionate relationship was with Susan Gilbert. Emily eventually sent her over three hundred letters, more than to any other correspondent, over the course of their friendship. Sue was supportive of the poet, playing the role of "most beloved friend, influence, muse, and adviser" whose editorial suggestions Dickinson sometimes followed, Susan played a primary role in Emily's creative processes.“ Sue married Austin in 1856 after a four-year courtship, although their marriage was not a happy one.

Their correspondence began around 1862 when the literary critic wrote a lead piece for The Atlantic Monthly entitled, "Letter to a Young Contributor". Higginson's essay, in which he urged aspiring writers to "charge your style with life", contained practical advice for those wishing to break into print. Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Bereavements • l853 and 1862 Emily experienced the pain of losing her tutors: Benjamin Newton and Charles Wadsworth. • These events may explain her line “My life closes twice before its close”.

Do you like the translation now that you have learned about the poet? • 我已经失去了两位亲人 • 可是，我依然不知道 • 上天是否还安排了 • 第三次？ • 如此痛苦，如此绝望， • 那两次生离死别。 • 逝者，因此看到天堂， • 生者，因此品尝地狱 • More readings in the textbook (p99, pp100-101)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) • American author, poet, editor and literary critic. • He is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. • He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. • He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career. • Poe is best known for Gothic fiction with death and crime as recurring themes.

Orphaned early and abandoned by the foster family Marriage with his cousin widely critized Heavy burden of family (Virginia with TB) Alcoholism under the stress Miserable later life and mysterious death Man with many miseries and great thinking

Works to read: “The Raven” “To Helen” "The Fall of the House of Usher” "The Black Cat” Classical works in the world literary canons: "The Purloined Letter" "The Tell-Tale Heart“ "The Philosophy of Composition" (1846) "The Poetic Principle" (1848)

To Helen (1831, revised 1845) • Helen, thy beauty is to me • Like those Nicean barks of yore • That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, • The weary, way-worn wanderer bore • To his own native shore. • On desperate seas long wont to roam, • Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, • Thy Naiad airs have brought me home • To the glory that was Greece, • And the grandeur that was Rome. • Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche • How statue-like I see thee stand, • The agate lamp within thy hand, • Ah! Psyche, from the regions which • Are Holy Land!

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love - I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. Annabelle Lee

And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulcher In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we Of many far wiser than we And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, In the sepulcher there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.

The Fall of the House of Usher • Plot: The tale opens with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. It is revealed that Roderick's twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, death-like trances. The narrator is impressed with Roderick's paintings, and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be sentient, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it.

Roderick later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in a vault (family tomb) in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do after death. They inter her, but over the next week both Roderick and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. A storm begins. Roderick comes to the narrator's bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and throws open his window to the storm. He notices that the tarn surrounding the house seems to glow in the dark, as it glowed in Roderick Usher's paintings, although there is no lightning.

As the narrator reads of the knight's forcible entry into the dwelling, cracking and ripping sounds are heard somewhere in the house. When the dragon is described as shrieking as it dies, a shriek is heard, again within the house. As he relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can be heard. Roderick becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed and that Roderick knew that she was alive. The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline standing there. She falls on her brother, and both land on the floor as corpses. The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices a flash of light causing him to look back upon the House of Usher, in time to watch it break in two, the fragments sinking into the tarn.

Analysis • Style: the Gothic genre • The scene of the crumbling, haunted and isolated castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, a late 18th Century novel which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre. • Themes: Death, murder, mysterious diseases (possible incest) and disintegrtion of an old family. • Feelings of fear, doom, and guilt. • Dualities: brother vs sister, house vs family, narrator vs main character

Excerpt DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was --but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferablegloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me --upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain --upon the bleak walls --upon the vacant eye-like windows --upon a few rank sedges --and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees --with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium --the bitter lapse into everyday life --the hideous dropping off of the veil.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) pp. 64-69 He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay “Civil Disobedience”, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Contributions • Ecological siginicance: Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism. • Civil disobedience: Thoreau has been a life-long abolitionist --- his 1846 experience with tax problems --- and his philosophy later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. (From "Solitude," Walden, 1854) Walden and the replica of thoreau’s cabin

Nature-lover and meditator • My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies….(From Walden)

In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since…(From Walden)

American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. Emerson anonymously published his first essay, “Nature”, on September 9, 1836. A year later, on August 31, 1837, Emerson delivered his now-famous address, "The American Scholar“. Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803 – 1882) Ralph Waldo Emerson (pp.59-64)

His Status in American Culture • Ralph Waldo Emerson is the chief spokesman of New England Transcendentalism， which is unanimously agreed to be the summit of the Romantic period in the history of American literature.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. (From “Nature” by Emerson)

The Revelation by Nature • Standing on the bare ground, --- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, --- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, --- master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. (From Nature)

Questions • How to understand “the transparent eyeball”? Transparency of the individual: It refers to the complete mergence of self with God. Connection with nature: When oen is surrounded by nature, he is being united with nature. He is clear of mind and sees the gifts of nature. Emphasis on the self as individual: “Trust thyself…Accept the place the divine providence has found for you. It used to played little role in colonial American thought. [John Bradford’s “The Mayflower Compact” in 1620 and John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” in 1630 both emphasized the welfare of the community.]

1. Nature is symbolic of the Spirit or God. It is not just matter, but alive filled with God’s overwhelming presence. 2. It is the garment of Oversoul, exercising a healthy, restorative influence on the human mind.

3. As romantic idealism, it placed spirit first and matter second. It believed that both spirit and matter were real but that the reality of spirit was greater than that of matter. Spirit transcended matter, and the permanent reality was the spiritual one. It stressed essence behind appearance. 4. It held that commerce was degrading and that a life spent in business was a wasted life. Humanity could be much better off if people paid less attention to the material world in which they lived.

The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart, of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character, and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand, and become wisdom, and virtue, and power, and beauty. (From “The Oversoul”)

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. Only by the vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by falling back on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man, we can know what it saith. (From “The Oversoul”)

Oversoul? • Solitude: importance of idenpendent opinion. • Unity/versality: mingling with the universe, not the egoistic individualism or neglect of society. • Nature: represents God and is the location of self-effecement. • Nature is where self reveals its tranparency and becomes a part of God.

Oversoul Emersonplaced emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. The Oversoul is an all-pervading power for goodness, omnipresent and omnipotent, from which all things came and of which all were a part. It existed in nature and in humanity alike,and constituted the chief element of the universe.

Universal brotherhood of humanity, and the ultimate resolution of all social problems. Generally, the Oversoul referred to spirit of God as the most important thing in the universe. Since the Oversoul was a single essence, and since all people derived their beings from the same source, the seeming diversity and clash of human interests was only superficial, and all people were in reality striving toward the same ends by different but converging paths. Emerson's grave in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord Oversoul

Transcendentalism In America pp.56-59 When and where: A philosophical and literary movement centered in Concord and Boston, which was prominent in the intellectual and cultural life of New England from 1836 until just before the Civil War. It was inaugurated in 1836 by a Unitarian discussion group that came to be called the Transcendental Club. Who: The major figures in the movement were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Amos Bronson Alcott.

What: Transcendentalism was neither a systematic nor a sharply definable philosophy, but rather an intellectual mode and emotional mode that was expressed by diverse, and in some instances rather eccentric, voices. Emersonian Transcendentalism is actual1y a philosophical school which absorbed some ideological concerns of American Puritanism and European Romanticism， with its focus on the intuitive knowledge of human beings to grasp the absolute in the universe and the divinity of man.

Origin of the Term • The term “transcendental”, as Emerson pointed out in his lecture “The Transcendetalis”(1841), was taken from the Immanuel Kant the German philosopher (1724-1804). • Kant had confined the expression “transcendental knowledge” to the cognizance of those forms and categories --- such as space, time, quantity, causality --- which, in his view, are imposed on whatever we perceive by the constitution of all human minds. He regards these aspects as the universal conditions of all sense-experience.

Major Concepts • 1. It stressed the power of intuition, believing that people could learn things both from the outside world by means of the five senses and from the inner world by intuition. But the things they learned from within were truer than the things they learned from without, and transcended them. It held that everyone had access to a source of knowledge that transcended the everyday experiences of sensation and reflection. Intuition was inner light within.

2. Unspotted innocence of nature: Nature is symbolic of the Spirit or God. It is not just matter, but alive filled with God’s overwhelming presence. It is God’s enlightenment towards human beings. Therefore, it could exercise a healthy and restorative influence on human mind. So people should come close to nature for instructions. Nature not only showed humanity its own materiality but taught human morality. Nature’s beauty was the beauty of human mind. The two were joined together. With this organic view in mind, it stressed unity of humanity and nature.

3. Everything in the universe was viewed as an expression of the divine spirit. Behind physical objects was a universal soul. Generally, the Oversoul referred to spirit of God as the most important thing in the universe. Since the Oversoul was a single essence, and since all people derived their beings from the same source, the seeming diversity and clash of human interests was only superficial, and all people were in reality striving toward the same ends by different but converging paths. Thus was affirmed the universal brotherhood of humanity, and the ultimate resolution of all social problems.

The Significance of Solitary Thinking • To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. • In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, ---no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. (From “Nature”)

Intellectual Independence • The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and, after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden. The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself. • Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions, that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. (From “The American Scholar”)

4. The Transcendentalists stressed the importance of the individual, since the individual is the most important and basic element of society. An individual with self-reliance, spiritual perfection, self-culture, self-improvement and prudence is an ideal type of individual.

It held that there was a greatness in all human beings that needed only to be set free. People should depend on themselves for spiritual perfection. As the individual soul could commune with God, it was, therefore, divine. With the assumption of the innate goodness of humanity, it held that the individual soul could reach God without the help of churches or clergy. While stressing individuality, it rejected the restraints of tradition and custom. The transcendentalist had an uncompromising concern for individual’s moral development rather than for social progress. The dignity of the individual remains a vital part of American creed even today.

超验主义的核心观点是主张人能超越感觉和理性而直接认识真理，认为人类世界的一切都是宇宙的一个缩影--"世界将其自身缩小成为一滴露水"（爱默生语）。超验主义者强调万物本质上的统一，万物皆受"超灵"制约，而人类灵魂与"超灵"一致。这种对人之神圣的肯定使超验主义者蔑视外部的权威与传统，依赖自己的直接经验。"相信你自己"这句爱默生的名言，成为超验主义者座右铭。这种超验主义观点强调人的主观能动性，有助于打破加尔文教的"人性恶"、"命定论"等教条的束缚，为热情奔放，抒发个性的浪漫主义文学奠定了思想基础。超验主义的核心观点是主张人能超越感觉和理性而直接认识真理，认为人类世界的一切都是宇宙的一个缩影--"世界将其自身缩小成为一滴露水"（爱默生语）。超验主义者强调万物本质上的统一，万物皆受"超灵"制约，而人类灵魂与"超灵"一致。这种对人之神圣的肯定使超验主义者蔑视外部的权威与传统，依赖自己的直接经验。"相信你自己"这句爱默生的名言，成为超验主义者座右铭。这种超验主义观点强调人的主观能动性，有助于打破加尔文教的"人性恶"、"命定论"等教条的束缚，为热情奔放，抒发个性的浪漫主义文学奠定了思想基础。

Readings of Dickinson, Poe and Thoreau and Emerson