The cheese is...

I am: Hal Clement (Harry C. Stubbs) A quiet and underrated master of "hard science" fiction who, among other things, foresaw integrated circuits back in the 1940s.

Which science fiction writer are you?

Thanks mojo!

Sean Bean is, we can all agree, the greatest living actor...

Really, anything starring Sean Bean, even something as bad as say, National Treasure, is still good simply because Bean deigns to lend his quasi-godlike visage to it. And while the cheese hasn't seen The Hitcher yet, he did already complain to momma_cheese that is seems clear Bean's character dies at the end of the film, which is ridiculous because if Bean did decide to go on a homicidal rampage across some desert highways, there is no way in hell Sophia Bush and miscellaneous "good-looking" guy could stop him...and so this web comic gives a fairly satisfying compromise to the dilemma...


As an interesting aside, the cheese stumbled upon these at the ol' bookmines and is now racking his brains on how he might save up for them...

No more regular soda...EVER!

Toward the end of a fairly stressful day, one in which the cheese found himself fighting off his second cold in three weeks (the blame goes to Suavo, even though he duly warned the cheese...), financial issues continued to cause stress, and a cold sore the size of a mid-size former Soviet state had blossomed on the cheese mouth, he decided to indulge himself and drink, for the first time in three weeks, a regular soda with all its (supposed) high-fructose corn syrupy goodness. Alas, an upset stomach, faint dizziness, and general malaise was all the cheese got from his ill advised indulgence.

A pox on thy house, REGULAR SODA! Never again shall you pass the cheese' lips!

Don’t judge a book by its cover, yes....but don’t judge a book cover by itself either.

Four or five weeks ago I would have very likely agreed with this pronouncement that the cover to Jim Cramer’s Mad Money is surely a ridiculous thing. But something odd has happened to the cheese recently. As part of his four-fold plan(blog link) to improve himself the cheese is trying to be much more opened minded in regards to a number of things.

In this case, the cheese resolution #3 has motivated him to learn something, anything, about the stock market. So the past few weeks the cheese has taken in a lot of CNBC. Now it just so happens that Mr. Cramer, him of the crazy cover has a show on that very network. At first glance this Cramer guy seems a thoroughly schizoid, bizarro dimension version, of a stock analyst. His show plays something akin to a cross between a morning “drive-time” radio bazaar and a PBS program. On the one hand, it’s terribly fast paced with a lot of sound and visual do-daddery, while he’s relaying a veritable mountain of information about the stock market in general, and the business world at large.

Apparently Cramer ran a hedge-fund for something like 15 years where, in his own words, he made “more money than anyone has a real right to.” And the opening to his book claims that he does the show (and now book) to help people realize their own goals in the stock market. The cheese has watched the show here and there (cause with a five month old, watching something daily is just not possible) for a few weeks now and the cheese can’t count how many times he’s heard Cramer say that anyone, no matter economic or education level, can do a better job managing his stocks/money (as long as he has the conviction to do the work/research required) than any investment banker, stock broker, financial planner, etc. And that’s a fairly empowering statement, especially to someone like the cheese who doesn’t have a whole lot of disposable cash lying around but is interested in investing.

That’s not to say that the cheese agrees with everything Cramer says...like he values how a company performs more than how it treats its employees or the type of business it is. Cramer named Altria (parent company of Phillip Morris, Phillip Morris International, and Kraft) as his pick of the year because he believes the three branches will split off into independent companies, but even if the cheese had money just now, he doubts he could purchase stock from a tobacco company...

So what does any of this have to do with the ol’ book cover? Well, as part of his resolution regimen the cheese recently read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. No doubt, those of you who know the cheese well think this last sentence is some sort of joke. But no, friends, it is true.

Let us take a moment to reflect back on days when the cheese was an undergraduate. He worked one year in his school’s writing center, and another two years as a TA, grading papers from intro lit courses. Suffice it to say, those three years saw the cheese read a lot of bad writing. Not coincidently, whenever the cheese read a particularly sorry paper, you know, the kind that makes one question the school’s admission policies/department, nine times out of 10 that paper came from a business major (and as a sidenote, Rich Dad, Poor Dad wasn’t particularly well written either, but more on that in a minute). The cheese, in fact, spent a good deal of time as an undergraduate talking badly about business in general, business majors specifically, and how most in the business program could hardly speak correctly, let alone construct a coherent paragraph and set it down on paper. But all those business graduates had to have learned something, and in occurs to the cheese that what they were learning might very well be pertinent to his intended occupation.

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad relates a store that truly hit home with the cheese, and it goes like this...

Some time ago Kiyosaki was in Singapore for a business conference and had agreed to be interviewed by a female journalist working for one of the local papers. It just so happens that on some of his previous trips there Kiyosaki had actually read some of the articles this particular journalist had written and thought very highly of her as both a journalist and a writer. At the end of the interview the woman asked Kiyosaki if he might giver her some tips on being a published author, as she had a novel that she had written but had been unsuccessful at getting anyone to publish it. Kiyosaki suggested the woman take a course, or attend a conference, on sales. She immediately became indignant and responded with something like “I don’t want to be a salesman! I want to be a writer!” Kiyosaki then picks up his book and says “The cover of this says best selling author, not best writing author.” And then went on to explain that she might be the greatest writer in the world, and that he believed she probably had written a very good book, but that if she didn’t learn to, effectively, sell herself she’d have a very hard time getting published. The woman, apparently, seemed to miss the point because she ended their conversation by storming off.

Her attitude mirrors, almost exactly, the cheese’ attitude of many years ago. The cheese wanted to be a “writer.” He was above the trivial concerns of money or the business of how one goes about actually getting paid to write. Since then, though, the cheese has realized two things. 1) The cheese is not now, and will never be a “writer.” That is, what the cheese writes is not art. Entertaining, sure. Artistic, no. The cheese has taken the view that there are, in fact, very few writers who are artists. Most writers, in fact, are craftsmen. The difference is that while both an artist and a craftsman may work with, say, clay the artist might produce The Thinker while the craftsman might produce a bowl. The bowl may be beautiful in its own right, but will never rival the beauty of what the artists makes. Then again, the bowl has some utility while no one would think of eating a meal off of a sculpture. The utility inherent in works produced by writing craftsmen is entertainment, pure and simple. That’s not to say that crafted writing cannot illuminate truth about the world we live in or the human condition, but it must still, at its core, entertain the reader. Artistic writing, however, may be a clear work of genius, may ponder the most important questions about existence, and still might not entertain. Take, Moby Dick, which the cheese read for the first time this last semester. Three or four more readings, at least, are required before the cheese can get any type of handle on it. Doubtless there are few who have ever read it that would argue its power as a piece of art, and there would probably be very few more who would call it entirely entertaining.

But Kiyosaki’s story is the reality of the world. If the cheese ever has a hope of selling The Chronicles than he must learn to sell himself, and his work.

Again, what does this have to do with the Cramer cover....well, the way in which this site goes about trashing it shows the cheese two things, first she’s probably never seen his show, and second probably hasn’t read the book. Maybe that’s not the point, but anyone who’s ever seen this show, even for just 60 seconds, would know that the cover couldn’t have looked any different. Cramer is just that way. The cheese isn’t sure if he does lines before the show goes live, but it wouldn’t be a big shock to find out that was the case. The guy runs on pure adrenaline for 60 minutes, and in light of the show, actually, the cover is rather subdued. In the interest of full disclosure the cheese will say he hasn’t yet finished the book. But one thing becomes increasingly clear as one reads it (or spends any serious amount of time watching the show), the guy really wants to help ordinary people, even those without a lot of disposable income, make money in the stock market.

Now the attitude that the article’s author takes in relation to the cover reminds the cheese of how he might have responded 10 years ago, or 5 years ago, or even last year for that matter. The cheese has always fancied himself open minded, but the truth is, we all have a prejudices. But to be truly open minded one must own up to his prejudices, and work to turn them inside out. The cheese is going out to find a job with a fortune 500 company any time soon. But maybe he can learn something from all those people/disciplines that he once derided with scorn. And certainly not everything he learns will be useful. But the cheese believes that the true definition of wisdom is realizing where your knowledge is deficient, accepting that one can always learn something from every person or discipline of knowledge you encounter, and continually trying to expand what you know with an attitude of humility (i.e. realizing you will never know everything).

Biggest News in American Soccer, Ever!

David Beckham, ye of multiple English Premier League, FA Cup, and even a Champions League medal to his credit will be joining the LA Galaxy in July.

Recently the MLS amended their salary cap rules with what, even at the time, was known as the "Beckham Rule." This rule, essentially, allows each team to sign one international player at a salary significantly larger than would have been allowed under the old 2 million dollar per-team cap (also, teams can trade there rights to a designated player, but no team is allowed more than two such players).

It was long known that Beckham intended to play in the US at the end of his career. And while he's currently 31, which is a bit old for any soccer player not named Gary Speed, he's still got something left. That being said, it was assumed he wouldn't hop the pond for a couple years yet. That was, of course, until the current La Liga campaign began. This year Beck's has made only 7 starts for Real Madrid through all competitions (though he has come on a dozen times as a sub). That's not nearly enough for a player with Beckham's stature. So once his current deal with Real runs out on June 30 he'll be wearing Galaxy yellow.

The cheese might actually attend an MLS match now...

Best Commercial Ever

Aint it cool news posted this commercial and I thought I would share it with you. If you don't get it the first time, watch it again.

That time of year.

The cheese has never been too hip to the whole "new year's resolution" thing. He believes that if one wants to affect change in one's life, then any day of the year is the day to do so, rather than some arbitrarily decided upon date that "begins" a new calendar year (cause remember, a year is measured by the time it takes our planet to circle the sun, a circle as we all know, has no real beginning or end).

Nevertheless, it seems a particularly pertinent moment in the cheese' life to reassess and revalue certain things. As all loyal citizens of cheeselandia know Princess Isabella is growing by the minute (as the cheese writes this, in fact, she is rolling about on the living room floor with various plush friends).


And it is the princess, not surprisingly, that has spurred much of the cheese desire to change certain things in his life.

Resolution #1. Cultivate a more positive attitude

Look, by nature the cheese is sarcastic, cynical and generally annoyed with humanity. But it occurs to the cheese that he does not necessarily wish such an attitude on the princess. Truth be told, the cheese has often felt himself grudgingly admire people who are mostly positive. And perhaps there is some truth in the idea that to foster good things in one's life, one must start with himself. Sure it sounds a bit "new agey" but it is the underlying (though wholly simplified) principle of certain eastern philosophies. All in all, the cheese wants more than anything for his daughter to be happy and excited about life, as opposed to always being bitter and pessimistic.

Resolution #2. Change eating habits

It has now been four days since the cheese last had a soda. More than that, though, the cheese is on an overall diet. The cheese truly believes that there may be a place in his life for soda, though it should be a very small place. And while the days of consuming two gallons of Pepsi in a day are long gone, even two cans of soda a day is much too much. First off, the cheese metabolism is not what it once was, and secondly, no man who is barely 5'7" should weigh 185 lbs. Currently the cheese and mrs_cheese are on the "cleansing" portion off their diet which will last two weeks total. Then the cheese gets fruit again, thank god. And, in fact, the diet hasn't been that bad so far, though the craptacularness of it has been blunted by a head cold and minor back injury... But the cheese really doesn't want the princess growing up believing (like the cheese did) that it is perfectly fine if all one's liquid intake comes from aluminum cans.

Resolution #3. Take an active role in securing the family's future

Right now the cheese clan has two different retirement funds and life insurance policies on all three of us (yes, that includes the princess, but it's more about her children's future than about any money we might receive on the off chance she dies at a young age). And it recently occurred to the cheese he knows little to nothing about mutual funds, stocks, 401K's, or any other important component of this country's financial system. Now, in a perfect world there would be a fair and progressive tax system in this country that allowed for Social Security to continue on past next year or so, the real estate market would actually be affordable to middle income families and corporations would actually be taxed. But none of those things will probably ever happen in the cheese' lifetime. That being the case, the cheese needs to seriously increase his understanding of the major financial systems working in this country so that, on that sad day when the cheese passes onto the next phase, princess isabella will inherent a cheeselandia that is not a desolate wasteland peopled with illiterate peasants.

Resolution #4 Make a concerted effort to actually have a writing career

This might go without saying, but the Chronicles will be finished soon. This, though, is only the first step to becoming a published writer. As of this writing the cheese has already begun to formulate an actual plan of action on what to do once the novel is finished. In some ways luck plays a part in any artists attempt to make a living off of a craft, but the cheese believes that with the proper mental attitude and an actual blueprint for action, one might just be able to manufacture his own luck.

Well, that's the list. What about you, oh loyal citizens? Any resolutions out there?


P.S., the cheese went ahead and upgraded the blog to the new version, so in order to post you all might have to upgrade your accounts...

Two days + two posts = one happy population of cheeselandia

While wiling away a few nocturnal hours at the ol' bookmines the cheese' mind went a-wanderin'. This is a common occurrence, of course, when one is forced to stare at multiple copies of this, this or god help us this for five straight hours. But as the deadening onslaught of the true mediocrity of the human race, as evidenced in its published materials, forces it way into the cheese psyche it seems that his thoughts are freed from the more mundane everyday issues one usually thinks about and his mind becomes more insightful and lucid. This may simply be a by-product of having to look at dozens of Harlequin lay down titles, though, as that causes some people to completely hallucinate. But the question remains, are these thoughts true insights, or are they just crap? As evidence the cheese presents two of this evening's musings....

1. Did anyone get a hang-over from that water that Jesus turned to wine? You'd think it would get you totally blitzed without the puking and dizziness, wouldn't you?

2. If you were having sex with Kali how rough would it get? Certainly there'd be some scratching and biting, but it seems like she'd be one to throw you on your back and ass fuck you with a strap-on until your anus bled.

Just so you don't think the cheese has been lazy, Or: the longest post to ever appear on this blog... Part 2

Here is the second "fruit" of the cheese' work for this past semester. Good ol' Eliot, falls into both American and British Modernism. As an aside, the cheese won't post the 40 or so pages of his second novel that he produced for his workshop because that shit needs to be protected....

The Cheese

Dr. O’Brien

English 536

December 12, 2006

Critical Theory Synthesis and Evolution: Eliot’s Literary Journey from The Waste Land to Little Gidding

A cursory reading of The Waste Land and Four Quartets might lead one to conclude that T.S. Eliot’s literary and philosophical vision had changed much in the roughly 20 years between the publication of each poem. This would not be a completely unfounded conclusion in light of the many things that occurred in Eliot’s life during this time; his conversion to Anglicanism and the committal of Vivien Eliot being the most important (North 295). Likewise, the simple fact that 20 years had passed would likely lead to any number of changes in a normal person’s outlook on art and life. It is not the intention of this paper to claim that Eliot’s views on poetry and philosophy underwent no change during this period. Rather, Eliot’s evolution as a critic and poet was spurred in large part by the fact that the new beliefs he gained during this period of his life were in many ways similar to his original disposition toward artistic thought and execution. It was, therefore, an easy task for Eliot to synthesize these new insights into his views on, and practical application of, his art. Viewed from an historical standpoint, in fact, much of Eliot’s career as a poet, beginning with the immediate yearning in The Waste Land can be seen as a march toward this ultimate unification of personal and artistic ideals he produces within the lines of Little Gidding. Not coincidently, Eliot’s response to being asked if he thought Four Quartets represented his best work was, “Yes, and I’d like to feel that they get better as they go on. The second is better than the first, the third is better than the second, and the fourth is the best of all. At any rate, that’s the way I flatter myself” (Hall 64). It is interesting, also, to note that once the complete version of Four Quartets was published in 1943, Eliot produced no other significant work of poetry. He lived a further 22 years, publishing a number of critical essays and seeing several of his plays performed, but it appears that, as a poet, Eliot could produce nothing to equal the lines of Little Gidding.

Realizing this objective was not an easy one for Eliot. It was a journey that began in earnest in The Waste Land. Numerous literary critics have spent a good deal of time extracting meaning from this work, and doubtless, many more will in the years to come. It is a work dizzying in its complexity. While this presents a veritable goldmine of new critical interpretations, it is also cause for consternation when attempting to place The Waste Land within a context of related material. Additionally, The Waste Land was not Eliot’s first published poem. It does, however, mark an important turning point in Eliot’s career. By the time The Waste Land is finished, Eliot has already published two of his most influential critical pieces, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and “Hamlet.” While the breadth of Eliot’s literary criticism is quite large, these essays present a theoretical foundation for the entire scope of Eliot’s poetic career.

The most important and recognizable idea in the “Hamlet” essay comes from Eliot’s argument on how an artist should convey emotion within a work of art:

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked (Selected Essays 124-5).

Without delving into the complexities of Eliot’s years of literary criticism, one can take from the idea of the “objective correlative” the most basic foundation of Eliot’s view on how artists should manufacture their work. To Eliot, sensory experience is the only tool a reader has at his disposal to use in gleaning any meaningful insight from a poem (or any work of art). The importance of the objective correlative in relation to art, then, is that sensory experience is the only thing all people share in common, and must therefore be the common ground on which all artists create their work. Because of this, using any literary device other something grounded in reality, such as an actual object or situation, does not adequately express emotion to the audience. Eliot’s critique of Hamlet the play, in fact, is that the emotional state of Hamlet the man is not adequately supported by “...facts as they appear” (ibid). Just as “Hamlet” contains a single idea underlying its entire argument, so too does the essay “Tradition and Individual Talent” include a unique idea at the heart of its message. “No poet…has his complete meaning alone. His significance…is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists” (Eliot, Selected Essays 4). It is important, then, that an artist know the history of art and how he fits into this history, “The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them…and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new” (Selected Essays 5). In turning one’s attention to Eliot’s early masterpiece, The Waste Land, it becomes quickly apparent that both of these ideas were foremost in his mind while writing the poem.

In the opening lines of The Waste Land the reader is instantly assaulted with images that produce an emotional response, “April is the cruelest, month breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain. / Winter kept us warm, covering / Earth in forgetful snow, feeding / A little life with dried tubers” (1-7). Just seven lines and yet a number of specific images, “dead land,” “dull roots,” “forgetful snow,” and “dried tubers,” are in place to project the idea of a cold and unrelenting earth. From the very outset, then, the reader is well aware that this world Eliot is creating is indeed a waste land. These images have even more power, though, as they are of particular contrast against the use of “April” and “spring rain” in the same lines. Right from the start the reader is aware that this will not be a work of happiness and contentment. Going deeper, though, the reader finds that, not coincidently, the opening lines also call to mind the opening of a seminal work in English literature, The Canterbury Tales, “When the sweet showers of April have pierced / The drought of March, and pierced it to the root, / And every vein is bathed in that moisture / Whose quickening force will engender the flower;”(Chaucer 1). And there are multiple connections present in the opening lines of Eliot’s poem to the opening of Chaucer’s; April and April, dried roots and root, showers and moisture, Lilacs and flower. The title of the poem suggests to the reader that Eliot is presenting a stagnant vision of the world. The allusion to The Canterbury Tales, however, sets to mind the idea of a pilgrimage. And this, in fact, is exactly what Eliot will lead his reader on as the poem unfolds, but this pilgrimage will not offer any spiritual enlightenment once it is completed. From the very beginning of the work, then, Eliot has sought to uphold the principles of both the objective correlative and his own relation to, and connection with, the artists of the past.

The entirety of The Waste Land, in fact, is suffused with such images as “objects.” A detailed account, therefore, would require many more pages, but it is pertinent to this discussion to focus on a select few that are important in relation to Eliot’s underlying philosophical perspective.

Moving forward to line 60, the reader comes to a description of London:

Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. (60-68)

The density of images in this passage is impressive, but this density is important to the power of the text. The term “Unreal City” seems, at first, not solely in line with the “objective correlative” ideal, as it is a description that may not lead to an immediate image is the readers mind. That is unless the reader were familiar with London during Eliot’s time, as the term “The City” is “...the name for the financial district in London” (Rainey 81). To the knowledgeable reader, or the one who does his homework (the only two kinds that should really attempt reading Eliot), this is a clear-cut image evoking a specific emotional response. Immediately after follows the “brown fog of a winter dawn.” To most, fog is not generally thought of as brown. But this is London that Eliot has conjured, and here the fog is suffused with the dirt and soot abundant in the city.

Eliot then turns to the “flowing” crowd (repeated in line 66), with its “sighs, short and infrequent.” No individual is recognizable as every member of the crowd could be responsible for the sighs emitted. There are also the dual references to death; “I had not thought death had undone so many” and “With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.” The crowd is not a joyous, lively bunch. They are the walking dead, trapped in their lives of undeath, at the beck and call of the bell that begins the workday. The image, again, only imparts half of the depth of the passage though, as the line “I had not though death had undone so many” comes directly from Dante. In Canto III of The Inferno, as the poet first steps beyond the gates of hell Dante is struck by the image of “...so long a file of people / that I could not believe / death had undone so many” (Alighieri 45). Once again Eliot has connected to a poet of the past, but here the image takes on an evolved meaning. These are not souls who have passed from the earthly realm, as Dante saw, but rather these are living beings who are now lifeless. Just as those in Canto III, though, they pass through their lives “without disgrace yet without praise” (ibid) This is an interesting foreshadow of Eliot’s work in Little Gidding, since at this point Eliot has not converted to Anglicanism, but he can still make the religious connection between those in Canto III (those “lukewarm” referred to in Rev. 3:16) and the faceless workers in London.

Further on Eliot comes back to passages of death:

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

After the frosty silence in the gardens

After the agony in stony places

The shouting and the crying

Prison and palace and reverberation

Of thunder of spring over distant mountains

He who was living is now dead

We who were living are now dying

With a little patience (322-330)

People have now evolved from parts of a faceless flowing crowd into persons with a specific feature; “sweaty faces.” And their environment has taken on more details; “frosty silence in the gardens,” “agony in stony places.” The “gardens” image is particularly telling. The default image, for most people, of a garden is something lush, vibrant, and full of life. But this garden is full of “frosty silence.” Coupled with the “thunder of spring,” this passage connects back to the opening of the work. There is no solace to be taken from the earth. It is not a life giving entity, but one that brings pain and “shouting and crying.” And just like those who are already dead in the “Unreal City,” “He who is living is now dead / We who were living are now dying / With a little patience.” At the end of the poem, though, Eliot comes back to the “Unreal City,” proclaiming “London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down” (426).

As Rainey observes, though, this passage is also reminiscent of “...the betrayal and arrest of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane...” (116). It is important, especially in light of Eliot’s later work, to note that among so much talk of death and an unyielding earth, the striking amount of mystical and religious references within The Waste Land. In fact, the entire work begins with just such a reference as section one is titled “The Burial of the Dead.” This is the same title to the burial service in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. When dealing with a death, or specifically a burial, people often turn to religious texts and ceremonies for comfort and support. The Waste Land was written well before Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism, but the connection cannot be overlooked. The opening lines present a bleak description, but read in reference to the section title there seems to be some idea of comfort within. Eliot may not be at a point in his life when he knows what this comfort is, but he seems to have a sense it is there.

As evidence of this, at line 43 Eliot calls upon the name of “Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,” and the following lines go about describing a reading from a deck of tarot cards. The treatment is such that it seems Eliot is dismissing the mystical art as a sham. The pronouncement “I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring” (56) seem generalized to the point of absurdity. But, its inclusion is important in relation to the other mystical images evoked, for it seems that Eliot really is searching for the answer to the problems with humanity enumerated in the poem. Continuing in this vain comes the title to the third section of the work, “The Fire Sermon.” This title is taken from a sermon from the Buddha, in which he preached against the things of this world. In a way, with its continual images of death, decay, and ruin, The Waste Land can also be read in this way. Section three even ends with an appeal to God, “To Carthage then I came / Burning burning burning burning / O Lord Thou pluckest me out / O Lord Thou pluckest / burning” (307-11). The entire poem, in fact, ends on a similar note. Seemingly at a loss for what to do with all he has written, the poet is left to declare, “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” (430). He has taken all he sees of the world, the horribly bad and the small amount of hope, and created his art. Unfortunately, he has merely grasped at the solutions, and can do nothing further.

In moving from The Waste Land to Four Quartets there is often the impulse to:

find in Four Quartets a sign of some evasion or dishonesty in the poet who wrote The Waste Land. The very elegance of the later poem…seems a withdrawal from human suffering, a retreat into mystical contemplation far from ‘the world where poetry is accustomed to dwell’…Eliot, after all, helped teach modern readers to value tension and discord in poetry, and…Four Quartets seems strangely lacking in those very qualities (De Lamotte 342).

As we have seen, though, Eliot was very cognizant of a mystical or religious dilemma while writing The Waste Land. As Childs notes, “Eliot’s interest in mysticism at the time of Four Quartets is continuous in an important respect with his philosophical interests of thirty years before” (145). The difference between the two works, though, stems from the new approach to these dilemmas that Eliot now had at his command. It is only natural, therefore, for the poet to handle these issues in a different way. Specifically, Little Gidding “is a deliberately retrospective summary of Eliot’s poetic career, and evaluation of the influences that have shaped his poetic voice” (Emig 84).

Much like references to religious texts and ideals in the section titles of The Waste Land, the title Little Gidding refers to:

the dedication to religious life evinced by the small community of Little Gidding. Its leader Nicholas Ferrar…was ordained deacon in the Church. However, he refused to proceed to higher orders and returned instead…to Little Gidding, to devote himself to the simple and austere Christian life of prayer and good works (Reibetanz 139).

With this in mind, one necessarily connects the opening of The Waste Land, with its allusions to The Canterbury Tales and a holy pilgrimage to this image of a religious community. Here, then, we have Eliot embarking on a similar journey as the one he took with The Waste Land but the path will be markedly different. Even the images present in the opening lines are reminiscent of those in The Waste Land, “Midwinter spring is its own season / Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown, / Suspended in time, between pole and tropic” (1-3). The reference “midwinter spring” hearkens back to the phrase “April is the cruelest month.” Both are simultaneously calling upon distinct and opposite ideas. The difference, of course, is in what is being represented. The Waste Land opens with a jarring and non-instinctive description of spring and earth. So too does Little Gidding begin with a non-instinctive description of a season. A “midwinter spring” which is “sempiternal”; a season that is ever lasting and “suspended it time.” Here, though, Eliot is setting a new course for his exploration while still heeding to what has come before. In order to complete this journey, the poet must revive the images and questions of his past so that he might finally deal with them in the present.

As Emig demonstrates “It sets the tone for the paradoxical and yet complementary imagery of the section…It also already implies the notion of timelessness so crucial to the whole of Four Quartets…individual anxiety…is extended into the impersonal image of ‘soul’s sap quivers’” (85). It is an important distinction to make that while timelessness was dealt with in terms of the finality of death in The Waste Land, here it is timelessness in terms of the eternal soul. Likewise, the “individual anxiety” that destroyed individuality in The Waste Land, is now evolved past mere human terms into the realm of the soul. While these issues have transcended the physical realm of humanity it is important to remember that Eliot is able “to preserve an attitude of intense serenity while not minimizing the intensity of the struggle” (Thompson 141). Gone are the disjointed humanistic attempts to rectify the problems. The poet has gone into the completely mystical realm without losing the vitality (or, one might say, the humanity) of the struggle. Throughout this section Eliot is continually connecting the physical world with the metaphysical, but always by relating the former to the latter “Here, the intersection of the timeless moment / Is England and nowhere. Never and always” (54-55).

Section II, in particular, is important for how the poet systematically disassembles the “classical” foundation of physical reality:

The death of hope and despair,

This is the death of air…

Laughs without mirth.

This is the death of earth…

The marred foundations we forgot,

Of sanctuary and choir.

This is the death of water and fire. (61-2, 70-1, 77-9)

Unlike in The Waste Land where the earth is dying, and man must die with it. Here, the world will unquestionably die, but man is not necessarily destined to that fate, “From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit / Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire” (136-7). This is one of the most important developments from The Waste Land. Where a number of disjointed attempts were made to connect with the mystical, now the “spirit” can be “restored.”

Section III begins with the poet making the assertion that:

There are three conditions which often look alike

Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:

Attachment to self and to things and persons, detachment

From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference

Which resembles the others as death resembles life (142-6).

A passage with seemingly little in common with Eliot’s earlier work, but as Reibetanz points out, “Eliot does not let his readers rest in well-worn and accepted attitudes…he forces the reader to square his values repeatedly; just as we are settling into one attitude, the image is shifted slightly, and we respond with a readjustment of our point of view” (166). Eliot then, has moved beyond the structural displacement that tested the reader in The Waste Land. Here he has created that same challenging relationship with the reader through intellectual ideas. Let it not be thought, however, that he has abandoned the objective correlative. Even in this small section, while discussing such ideas as “attachment,” “detachment” and “indifference,” he constructs for the reader the sensory experience of the hedgerow, so that even while contemplating the nature of these ideas they form in the reader’s mind a distinct image and therefore evoke a distinct response.

Eliot continues on in section IV in his habit of juxtaposing and connecting alternating and seemingly contrary imagery, “The only hope, or else despair / Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre– / To be redeemed from fire by fire” (198-200). The images are elementary, but their placement is important. The difference between “pyre or pyre” and “from fire to fire” are obvious in reference to the fires of sin and hell, and the redeeming fires of heaven. These are not images created by Eliot, but his use in this way is instructive. He is not espousing an easily taken remedy to the problem of sin and death, as the answer is equally painful. This is not an especially comforting image of redemption, but it is the only one available. He continues on in an even less consoling mode, “Who then devised the torment? Love…Behind the hands that wove the intolerable shirt of flame…We only live, only suspire / Consumed by either fire or fire” (201-7). The pain of life, and the pain of the only possible redemption come from nothing other than love. It is a harsh prospect for humanity, but the only possible remedy.

In terms of literary allusions, Little Gidding seems to fall short of the bar Eliot set for himself within The Waste Land. There are a few present, to be sure. The “compound ghost” the speaker meets at line 97, Eliot himself declared was principally made up (in his mind) of Yeats and Swift. Line 179 talks of the “one who died blind and quiet,” an obvious reference to Milton. But where The Waste Land borrowed some of its major images from literary works, in Little Gidding Eliot seems to have replaced much of this with images drawn from his own experiences living in London during World War 2. It is well known that Eliot was an air raid warden during the war, and lines 80-151 present the speaker as patrolling the streets after a raid. There are also several instances within the poem when Eliot uses the image of the dove. On one level this, obviously, represents the numerous instances in the bible where the Holy Spirit is described as a dove descending from heaven (most notably John 1:32). But some of these references, such as in line 83, “...the dark dove with the flickering tongue” take on new meaning in light of Eliot’s life. Clearly in this instance, just before he heads out on patrol, the speaker is talking about the German bombers that have just “passed below the horizon.” The beginning of section IV is another instance of this, though with more ambiguity, “The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of incandescent terror / Of which the tongues declare / The one discharge from sin and error” (202-205). This is no simple image, as the dove simultaneously “breaks the air” and yet “tongues declare...discharge from sin and error.” This image has become both dive bomber and Holy Spirit, bringing both destruction and salvation. It seems a nearly impossible image to adequately conceive in one’s mind. Eliot continues in his use of contrasting imagery that we saw even as far back as the opening of The Waste Land, but instead of giving the reader a simple set of contrasting images Eliot has now constructed one that is, if not a complete contradiction, at least nearly impossible for the human mind to completely rectify. Eliot will employ this technique again to even greater effect at the close of the work.

One point to consider, however, is how Little Gidding (and all of Four Quartets) actually reads much more like a traditional poem than The Waste Land. On the one hand, the tone and composition of the earlier work were so radically different from much of what had come before. The numerous references to literature throughout the work, though, allowed Eliot to bridge the gap between old and new and thus could The Waste Land take its rightful place among the masterpieces that had come before. As Eliot grows older, though, and his philosophical ideology becomes more solidified he finds less need to work in “updated” modes of meter and form. Much of Four Quartets, in fact, has distinct meter patterns, and even rhyme schemes. This hearkening back to the form and structure of old is essential to the strength of the work. Here, Eliot has gone from fragmentation to “A poem with a re-established symbolic coherence created out of discursive fragments” (Emig 82), and the symbolic coherence is reflected in the structural coherence. The underlying symbology of each work, though, is still connected as both poems are referencing different facets of the same central themes even as Eliot’s philosophy has evolved. All of this, therefore, makes Four Quartets both a more “traditional” work in relation to the “dead poets,” but at the same time a unique and newly expressive work in Eliot’s personal cannon.

Section V is the beginning of the end of Four Quartets, and not surprisingly Eliot calls even this idea into question, “What we call the beginning is often the end / And to make an end is to make a beginning. / The end is where we start from” (208-210). As the beginning of Little Gidding recalled the beginning of The Waste Land, so too does the end of this poem recall the end of the other. The final coherent thought in The Waste Land, “These fragments I have shored against my ruins” is particularly poignant in light of the opening of section V, “The end is where we start from.” The beginning of the journey taken through Four Quartets, then, began at the end of The Waste Land. And there is no other place Eliot could have started, in fact. The previous poem was full of questions, while only revealing some glimpses of a few possible answers. The only thing ultimately definite about the previous poem is the questions. Naturally, this is where Eliot had to begin when constructing Four Quartets. This passage, though, is also looking forward, “for the exploration is not to end here with the poem but to move onwards beyond it” (Reibetanz 176). The final stanza, in fact, urges the reader to such action, “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time” (233-6).

Moving even further, though, Eliot now confronts the ultimate problems he finds with the physical world, time and death.

We die with the dying:

See, they depart, and we go with them.

We are born with the dead:

See, they return, and bring us with them.

The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree

Are of equal duration. A people without history

Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern

Of timeless moments…(222-9).

Having equated beginning and end at the start of the section, here Eliot takes on the exact nature of time. The “moment” of the rose and the yew-tree “are of equal duration.” The poet has transcended the earthly concept of time, as it does not matter in the eternal realm of the spirit where “history is a pattern of timeless moments.” Moments do not happen and subsequently become lost to history, but rather all of history exists as moments for all eternity. This distinction of time is important in relation to the preceding discussion of death. “We die with the dying” and “we are born with the dead.” All of humanity, because of the timeless nature of moments, is constantly dying and being reborn. Death is no longer the pervading corruptive force of The Waste Land, but rather a part of human nature that should not necessarily be feared.

The poem ends with, perhaps, the most difficult image in Eliot’s cannon:

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one (249-253).

On the face of it, the image seems fairly straightforward, but as Reibatanz points out:

…any representation of the fire and the rose as one must of necessity suggest either the fire engulfing the rose, or the rose transforming the fire. To our human comprehension, the balance must go one way or the other, for we cannot apprehend the razor’s edge of equilibrium that is present in the union of two distinct and contrasting entities into one (186).

But this is exactly what Eliot is doing and has done throughout this poem and his career. This unification, when “all shall be well and / all manner of thing shall be well” is nothing less than “the ultimate unification of all experience and all reality” (ibid).

For Eliot, the journey from The Waste Land to Little Gidding was anything but a straight and easy path. It was a 20-year odyssey that encompassed numerous episodes of pain and thought in the life of the poet. Nevertheless, it is an interesting study to see that while much changed for Eliot, in an outwardly way, the difficulties he dealt with in his art were continuous. Having posed many questions in the early portion of his work, Eliot systematically took on the task of seeking answers to those very questions he himself asked. It was a long process of discovery, in fact, to find those answers. Eliot, however, would not be satisfied to simply present them as mere discourse on the nature of humanity. His primary labor was, indeed, to craft those answers into art. This, perhaps, was the only option open to Eliot. The image of “And the fire and the rose are one” being so strongly in opposition to human experience and understanding that where else but in the poem could Eliot deliver it?

Works Cited

Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Trans. Robert & Jean Hollander. New York: DoubleDay, 2000.

Childs, Donald J. From Philosophy to Poetry: T.S. Eliot’s Study of Knowledge and Experience. New York: Palgrave, 2001.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Trans. David Wright. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

De Lamotte, Eugenia. “Dissonance and Resolution in Four Quartets.” Modern Language Quarterly 49.4 (1988): 342-362.

Eliot, T.S. The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1971.

---. Selected Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950.

---. The Waste Land: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Michael North. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

Emig, Rainer. Modernism in Poetry: Motivations, Structures and Limits. London: Longman Publishing, 1995.

Hall, Donald. The Paris Review Interviews. New York: Picador, 2006.

North, Michael. “T.S. Eliot: A Chronology.” North 293-95.

Rainey, Lawrence, Ed. The Annotated Waste Land with Eliot’s Contemporary Prose. New Have: Yale University Press, 2005.

Reibetanz, Julia Maniates. A Reading of Eliot’s Four Quartets. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1983.

Thompson, Eric. T.S. Eliot: The Metaphysical Perspective. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963.

Just so you don't think the cheese has been lazy, Or: the longest post to ever appear on this blog...

Here, dear citizens, is your opportunity to bask in the glory of the cheese' most recent efforts on his journey toward dual (useless) master's degrees. Marvel at how, in a 15 page research paper on Emily Dickinson, he successfully includes cites to both Star Wars and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy....




The Cheese

English 520

Dr. Esdale

December 13, 2006

Dickinson and Artistic Intent: The Question of Variant Poems

Emily Dickinson has, for many years, been a favorite of literary scholars and critics. When looking at the breadth of her work there seems a never ending variety of thematic topics to discuss or analyze. Coupled with the somewhat unusual facts surrounding her everyday life, Dickinson becomes an even more intriguing and enigmatic figure. One of the more unique aspects of her writing, though, is the fact that she often wrote multiple versions of her poems that included variations on certain words or phrases. Literary criticism being the endeavor it is, any critic armed with enough florid turns of phrase and logical acumen can extract near limitless readings from any manuscript of depth (be it poem, novel or short story). Add to that the fact that Dickinson was a writer who published almost no work during her life (and those few pieces that she did publish barely register as a spot on the totality of her collected work), and you have a writer who never created what the public might consider a codified “edition” of any single piece of her writing (let alone her entire canon). The floodgates, it would seem, are then left wide open as to how one might interpret any of the poems that include even a single variant, let alone those with multiple variant parts (and those with several options for each variant). It is not the focus of this paper to simply analyze some poems with variants, though that is, in many ways, an instructive exercise related to the matter at hand. The real question that is being approached here, rather, is just what was Dickinson doing by including these variants?

It is not an easily answered question. Or, one could easily answer it by asserting that Dickinson was merely using variants as a means by which to self-edit or improve those poems that included said variants. There is a tenet in scientific circles known as Occam’s Razor that states, essentially, all things being equal, the simplest solution is probably the best. In terms of Dickinson and her use of variants, this “self-edit” hypothesis would certainly fit the criteria of Occam’s Razor, for it does not require one to look extensively at the numerous variants, or postulate any hypothesis beyond what seems apparent in the manuscripts themselves. The problem with this hypothesis, though, is that we are not dealing with a scientific inquiry. This is not a question whose solution can be found in a lab. This is a problem that, at its core, revolves around a semi-reclusive woman who has been dead for 120 years and who, while alive, did not communicate even to close friends in a necessarily clear or straightforward manner. And so it seems disingenuous, both to the woman and her work, to simply write off the variants as mere acts of self-editing or drafting.

Let us begin by turning our attention to poem 1263, commonly known as “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” The first two lines seem to relate a fairly straightforward (for Dickinson, at any rate) idea, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant - / Success in Circuit lies.” Essentially, then, it seems Dickinson is espousing a philosophy of tactful truthfulness. That is, that truth is important but it is best expressed in some manner other than complete candidness. The next two lines then appear to expand on this idea, “Too bright for our infirm Delight / The Truth's superb surprise.” Line three, however, contains the first of two variants within the poem. Instead of “infirm” Dickinson alternately allows “bold” to sit in its place. At first glance, it seems a trifling matter. The central point of the line would seem to be “our...Delight.” One might argue that changing the adjective describing the noun “Delight” is essentially making no real change, and this would not be an argument totally without merit. But the two adjectives that Dickinson uses here are so absolutely contradictory that to see them side by side strikes one as intriguing. The use of infirm implies that “our...Delight” is something weak, almost non-existent, that Truth will reveal to be hollow. Using the word bold instead, however, connotes that “our...Delight” is something strong, perhaps even fortified, that is destroyed (possibly violently) by Truth. Again, there are similarities in these two versions, as Truth seems to be serving in an instructive or clarifying manner in relation to Delight. But the way in which it acts in each, one illuminating and one annihilative, is very different.

The third set of two lines contains no variants, “As Lightning to the Children eased / With explanation kind,” and seems essentially straightforward. Then, however, in the final set of two lines the reader encounters the second and most important variant, “The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind -” with “gradually” alternately replaced with the word “moderately.” Again it seems at first glance that these are similar ideas, simply separated by some order of degree. But close scrutiny reveals that these two word choices are, in fact, delivering two vastly different ideas.

In the first rendition we have “Truth must dazzle gradually.” While this, in some way, echoes the sentiment of the opening lines it also seems to imply that there is no stopping point. If Truth does dazzle “gradually,” regardless of how slow a pace it is revealed, Truth should, at some point, be completely disclosed. The use of “moderately,” however, seems to set a limit on the amount, rather than the speed, of Truth that people can handle. Moderately, we would most likely take as meaning “within a reasonable limit.” In this reading, then, it is not how quickly (or really, how slowly) man can handle Truth, but how much actual Truth man can cope with period. So where lies the “true” meaning of the poem? Must a person approach Truth slowly, that he might appreciate its fullness properly, or must he take in what truth he can and be happy with that? The two would seem mutually exclusive, for if one is to know only a fraction of Truth, then one cannot know it fully.

There is, of course, the possibility that the variants exist, rather than to replace specific words, to demonstrate deeper meaning within the work. In other words, that the variants need not be seen as a choice of one or the other, but rather all of the word choice options set down by
Dickinson exist as parts of the poem to enhance the totality of meaning within the work. In a more theoretical way, that is, in a strictly philosophical sense, the duality of meaning suggested by the variants can be seen as, perhaps, two sides of the same coin, each one illuminating facets of the other. This, in fact, might not be an entirely far fetched idea as Monte reminds us, “...the reader need to be alert for alternative meanings in Dickinson’s poetry while expecting its driving impulse to be toward interrelated concerns...” (29).

As Franklin notes in the Variorum Edition, this poem was not included in any of the fascicles Dickinson constructed, nor was it (as far as we know) sent to anyone in a letter, but survives for us on a “fragment of stationary” (1089). Certainly, then, one might argue (at least in relation to this poem) that Dickinson was in fact practicing a form of self-edit by including the variants. Perhaps her desire here was to tease out exactly what she wanted this poem to do, or how she wanted it to read. Certainly this would seem a fairly likely explanation in this instance. But then what are we to make of poem 292, “I got so I could hear his name -” (see attached). Here is a 27 line poem (a bit on the longer side for Dickinson, true) that contains no less than seven variants (and the variants for lines one and 23 each have two options). The first variant, in fact, causes a shift in how one perceives the entire poem. The first line reads “I got so I could hear his name -” with two possibilities for “hear,” both “think” and “take.” The first option, “think” does little to change the perception of the line, as both connote a simple passive (“think” is, obviously, not exactly passive but there is no direct contact with the man even when employing this variant) experience with the man’s name. The second optional variant “take,” however, is a verb, and not just a suggestive one. Reading this variant with the second line, in fact, turns the entire poem from passivity to action; “I got so I could take - his name - / Without - Tremendous gain -.” Instead of the mere idea, or thought, of the man, the speaker has now fully taken on this man creating a specific connectivity between both speaker and man. It could be argued that this is a metaphorical, or imaginative, taking. Dickinson, famously, did not marry and the wording “I got so” can be taken to infer thinking about “taking” on the man’s name. But the use of “take” develops a connectivity, between speaker and man, that seen in light of the second variant, seems correct.

The entire second stanza reads, “I got so I could walk across / That Angle in the floor, / Where he turned so, and I turned - how - / And all our sinew tore -.” This version seems to flow well with either of the first two variants of line one. In this sequence we see the speaker walking past the man and both parties turn (or turn away). In the case of the speaker, the “how” seems to be a question of “how could she turn from him?” And yet she does turn from him, and in that action their collective “sinew” (both speaker and man) tears. The variant here, is in line seven and reads “Where he turned so, and I let go -.” This variant, though, would seem to fall more in line with the second variant of line one. Instead of the connectedness of the two being a thought within the speakers head, the second line one variant expresses a specific connection. That connection, rather than simply requiring the speaker to turn away, would require a much more dynamic action at this point in the poem than a simple “turning away,” and “letting go” is certainly one. And this variant, because of the substantially stronger connection (coupled with the second variant to line one), expresses an even more powerful and awful “tearing” of “sinew” in line eight.

The fourth stanza, “Could dimly recollect a Grace - / I think, they called it “God” - / Renowned to ease Extremity - / When Formula, had failed -” contains three variants, two of which are incredibly important. The first occurs in line 13, with “Grace” being replaced by “Force.” Grace, especially in light of the capitalization, can easily be a stand in term for God. And, not coincidently, “God” is used in the following line. But by using the term “Grace,” as opposed to any of the number of other terms at her disposal, Dickinson is relating a specific idea of God. This is not the vengeful God of the Old Testament. Grace, in fact, implies a personnalness about God and how he acts in relation to mankind. The variant “Force,” however, does the exact opposite. One finds it hard to imagine a “Force” with any sort of personal attributes that a human can relate to, let alone a “Force” imparting anything even remotely resembling grace. And following on the dichotomy of these variants line 15, “Renowned to ease Extremity -” a natural expression following the use of “Grace,” can also be read “Renowned to stir - Extremity -.” This seems at complete odds with the “Grace” variant, but completely in line with the use of the “Force” variant. The last line of the stanza, “When Formula, had failed -” also alternately reads “When Filament - had failed -.” There is, of course, a meaningful difference in “Formula” and “Filament,” particularly in relation to the line one variants, where “Filament” reinforces the idea of connectedness. This variant, though, is of less import up against the two preceding variants in this fourth stanza.

The difference in the two variant versions of the poems may not be as pronounced as in poem 1263. The difference here is more subtle, though no less intriguing. And while seeing the variants in 1263 as part of the whole may be a more taxing intellectual effort for the reader, in the case of 292 we see, when taking in the totality of meaning and significance of the variants, that indeed there is a coherent overarching thematic structure that easily acknowledges, and is strengthened by, the inclusion of the variants. Unlike poem 1263, however, 292 was included by Dickinson in one of her fascicles. This then brings up another issue we must consider in this discussion, how do you evaluate the fascicles? At some level, it may come down to personal preference since, as Franklin notes, the fascicles were

“...of simple construction...To bind, Dickinson stacked the assembled sheets, with the overflow leaves (if any) in place, and punched two holes through the group, threading it with string, tied in front. She did not put her name on the fascicles, give them titles or title pages, or label, number, or otherwise distinguish them. They bear no pagination or signature markings to establish an internal order...there are no contents lists or indexes to aid in locating a particular one. It is apparent that she did not keep them in a particular order...(7-8).

From this description (and Franklin would certainly be one of the most reliable sources in this regard) there might be the inclination to discredit the importance Dickinson placed on the fascicles since she made no effort to catalog their contents. Even with such a simple construction, however, the very act of creating the fascicles (and creating so many over so long a period) suggests that Dickinson had some desire to record in a more permanent fashion many of her poems. Clearly she was not going about compiling her “Complete Works” but she was making an effort to standardize some of her poems. Indeed, Franklin confirms that once a poem was copied from a working draft into “...a later form, such as a fascicle, the drafts were destroyed” (11). Of course, this did not preclude her from, later in her life, simply copying working copies verbatim into the fascicles themselves (Franklin 18). Even with this seemingly inherent contradiction, though, it would be a disservice to ignore the importance of the fascicle process in Dickinson’s art. The very act of producing these small booklets did allow Dickinson to act in a quasi-editorial capacity over her poems. And yet, as in the case of of 292, at the end of that editorial event the poem still included multiple variants.

At this point it is pertinent to consider that freedom of (or questions of) artistic intent is something that happens on a regular basis. In recent years the American public has been witness to the auteuristic tendencies of George Lucas. In 1977 the first Star Wars film was released in theaters, with subsequent sequels in (The Empire Strikes Back) 1980 and (Return of the Jedi) in 1983. In 1997 George Lucas re-released a “Special Edition” of all three films to theaters world-wide. Each of the 1997 versions had been altered in some way from the original theatrical release. The subsequent VHS and DVD versions of the “Special Edition” trilogy also included even more changes on top of those from the 1997 theatrical versions (as an interesting aside, just this year Lucas has released a DVD box set of all three “Classic” versions of the films, that is, the films as they were seen when originally released in theaters in 1977, 1980 and 1983 respectively). Lucas’ explanation of why he felt the need to create these new versions is that:

Episode IV was not really finished because I didn't have the money, the time or the technology to finish it. At the time I was kind of upset about it...And I was saying, ‘I feel it's only 50 or 60% of what I wanted. I'm really disappointed, I'm really sad, it bothers me to watch it.’ And to a minor degree, that was true on the next two films, partly because I was financing them myself and they were more complicated. I did those films in a Special Edition to finish them off the way I meant them to be (Anwar).

Unable to accomplish, technologically, his original vision of the films when they were initially produced, Lucas was forced to wait until advances in the science of film making made it possible for him to finish the films the way he originally envisioned them. In this instance, though, Lucas' inability to exactly create his vision was a limit of the medium at the time (the 1970's), and the subsequent corrections done by the film maker were only possible once technology had adequately evolved. In relation to Dickinson, this is instructive in how we (as the literary critical world) view her work. It is assumed that one of the reasons she did not publish (much) during her lifetime was her dislike of what alterations might be required, in the form of structural and format changes, of her poetry. This problem, of course, did not exist in her chosen forms of “publication,” the fascicles and letters. It seems obvious, then, that the variant forms that exist of her poems were not, in fact, simply her attempts to “get it right.” Dickinson had nothing to hinder her, either as an outside influence (as in the case of an editor) or technologically (as was the case with Lucas), from producing exactly the art she wanted to.

There is, though, another type of influence to consider in the example Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Originally produced as a radio drama, the story was subsequently retold by Adams as a novel, TV series, graphic novel, video game and feature film. Each of these renditions was written or created by Adams himself. The one exception, the film, was produced after Adams' death, though he wrote the penultimate draft of the screenplay and is responsible for about 90% of the film’s final story (Lacey R20). Being that each variation of the story is told in a different medium each version does vary, in terms of story structure and plot, slightly (or in a couple of cases, greatly) from every other. To Adams this seemed a necessity to accommodate the underlying differences in each specific medium. In fact, in 1985 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts was published. Adams later wrote that “...it is the only example of one Hitchhiker publication accurately and consistently reflecting another. I feel a little uncomfortable with this...”(xi). The motivation behind Adam’s unease at the publication of the radio scripts stems from the fact that, as each medium is necessarily different, and therefore has different factors by which success (in terms of a “good” story) is judged, the actual Hitchhiker story that is told in each medium is different. This was a situation that Adams embraced wholeheartedly as it seems fairly obvious that what may work in a novel may not adequately transfer to a film, or radio drama, or TV series. The examples of George Lucas and Douglas Adams may appear completely unrelated to the life or artistic proclivities of Emily Dickinson.

In many ways, though, Dickinson is such an enigma to current scholars that, at times, it is useful to approach her work from more familiar territory. If we can use the examples of others to illuminate what Dickinson certainly was not doing, then by a process of elimination we can come to a better understanding of what she, in fact, was attempting. If, however, we only ever try to gain an understanding of Dickinson solely from her letters and poems, thanks to the distance we have from her (in time) and the reclusive nature of her life while she did live, we may never be able to make any real meaningful or lasting insights into her work (the current debate going on in critical circles about how we should even approach her work, i.e. original manuscripts vs. typed reproductions is one such debate that can have no resolution if we are unable to make connections about Dickinson to the larger literary world).

Emily Dickinson, as we know, worked exclusively in poetry and letters. She was under no technological inability to produce her vision, such as Lucas, nor was she slave to the strictures of a specific medium, like Adams. Poetry, one might well argue, is one of the most open and unrestricted of all art forms. And while Dickinson herself predates the Modernists and all they did to tear away much of the stagnant formality that poetry had been subject to for many years, her poetry is so vastly different in technique and voice from nearly everything that had come before, it seems apparent she was not afraid to write exactly how, and what, she wanted. We come back, then, to the fact that we can easily say Dickinson’s work with the fascicles was, in fact, her own exercise at self-editing. But as Franklin also points out, sometimes poems from the fascicles were sent to recipients first, as in the case of poem 18 “Morns like these we parted” before being transcribed into a fascicle (17). This would seem to indicate that, more than just a place to set out an intermediate “working” version, the fascicles also represented some form of benchmark at least on equal footing with submitting a poem to someone in a letter.

Furthermore, the relationship between the fascicle and letter versions of a poem is also something to consider. There has, at times, been a predilection in critical circles to favor fascicle forms of poems over letter forms. But as Messmer points out, the critical focus on the “...‘unauthorized’ fascicles all too easily tend to obscure the fact that her correspondence was indeed ‘authorized’ by the poet herself, if only for an alternative (‘private’) form of publication, that is, for circulation among friends and family”(184). And this argument would seem logical except for the fact that, often, Dickinson would send the same poem to multiple recipients, and each recipient would receive a variant form, such as with poem 579 “The soul unto itself.” Three separate versions of this poem exist, in fact, all written in 1863. Variants A and B were enclosed in letters to T.W. Higginson and Susan Dickinson (though the name “Sue” had been erased on the letter), and variant C was included in fascicle 25. To best make a comparison of variants A and B it is instructive to see them side by side:

A
The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend
Or the most agonizing Spy
An Enemy could send

Secure against it’s own
No treason it can fear
Itself it’s Sovreign of itself
The Soul should be in Awe

B
The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend -
Or the most agonizing Spy
An Enemy - could send -
Secure against it’s own -
No treason it can fear -
Itself - it’s Sovreign - Of itself
The Soul should stand it awe -

The two most immediate differences between both versions are the stanza break in the Higginson variant and the dashes included in the variant sent to Susan Dickinson. It is well known that Dickinson sent some poems to Higginson after he published the article “Letter to a Young Contributor,” in the April 1862 edition of Atlantic Monthly, and that while Higginson was generally complimentary toward Dickinson’s work he was critical of her form and structure (Ward 179-80). At the time that he received poem 579 Higginson was in command of a black regiment in South Carolina during the Civil War. It is, therefore, entirely possible that in the act of sending her friend a poem, one seemingly meant to uplift his spirit in a time of need, she consciously did away with any structural and format issues he would have disdained. Indeed, even with its method of capitalization and consciou spelling choice of the word “Sovreign,” variant A still appears more like a classical two stanza poem. Variant B embodies much more what we have come to expect from a Dickinson poem. (There are, of course, the dashes. Since, however, there has been countless pages in journals and books devoted to finding the exact reason for, and meaning of, the dashes. And they are of only tangential importance to this discussion it simply needs to be stated that they exist in one version and are absent in the other.) But if one looks deeper at the two variants, some marked and important differences become apparent.

The stanza break in variant A is of utmost importance in how one must necessarily approaches the poem. For good or ill many readers see a stanza break and unconsciously read the poem with a pause. Whether or not Higginson did such a thing is of less importance than the fact that he would look not only at the words, but also the structure of the poem, and realize that each stanza comprises a different, though complimentary, and free standing idea. Each stanza can exist on its own without the other. While the meaning of the first stanza, and its discussion of the dual nature of the human soul, is deepened by its relation to the second, one need not read the second stanza to make sense of the first. Accordingly, the second stanza, and its proclamation that the soul should be in awe of its own ‘sovreign’ty, is only heightened by the existence of the soul’s possible treason of the first stanza, but is not reliant on it. The break, in fact, makes these two ideas complimentary in such a way that is not accomplished in variant B, for in that version all the ideas are connected as one single strain of thought.

The other small but immensely significant difference is the variant word in the last line, “be” and “stand.” In version A, the line “The Soul should be in Awe” speaks of the soul as in a state of being; that it should exist in awe of itself or what it can accomplish. Whereas version B, “The Soul should stand in awe -” refers to the soul in a state of action; standing. Granted, it is a state of passive action, but to stand is a specific act one must take. Of course, in each instance the phrase is qualified by “should,” and so this is less a prescription than a supposition. But the difference in the two phrases is remarkably important for one cannot exist in any state without that state encompassing the individual entirely, while one can take a specific action without being in a specific state of existence. And not coincidently, the two recipients were in vastly different situations when receiving their respective versions of the poem. Higginson was in the middle of the bloodiest war known to American history leading an all black regiment (a fact that cannot be overstated). Susan Dickinson was a housewife. Higginson was existing is a specific state of being, and it seems that Dickinson was keenly aware of the import of what he was doing, and she had a definite idea about how he should see himself. For Susan, though, the poem takes on a reflective tone instructing the reader to “stand in awe” of those men, like Higginson, that were experiencing great loss and horror for the betterment of their country.

The third version of this poem, the one Dickinson enshrined in a fascicle seems, to be a compromise, or more precisely, a synthesis of both versions A and B.

A
The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend
Or the most agonizing Spy
An Enemy could send

Secure against it’s own
No treason it can fear
Itself it’s Sovreign of itself
The Soul should be in Awe


B
The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend -
Or the most agonizing Spy
An Enemy - could send -
Secure against it’s own -
No treason it can fear -
Itself - it’s Sovreign - Of itself
The Soul should stand it awe -


C
The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend -
Or the most agonizing Spy -
An Enemy - could send -

Secure against it’s own -
No treason it can fear -
Itself - it’s Sovreign - Of itself
The soul should stand in Awe -

Perhaps it is a false assumption, but as we know that versions A and B were meant for Higginson and Susan Dickinson respectively, it does not seem a huge leap to think of version C, the version that Dickinson copied into one of the fascicles, as the variant that Dickinson wanted for herself. Not surprisingly, version C uses the two stanza structure, with its emphasis on deepening meaning between the two parts, and also utilizes the dashes that Dickinson was so fond of. Most importantly, though, version C uses the B variant, the reflective variant, of the last line. This too would fall in line with the hypothesis that this version was Dickinson’s own preferred version, for she, like Susan, would stand in awe of the soul’s “sovreign” nature.

In some ways, though, the letters present a more complicated problem when trying to determine Dickinson’s motives for the variants. As Mitchell points out:

The letters to Bowles, for instance, are more reserved than those to her sister-in-law and close friend Susan Dickinson...It has been argued that the scraps bespeak a ‘comfort level’ with Susan that Dickinson could never feel with Higginson or Bowles. The very materiality of these different texts, then, has a meaning. But precisely how this meaning can be formulated is difficult to say. For some critics confidentiality enables Dickinson to be experimental. But perhaps it means the opposite (“Revising the Script: Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts” 712).

And it seems rather obvious that a letter written to a close friend (i.e., Susan) would, of necessity, read and behave differently than a letter written to a mere acquaintance (even one whom she obviously admired, such as Higginson). And the letters sent to Susan, in particular, are interesting because “Emily’s writings to Susan expand from conventional letters to what Susan refers to as ‘letter-poems’ as she later compiles her book of Emily’s writings. These ‘letter-poems’ are letters that look and sound like poems; they are also poems addressed to Susan that read like letters or messages” (Hart 65). Even with these ‘letter-poems’ it seems that there is a deliberateness at work. If producing these ‘letter-poems’ were nothing more than an exercise or pastime, then why not produce them for more than a single recipient? On some level, though, that is the entire problem with Dickinson scholarship. Everything she did, not matter how great or small, can be challenged with a single word, why?

Perhaps, in answer to that larger underlying question, but specifically in regards to the question of variants, there are multiple ways to view everything Dickinson did. Mitchell suggests such a possibility (specifically in relation to poem 1671 “Take all away from me,” but it can be easily extrapolated to include variants):

One can read her indecision in different ways—as a sign of a dynamic and innovative intelligence attuned to the nuances of meaning afforded by varieties...and deliberately experimenting with them; as an indication that Dickinson was never fully satisfied with the balance of the poem, which she reworked restlessly but fruitlessly to get right; or as a token of a more casual or impressionistic relationship to the lines...(Measures of Possibility 183).

It seems almost folly to assume Dickinson has only a “casual” relationship to any of the lines she produced. Certainly it is a possibility that cannot be completely disregarded, but to make such a statement would seem to drastically undervalue all she did in creating variants in the first place. Why produce variants at all then, and specifically variants intended for particular recipients such as poem 579, if one is not invested deeply with the poem. Accordingly, one must assume that there were poems Dickinson produced that she never “got right.” But the simple fact that she shared many of these poems with highly educated and respected people (Higginson and Bowles most prominently) would imply she had confidence in at least some of what she produced. So that leaves us with the conclusion that yes, in fact, the variant versions were purposeful and part of Dickinson’s method as an author. As Bushell affirms “...Dickinson allows space within the creative process for unintended meaning and that such a space, and such a meaning, is an integral part of creative composition” (26).

Of course, Dickinson openly resisted publishing, and as such left us, if we are completely honest, with only manuscript versions of all her work because she was never forced, in a rigid editorial environment, to make specific (and by publishing, what we would construe as binding) authorial choices. As an artist, Emily Dickinson was without parallel. Much of her power, though, may come from her specific desire (by not attempting to publish) to have no set version of her work. It seems that the ideas and themes related in the variant versions of “Tell all the truth but tell it slant -” and “I got so I could hear his name -” are oddly contradictory while simultaneously complimentary. And the connected relationship between the variant versions of “The Soul unto itself” simply cannot be ignored. Unfortunately for us, her specific intent will never be known for certain. And this, as any critic who has attempted to tackle Dickinson will attest, is the most frustrating, and engaging, aspect of her work.

Works Cited

Adams, Douglas. “A Guide to the Guide: Some unhelpful remarks from the author.” Introduction. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide. By Douglas Adams. New York: Portland House, 1997.

Brett, Anwar. “George Lucas: Star Wars Episode III Interview.” 18 May 2005. BBC. 5 Dec. 2006 <_http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2005/05/18/george_lucas_star_wars_episode_iii interview.shtml>.

Bushell, Sally. “Meaning in Dickinson’s Manuscripts: Intending the Unintentional.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 14.1 (2005): 24-61.

Franklin, R. W., Ed. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition. 3 Vols. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1998.

Hart, Ellen Louise & Martha Nell Smith, Eds. Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson. Ashfield, Massachusetts: Paris Press, 1998.

Lacey, Liam. “Hitching their wagon to a phenom.” The Globe and Mail [Canada] 29 April 2005: R20.

Messmer, Marietta. A Vice for Voices: Reading Emily Dickinson’s Correspondence. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.

Mitchell, Domhnall. Measures of Possibility: Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005.

—. “Revising the Script: Emily Dickinson’s Manuscripts.” American Literature 70 (1998): 705-737.

Monte, Steven. “Dickinson’s Searching Philology.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 12.2 (2003): 21-51.

Ward, Theodora. The Capsule of the Mind: Chapters in the Life of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1961.

Poem 292 – “I got so I could hear his name -”

I got so I could hear his name -
Without - Tremendous gain -
That Stop-sensation - on my Soul -
And Thunder - in the Room -

I got so I could walk across 5
That Angle in the floor,
Where he turned so, and I turned - how -
And all our Sinew tore -

I got so I could stir the Box -
In which his letters grew 10
Without that forcing, in my breath -
As Staples - driven through -

Could dimly recollect a Grace -
I think, they called it “God” -
Renowned to ease Extremity - 15
When Formula, had failed -

And shape my Hands -
Petition’s way,
Tho’ ignorant of a word
That Ordination - utters - 20

My Business - with the Cloud,
If any Power behind it, be,
Not subject to Despair -
It care - in some remoter way,
For so minute affair 25
As Misery -
Itself, too great, for interrupting - more -


1 hear] think - * take -
7 turned - how -] let go -
13 Grace] Force
15 to ease Extremity -] to stir - Extremity -
16 Formula, had failed -] Filament - had failed -
23 Not subject to] Supremer than - * Superior to -
27 great] vast

Excerpted from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Edited by R.W. Franklin.