Paradiso

This is the third “Dissecting Dickinson” issue, for the previous two, see The Guest is gold and crimson and My wheel is in the dark! of which the links have been provided.

Poem 761: From Blank to Blank — dated about 1863 is possibly one of my favourite of Dickinson’s poems, and I share Harold Bloom’s sentiment that: “To pack this much into forty-one words and ten lines ought not to be possible.” (The Western Canon: 1994). But, the magnificent Dickinson does, was she often seems to do, which is to create a miracle of a poem.

From Blank to Blank —
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet —
To stop — or perish — or advance —
Alike indifferent

If end I gained
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed —
I shut my eyes — and groped as well
‘Twas lighter — to be Blind —

Dickinson begins stanza one, elusively as ever, with “From Blank to Blank“, which has a plethora of immediate meanings: blankness, nothingness, blindness? Harold Bloom sees a direct connection between Coleridge’s ‘Dejection‘ ode, and Emerson’s: “the ruin or blank, that we see when we look at nature is in our own eye” (from Emerson’s essay Nature). I tend to agree with Bloom, and when reading carefully through Dejection: An Ode, Coleridge’s,

“O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo’d,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze — and with how blank an eye!“

is quite illuminating. The last sentence is of particular importance, as we shall see, as we progress through Dickinson’s poem.

We stumble then in line 3 upon the verb in past tense: “pushed“, which connects the entire first stanza. Where does the poet push herself to? And where is she as we read the poem? One has the sense of the poet being utterly trapped, perhaps inflicted by great pain, hence not knowing if:

“To stop — or perish — or advance —“.

All three verbs are implying, quite uncannily, that there is a profound confusion, which ends, rather nihilistically with: “Alike indifferent“, that is to say, it does not matter. It is the Schopenhauerean will-to-live that is at stake, or said more simply: it is the question of whether or not to give up (“stop“), to live/take one’s life (“perish“), or resist (“advance“).

In Coleridge’s dejection: an ode, he writes,

“My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?“

Like Dickinson’s poet, Coleridge’s is in a state of failing spirit, and what, he asks, can “lift the smothering weight?”

I find it important to reemphasise Dickinson’s: “To stop — or perish — or advance —“, which should instigate, immediately, to the avid reader of Shakespeare (and Dickinson herself read Shakespeare incessantly), Hamlet’s breathtaking soliloquy: “To be, or not to be —“. If one reads aloud: “To stop — or perish — or advance —“, and with a certain, I dare say, dramatic gusto, it will immediately transport the reader to Hamlet’s words,

“To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more (…)”

I challenge the reader to read Dickinson’s poem aloud, then repeat the process with Hamlet’s soliloquy, and one will find astounding similarities in style, tone, musicality, and content.

Now, where it gets further complicated is Dickinson’s use in line 8 of the word: “beyond“, which, as Bloom rightfully points out, provides a lot of nuance to the conditional “end“; leading to Dickinson’s wordplay: “end” — “ends” > from a noun to a verb. The only “end” one can think of that goes “beyond” would be a transcendental medium, something metaphysical; positively heaven — negatively death, but whereas heaven requires death, death does not require heaven. So, should we then not fear death, as the outcome, on the whole, seems to favour that of death? Or should one apply, at this junction of the poem, Dickinson’s rather dispirited: “Alike indifferent“?

Dickinson’s spin on “To be, or not to be” in her: “To stop — or perish — or advance —” is rather more bleak than that of Hamlet who, with his (later in the soliloquy),

“(…) ay, there’s the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause — there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.“

does contemplate what lies “beyond“, as we do not know. Hence it gives us “pause” and forces upon us a “respect“, contrary to that of Dickinson’s poet who, at this point in the poem, seems quite indifferent to any solution: To stop — or perish — or advance — / Alike indifferent. She has reached a point in which, on her “threadless way“, it does not matter — the outcome that is — either way.

How does this, then, contrast with the last part of the poem? At this juncture something important happens. Dickinson’s poet seem to follow somewhat the same pattern of reflection and self-consciousness as Hamlet,

“Indefinite disclosed —
I shut my eyes — and groped as well
‘Twas lighter — to be Blind —“

“Indefinite disclosed” is fascinating, as there for the poet, suddenly, is revealed what but indefinite solutions, which really eloquently contradicts the hitherto nihilism and despair. The poet does actually consider, with more force than the “indifference“, the indefinite solutions that are beyond her. Hence we can connect the previous “end” / “ends” wordplay in the following way: An end that ends beyond is really no end at all, right?

This proves too much for the poet, in fact, the poet shuts her eyes, and prefers, instead of seeing the “threadless way” rather to “grope” along, as: “‘Twas lighter — to be blind — “.

Dickinson plays wonderfully on the word “lighter” which can mean lighter in weight, or, that there is more light, that is to say, it is ‘brighter.’ But, if one is blind, how can it truly be brighter? Well, in the case of poet John Milton, though he was in a crisis for his sudden blindness, he certainly did find the light in his Paradise Lost. The same is true for poor Gloucester in King Lear who, on becoming blind, suddenly sees things more clearly, with wisdom. Or, to return again to Coleridge’s dejection: an ode,

“With light heart may she rise,
Gay fancy, cheerful eyes.”

Now, does Dickinson really imply that the poet’s world is brighter, lighter, more easily managed, when the poet cannot see the path; meaning, there is less pain, less malevolence when her eyes are shut?

This seems strange, and it implies a defeatism one does not recognize in Dickinson’s strength within her poetry.

Or, does Dickinson allude to Emerson, when he writes in Nature, quite beautifully: “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. What is a day? What is a year? What is summer? What is woman? What is a child? What is sleep? To our blindness, these tings seem unaffecting.” Following up on this, Emerson continues: “So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will.”

Perhaps this take is too light-hearted for Dickinson’s poet, whose state within the poem, seems more troubled, problematic, — in despair.

I dare say one can think of it as such: when the poet is shutting her eyes, she returns to the initial blankness that is her: “threadless way“, which in turn creates, as Dickinson often does, a circle, or a loop, so that we “end” the poem at the very beginning of the poem. But, as a circle has neither a beginning nor an “end“; we end up with what “ends beyond.” So it is, in essence: processual. A là the Hegelian ‘fürsichsein’.

To simplify matters a bit: the poem is an emotional rollercoaster, and it is easy to see that the I, or our poet, is on a painful journey of a constant struggle between despair (darkness/blankness) and a sudden sort of energy (light/the discovery of the indefinite); two modes which are in a constant, fierce battle with each other. Hence the cyclical nature of the poem. We see it woven into the very fabric of the opposites:

end >< beyond
lighter >< blind
push >< shut
stop >< advance
end >< gained

These are very tough, very difficult notions to reconcile, and even more challenging to string together in such a beautiful, lyrical meditation. Once again, I implore of the reader to read the poem aloud. To feel the poet’s despair, the nihilism, then the sudden energy (a Miltonic energy) — if, it is indeed an energy the poet finds at all, or, as Bloom asks, an “appalling irony” (The Western Canon: 1994) that it is “to be Blind.“