Winter is good — his Hoar Delights
Italic flavor yield
To Intellects inebriate
With Summer, or the World —
Generic as a Quarry
And hearty — as a Rose —
Invited with Asperity
But welcome when he goes.
Emily Dickinson
(via wood s lot, and I'm glad it's finally started snowing here in the Berkshires)
Posted by languagehat at January 22, 2007 09:44 AMHave you visited the Dickinson Museum? It comes complete with creepy docents...and Emily's voluminous scribblings, collated posthumously by her sister, or neice, or something.
Posted by: Going Dotty in Kansas at January 22, 2007 10:13 AMYes I have, and my docent was very nice and helpful (and a published scholar), so I guess I lucked out.
Posted by: language hat at January 22, 2007 10:31 AMwhat does "italic" mean here. You may have discussed this before.
Posted by: John Emerson at January 22, 2007 01:37 PMPresumably "Italianate", but I'm not sure in what sense. And does "generic" mean "generative", i.e., fecund? That would be of a piece with the ironies of the rest of the second quatrain.
Well, this seems to be all the remaining uses of italic(ize) in her poetry; if the poem (or fragment) is eight lines or less, I've given the whole thing. She certainly uses it idiosyncratically:
945
This is a Blossom of the Brain —
A small — italic Seed
Lodged by Design or Happening
The Spirit fructified — [...]
955
The Hollows round His eager Eyes
Were Pages where to read
Pathetic Histories — although
Himself had not complained.
Biography to All who passed
Of Unobtrusive Pain
Except for the italic Face
Endured, unhelped — unknown.
1100
The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying — this to Us
Made Nature different
We noticed smallest things —
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized — as 'twere.[...]
1498
Glass was the Street — in tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood —
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road —
Shot the lithe Sleds like shod vibrations
Emphasized and gone
It is the Past's supreme italic
Makes this Present mean —
1717
Did life's penurious length
Italicize its sweetness,
The men that daily live
Would stand so deep in joy
That it would clog the cogs
Of that revolving reason
Whose esoteric belt
Protects our sanity.
A visit to the Evergreens, the house next to the Dickinson homestead, is worthwhile. It belonged to Emily's brother Austin and his family, and she spent a great deal of time there before she became a recluse. When Dickinson's eight-year-old nephew Gilbert died in 1883, the door to his room was closed. His things are still there, as he left them. The contents of the house as a whole were only minimally disturbed until conservation began in the 1990s. I was lucky enough to visit before the major conservation effort began, when the wallpaper was still peeling off the walls, and the abandoned clutter of late Victorian life still littered the rooms. A visit to that house should be fascinating and moving for anyone with an interest in the poet's life as well as her work.
Posted by: Proserpine at January 22, 2007 09:56 PMInteresting trawl through the concordance there. I have a sense that the meaning ranges from "emphasized" (like italic type) to "epic / classic / magnificent" (the grandeur that was Rome). But I don't think she was uncomfortable with indeterminacies or cruces in her texts.
Posted by: Vance Maverick at January 23, 2007 01:54 AMBut I don't think she was uncomfortable with indeterminacies or cruces in her texts.
To put it mildly. I think that's why she's more kowtowed to than read, apart from the few anthology standards; people are uncomfortable with poetry that looks like it should be simple and "classic" (italic?) but isn't.
Posted by: language hat at January 23, 2007 07:56 AMHere in the US midwest, we currently prefer:
Ancient Music
Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
--Ezra Pound
Posted by: RavinDave at January 23, 2007 11:03 PMThat was the poem that made me fall in love with Pound when I encountered it, quite by chance, in the college bookstore.
Posted by: language hat at January 24, 2007 08:01 AM