Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “There’s something quieter than sleep”
Emily Dickinson’s “There’s something quieter than sleep” dramatizes the speaker’s reverence for the mystery of death, portraying it as a sacred and nearly mystical transition beyond earthly experience.
Introduction and Text of “There’s something quieter than sleep”
Emily Dickinson’s “There’s something quieter than sleep” features four minimalist quatrains that progress from observation to meditation. The speaker contemplates the stillness surrounding death, yet she approaches the subject delicately, refusing crude or noisy emotional excess.
Dickinson’s characteristic dashes and slant rimes contribute to the hushed atmosphere, while the speaker’s use of euphemism reveals both awe and uncertainty before the soul’s departure from its physical encasement.
The poem’s spiritual atmosphere recalls Paramahansa Yogananda’s teaching that death is merely “a sleep of forgetfulness” before the soul awakens again in divine consciousness.
There’s something quieter than sleep
There’s something quieter than sleep Within this inner room! It wears a sprig upon its breast – And will not tell its name.
Some touch it, and some kiss it– Some chafe its idle hand – It has a simple gravity I do not understand!
I would not weep if I were they – How rude in one to sob! Might scare the quiet fairy Back to her native wood!
While simple–hearted neighbors Chat of the “Early dead” – We – prone to periphrasis, Remark that Birds have fled!
Commentary on “There’s something quieter than sleep”
The speaker contemplates death as a solemn but peaceful mystery whose stillness transcends ordinary sleep and earthly sorrow.
Stanza 1: Deeper Than Sleep
There’s something quieter than sleep Within this inner room! It wears a sprig upon its breast – And will not tell its name.
The speaker opens by comparing death to sleep, yet she quickly insists that death possesses an even greater silence. The “inner room” suggests both a literal chamber where the deceased lies and the inward spiritual realm where the soul retreats after leaving the body.
By refusing to name the condition directly, the speaker creates an atmosphere of reverent uncertainty, as though ordinary language cannot fully contain the mystery before her.
The “sprig upon its breast” likely refers to a funeral flower or symbolic greenery placed upon the body. Such imagery quietly evokes immortality because evergreen branches traditionally symbolize eternal life.
Paramahansa Yogananda frequently taught that the soul remains untouched by bodily death, affirming that spirit “cannot die because it was never born.” The speaker appears instinctively aware that what lies in the room is not annihilation but transition.
Stanza 2: What Some Do
Some touch it, and some kiss it– Some chafe its idle hand – It has a simple gravity I do not understand!
The speaker now observes the behavior of mourners gathered around the deceased. Some touch the body tenderly, while others attempt to warm the “idle hand,” as though reluctant to accept the final stillness. Their gestures reveal humanity’s instinctive resistance to separation and mortality.
Yet the speaker remains fascinated less by grief than by the strange dignity surrounding the dead.
The phrase “simple gravity” conveys both physical stillness and spiritual weight. The body no longer participates in earthly activity, yet it seems surrounded by a quiet authority the speaker cannot explain.
Dickinson’s speakers often encounter realities that intuition senses more deeply than reason can analyze, and here her speaker admits openly that death possesses meanings beyond intellectual understanding. The stanza also reveals the speaker’s restraint.
Rather than indulging in emotional display, she studies the scene with contemplative wonder. That attitude resembles Dickinson’s many poetic riddles, in which truth emerges indirectly through symbol, suggestion, and silence rather than declaration.
Stanza 3: Shy Fairies
I would not weep if I were they – How rude in one to sob! Might scare the quiet fairy Back to her native wood!
The speaker gently criticizes loud mourning, suggesting that sobbing is almost discourteous in the presence of death’s delicate mystery. Her use of the term “quiet fairy” transforms death into a shy spiritual visitor rather than a terrifying destroyer. The fairy imagery softens the scene and presents death as something ethereal, elusive, and perhaps even benevolent.
By imagining that noisy grief could frighten the fairy away, the speaker implies that death deserves calm reverence instead of emotional chaos. The image resembles ancient folklore in which supernatural beings vanish when approached too aggressively. Dickinson’s speaker thus elevates death into a sacred event requiring inward stillness.
The stanza also reflects the speaker’s intuition that the soul belongs ultimately to another realm, the “native wood.” The earthly body merely hosts the spirit temporarily before it returns to its true home.
uch an idea harmonizes with Yogananda’s teaching that the soul journeys through many states of existence while remaining eternally connected to Divine Spirit.
Stanza 4: Euphemism and Evasion
While simple–hearted neighbors Chat of the “Early dead” – We – prone to periphrasis, Remark that Birds have fled!
In the final stanza, the speaker contrasts ordinary language with poetic circumlocution. The “simple-hearted neighbors” speak plainly of the “Early dead,” employing conventional social terminology without reflection. The speaker, however, admits that “we” prefer “periphrasis,” or indirect expression.
Instead of saying someone has died, the speaker remarks that “Birds have fled.” The bird symbolizes the departing soul escaping the confinement of the physical encasement.
Dickinson often employed birds as emblems of transcendence, freedom, and spiritual aspiration. Here the image beautifully transforms death from grim cessation into graceful departure.
The stanza closes the poem on a note of mystery rather than despair. The speaker never claims complete knowledge regarding death, but she senses that the soul’s leaving resembles flight more than extinction.
Like many Dickinson speakers, this speaker balances uncertainty with spiritual intuition, allowing poetry itself to gesture toward ineffable truths, which ordinary speech cannot fully express.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Snow flakes”
Emily Dickinson’s speaker in this jaunty little poem dramatizes an effusion of emotion after becoming enthralled by watching the many machinations of snowflakes as they dance their way through the air before landing on their targets of earthly entities.
Introduction and Text of “Snow flakes”
In Thomas Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, the text I use for these commentaries, the poem, “Snow flakes.,” appears to be the only poem with a title. However, one might reasonably argue that the seeming title cannot be considered a true title.
In none of the other poems—1,775 in all—does a title grace and define. That any poet would appear so consistent and then offer such an anomaly should raise the doubt that only one poem out of close to two thousand has a title. There are three reasons for doubting that the poem has a title and therefore realizing that the so-called title functions very differently from most titles.
First, the noun “snowflake” is one word, and Dickinson has clearly written two words, and that act converts the one word to a sentence. A snowflake is a piece of snow that has “flaked off” from a larger entity; thus “snow flakes.” Because of the fact that “Snow flakes.” looks like a sentence, it is wise to think of it as a sentence or first line of the poem, and not a title.
Second, that form of the so-called title itself demonstrates that the title is indeed merely the first line of the poem, “Snow flakes.” The period at the end—along with the fact that there are two words—indicates a sentence.
Emily Dickinson was a voracious reader, and she was well aware that titles contain no end punctuation. And although she did engage in innovative capitalization, punctuation, and techniques employing the use of space and dash, there is no reason to assume that she would title one poem out 1,775, and deliberately make the title look like an ordinary sentence.
Three, by beginning with an act, claiming that “snow flakes,” the speaker is heralding the very active “dance” that she creates as she personifies the snowflakes as ballerinas. Even though Johnson has placed, “Snow flakes.,” in the position which a title would occupy, I suggest that the proper form would simply place the line as the first line of the poem.
I do admit that the hand-written copy of “Snow flakes.” appears to center the line, still the spacing between the line and the rest of the poem is comparable to the remaining lines of the poem.
Riddle Poem? Maybe Not
“Snow flakes” seems to have been intended to function as one of Emily Dickinson’s riddle poems, but it may be that she decided to add the first line because that poem might have remained unintelligible as a riddle. Readers may not be able to understand that this poem is speaking about flakes of snow without the poet offering that first line.
Unlike her obvious riddles that do not name the object such as “It sifts from Leaden Sieves” and “I like to see it lap the Miles,” this one would offer too many other possibilities to function as a workable riddle-poem, thus the addition of the first line, which can be mistaken for a title.
Snow flakes
Snow flakes. I counted till they danced so Their slippers leaped the town, And then I took a pencil To note the rebels down. And then they grew so jolly I did resign the prig, And ten of my once stately toes Are marshalled for a jig!
Commentary on “Snow flakes”
Observing fakes of snow create in the speaker’s mind a phantasmagoric dance with myriad ballerinas competing for visual attention.
First Movement: Dancing Snow Ballerinas
Snow flakes. I counted till they danced so Their slippers leaped the town,
The speaker begins with the odd claim that snow can be perceived as breaking into little pieces or “flakes”; she likely wants the reader to take the term “flakes” as both a noun and a verb—a pun of sorts.
This kind of function can often be detected in Dickinson’s poems; she quite frequently employs one part of speech to function as another or both, as in “The Soul selects her own Society” where in the lines, “To her divine Majority – Present no more,” the word “Present” functions both as an adjective and a verb in the imperative mood.
The speaker then begins the report of her activity. She is observing flakes of snow falling, likely just outside her window, and she begins to count them. She continues to count the flakes, and suddenly she realizes that they seem to be dancing.
It then occurs to her that they are like ballerinas, so she personifies the flake placing “slippers” on the imagined feet, and she is off to the races! Those ballerinas are performing their dance, as they are leaping and bounding all over town.
Second Movement: Capturing the Scene
And then I took a pencil To note the rebels down.
At this point, watching the dancing snow flakes that have become countless graceful ballerinas in her imaginative mind, she then grabs “a pencil” to take notes on their movements. Of course, she is referring to taking notes for a poem about what she is observing.
She calls the dancers “rebels”; they seem to rebel against any way of describing them. Thought after thought is passing through her mind, and she has to grab that writing instrument and begin to capture some of those quickly passing images.
Poets sometimes feel that a poem writes itself, but only if the poet can capture the words in time, for so often, an image will present itself only to be lost to the next rapidly occurring image.
Most writers keep writing equipment—paper and pen, nowadays computer tablets—in case some graceful ideas clothed in beautiful, meaningful language come dancing across the writer’s mental vision.
Third Movement: Overwhelmed by Jolly Dancers
And then they grew so jolly I did resign the prig,
As the speaker continues to take notes and watch those dancers, they become “so jolly” that she feels that they are becoming downright decadent in their outlandish flurry. Because of this decadence, she finds she has to discontinue this observation; likely she is feeling overwhelmed trying to take account of those millions of dancers.
If one tries to imagine a ballet stage with millions of ballerinas all competing for one’s attention, one gets the idea of how the speaker felt watching and trying to see each dancing snowflake.
Fourth Movement: Itching to Dance
And ten of my once stately toes Are marshalled for a jig!
The priggish or intrusively haughty nature of such a phantasmagoria stops the speaker from her fitful attempt to capture all the machinations of this metaphoric ballet; thus, she lays down her pencil, likely gives a sigh, but then an odd things occurs. She notices that her own toes are hankering to imitate that dance that the speaker has just observed and described.
The speaker’s toes were “once stately,” remaining dignified and stationary in her shoes, but now they are becoming as rebellious as those dancing snow flakes; they want the speaker to get up and engage them in a dance. They want to commit to a “jig,” having been prompted by all those flaking snow ballerinas.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Morns like these – we parted”
Emily Dickinson loved nature, and birds appear often in her poems, her spiritual garden. She also was quite fond of mystery and riddles. This poem offers an accumulation of evidence that she has observed a bird and then poof! one human act and the bird takes wing!
Introduction and Text of “Morns like these – we parted”
Emily Dickinson’s speaker in her riddle-poem, “Morns like these – we parted,” is creating a drama from the act of bird-watching, as the act covers a single day from the time of morning when one bird and she parted company to the act of evening drawing the curtains, simultaneously hearing the bird fly off to its own abode or to wherever it may be taking for its destination.
The mental gymnastics of the speaker reveals a special gift of qualifying the experience of the human mind, intrigued by the bird’s ability to fly in the freedom of the open skies, indicating that this drama has often played out in the speaker’s mind.
Morns like these – we parted
Morns like these – we parted – Noons like these – she rose – Fluttering first – then firmer To her fair repose.
Never did she lisp it – It was not for me– She – was mute from transport – I – from agony –
Till – the evening nearing One the curtains drew – Quick! A sharper rustling! And this linnet flew!
Commentary on “Morns like these – we parted”
Emily Dickinson’s “Morns like these – we parted” offers an accumulation of evidence that the speaker has observed a bird and then poof! one human act and the bird takes wing!
First Stanza: Observing a Bird
Morns like these – we parted – Noons like these – she rose – Fluttering first – then firmer To her fair repose.
Observing the behavior of feathered friends, the speaker reports that on certain mornings she has watched as a bird makes its way heavenward, leaving her earthbound but astounded by the ability of an earth creature to fly through the sky.
In addition to morning flights, she has experienced the magic also around noontime. The creature with wings first may seem to merely “flutter[ ],” but then suddenly with more determined gait glided to its chosen destination.
Second Stanza: Experiencing Awe
Never did she lisp it – It was not for me– She – was mute from transport – I – from agony –
As the bird begins its magical journey, it does not communicate vocally in song or chirp to the speaker’s presence. Having nothing to impart to its observer, it merely begins its flight. The speaker assumes that the bird’s silence is caused merely by her “transport” of the felicity of light.
The speaker remains “mute” merely from “agony”—the sudden awareness that one will remain earthbound while this marvelous creature will ascend and vanish skyward. The earth-bound creatures can only watch, think, muse, and then attempt to recreate the feathered, flying creatures actions in a written composition.
Third Stanza: The Close of a Drama
Till – the evening nearing One the curtains drew – Quick! A sharper rustling! And this linnet flew!
All of this drama of observation and bird flight goes on from morning to evening, nigh to which someone in the home closes the curtains at the window. From without comes the “rustling” sound, which is quick and sharp, as the bird—now identified as a “linnet” flies off to parts unknown to the speaker/observer, but likely known well to the bird.
The speaker’s attention has been suddenly snipped by this final sudden movement of the flying creature which she has so patiently watched in wonder. The speaker’s mind has flown with the bird, waited as the bird waited, now drops its object as the bird has rustled its feathers for the last time that day and flown off to God only knows whither.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “My wheel is in the dark!”
The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “My wheel is in the dark!” is making a statement about knowing without sense perception. This subject especially interested the poet, who was specifically concerned with issues such as immortality and life after death.
Introduction and Text of “My wheel is in the dark!”
Despite the grammatical error in the last line of Emily Dickinson’s “My wheel is in the dark!,” the speaker’s revelation shines through clearly and offers a unique perspective about the nature of understanding and explaining the ineffable.
My wheel is in the dark!
My wheel is in the dark! I cannot see a spoke Yet know its dripping feet Go round and round.
My foot in on the Tide! An unfrequented road – Yet have all roads A clearing in the end –
Some have resigned the Loom – Some in the busy tomb Find a quaint employ –
Some with new – stately feet – Pass royal through the gate – Flinging the problem back At you and I!
Commentary on “My wheel is in the dark!”
Rendering information about the ineffable level of being is virtually impossible, but through use of poetic devices and other literary language that rendering becomes somewhat meaningful and therefore understandable to the mind and heart.
First Stanza: Vision by Implication
My wheel is in the dark! I cannot see a spoke Yet know its dripping feet Go round and round.
The speaker reports that she is capable of knowing that the spoke on a wheel moves in a circular motion as it drips water even though there is no light on the wheel. She is revealing that she, as all human beings are, is able to infer information without direct sense perception that might otherwise reveal such knowledge.
Human beings prefer to rely on what they can “see” or “hear.” But sometimes seeing and hearing are not possible. For example, human beings are convinced that love and hate both exist, even though they cannot see the concepts to which those nouns refer.
The ultimate argument ensues from the issue of whether God exists. Some will argue that because he cannot “see” God, then God must not exist. The argument runs further as the atheist insists that he also cannot hear, feel, taste, or touch God—and what cannot be experienced through the senses, therefore, does not exist.
The speaker in “My wheel is in the dark!” thus counters such an argument by demonstrating that not only is metaphysical knowledge based on intuition and inference but also simple knowledge about things like wet wheels that go round and round in the dark.
Second Stanza: An Uncharted Path
My foot in on the Tide! An unfrequented road – Yet have all roads A clearing in the end –
The speaker continues with her comparison stating that she is walking an uncharted path, but she knows, again by intuition and inference, that this road will eventually lead to “a clearing.”
Despite the danger, such as would be experienced by having one’s foot “on the Tide,” the speaker can, with fairly great certainty, be assured that all the danger and complexity of the road she walks will end, and all will be understandable when she moves into that landscape which features clarity.
The speaker places that clarity at the end, which is at the end of her life, a time at which she will come to the end of the path and enter the “clearing.” Her “unfrequented road” is unique as is each road each soul must frequent as it passes through life on the physical level of being.
Third Stanza t: Resigning the Loom
Some have resigned the Loom – Some in the busy tomb Find a quaint employ –
The speaker now reports that others have departed from this world. She indicates that departure by referring to their occupation while alive. She colorfully claims that some of the folks who have died simply “resigned the Loom.”
But she does not offer a catalogue or list of what resigners have resigned. By mentioning one earthly occupation only, she implies that that “Loom” not only refers to the occupation of weaving but also to the fabric that exists as life itself.
Thus those “some” that have “resigned” from the fabric of life find a different way to engage their time and effort “in the busy tomb”; she claims that they “find a quaint employ.”
The speaker is reporting from her intuition that after death the soul will continue its engagements, even though its engagements after leaving the physical encasement will be different. They nevertheless will be “quaint,” an obviously optimistic claim.
Fourth Stanza: Remaining Mum about the Afterlife
Some with new – stately feet – Pass royal through the gate – Flinging the problem back At you and I!
Those souls who will remain busy with quaint engagements, however, are not the only class of souls that the speaker intuits. In addition to those who engage in the those quaint pursuits, there are those who will become similar to royalty. They will possess “stately feet” and enter the kingdom of heaven on those stately feet.
The speaker then returns to the world but without any definitive answer about what the real differences are between life and afterlife. When those of the royal, stately feet pass through that gate into paradise, they will not reveal their new experiences; they will simply be “flinging the problem” into the faces of those left watching for wheels “in the dark” and walking “on the Tide.”
Only those who have actually passed through that heavenly gate will understand what that experience offers. Thus we–”you and I”–will continue to speculate about that experience, as the speaker has done in this poem and the many more that are to come.
Dickinson and Grammar
As Dickinson’s readers discover, the poet often misspelled words and left her grammatical constructions a little cockeyed. Thomas H. Johnson, the editor of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, who restored her poems to their near originals, has revealed that he did correct some misspellings.
And it remains unclear why he left the inaccurate grammatical construction, “At you and I!”; the correct pronoun form in that prepositional phrase is “me” instead of “I”—the objective case is required after a preposition.
A reason for leaving such an error could be to complete a rime scheme, but that is not the case with this line. As a matter of fact, by inserting “me” instead of “I,” a partial rime would be achieved: “feet” would become a partial rime with “me.” Nevertheless, this problem remains a slight one. No meaning is lost despite the grammatical error. Such errors may interfere with the total enjoyment of a poem.
However, readers need not become alarmed about them unless they interfere with understanding. Luckily, this error does not confound meaning, and comprehension of the poem remains clear and unobstructed, despite the slight distraction that inaccurate pronoun inflicts.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”
The first poem in Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson is a Valentine aimed at persuading a young man to marry and is quite atypical of the poet’s style in her canon of 1,775 poems.
Introduction with Text of “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”
In The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited and returned to Dickinson’s idiosyncratic style by Thomas H. Johnson, the first poem sports a whopping 40 lines of 20 riming couplets. It is Dickinson’s longest published poem and departs in style greatly from the remaining 1,774 in the volume.
Emily Dickinson’s “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine” begins with a traditional invocation to the muses; however, instead of displaying in quatrains, as most of the poet’s poems do, it rests as a single lump chunk down the page.
The poet’s Germanic influenced capitalization of nouns and her many sprinklings of dashes are missing; yet, she does insert two dashes into the last three lines. Dickinson’s speaker addresses a young man, urging him to choose a young lady and propose marriage to her.
The central theme of this piece plays out in a similar manner to the Shakespeare “Marriage Sonnets,” in which the speaker is exhorting a young man to marry and produce beautiful offspring. However, the Dickinson poem remains a playful piece focusing on the Valentine season, while the Shakespeare “Marriage Sonnets” remain quite serious in their urgency.
Richard B. Sewall’s The Life of Emily Dickinson has asserted that the young gentleman addressed in this poem is Elbridge Bowdoin, a partner in the Dickinson father’s law firm.
The poet’s Valentine was sent in 1850 in a book that she was returning to Bowdoin. The poem seems to be quite flirtatious. Bowdoin, nevertheless, did not appear to take notice. It seems he snubbed the advice in the poem by remaining a life-long bachelor.
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine, Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain, For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain. All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair! The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one, Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun; The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be, Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree. The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small, None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball; The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves; The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won, And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son. The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune, The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon, Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows, No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose. The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride, Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide; Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true, And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue. Now to the application, to the reading of the roll, To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul: Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone, Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown. Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long, And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song? There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair, And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair! Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree; Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb, And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time! Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower, And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower – And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum – And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
Commentary on “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”
The first poem in Emily Dickinson’s Complete Poems is a Valentine aimed at persuading a young man to marry and is quite atypical of the poet’s style in her canon of 1,775 poems.
First Movement: Invocation to the Muses
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine, Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain, For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
The ancient epics of Homer and Virgil begin with an invocation to the muse, wherein the speaker asks for guidance as he narrates his tales of adventure. In her Valentine poem, Emily Dickinson has playfully added an invocation to all nine muses to help her with her little drama aimed at the young man for the Valentine season.
Dickinson has her speaker command all nine muses to wake up and sing her a little ditty that she may relay to inflame her Valentine’s heart to do as she requests. She then begins by describing how things of the earth all come in pairs.
One part of the pair seeks and unites with the other: the damsel is courted by the “hopeless swain” and there is whispering and sighing as a “unity” brings the “twain” together.
Second Movement: Earth Creatures Pair Up
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair! The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one, Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun; The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be, Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree. The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small, None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball; The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves; The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won, And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son. The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune, The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon, Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows, No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose. The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride, Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide; Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true, And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
After alluding to a human pair, the speaker then narrates her observation that everything on this earth seems to be courting its mate, not only on dry land but also in the “sea, or air.” In the next twenty or so lines, she supplies an abundant sampling of things of the earth that pair up.
She exaggerates for comedic affect that God has made nothing in the world “single” except for the target of her discourse, who is the young man. The speaker then tells the young man that the bride and bridegroom pair up and become one. Adam and Eve represent the first pair, and then there is the heavenly united pair, the sun and the moon.
And those who follow the precept of coupling live happily, while those who avoid this natural act end up “hanged on fatal tree.” Again, she is exaggerating for the fun of it! The speaker then assures the young man that no one who looks will not find. After all, the earth as she has said, was “made for lovers.”
She then begins her catalogue of earth things that make up the two part of a unified whole: the bee and flower marry and are celebrated by a “hundred leaves.” In two masterful lines, the speaker creates a metaphorical and symbolic wedding of bee and flower: “The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, / And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves.”
The speaker continues the catalogue of earth things that make up a unified pair: the wind and the boughs, the storm and the seashore, the wave and the moon, night and day.
She sprinkles in references to the human realm with such lines as, “the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son,” “The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,” and “Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true.”
With the line regarding the worm wooing the mortal, the speaker, similar to the Shakespearean speaker, is reminding her target that life on this planet does not last forever, and each human physical encasement is subject to death and decay. It is because of this plight that she is urging the young man not to allow his life to speed by without fulfilling his duty as part of a unified couple.
Third Movement: Thus It Follows That
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll, To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul: Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone, Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown. Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long, And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
Now, the speaker announces what has to happen because of her description of the way life goes “on this terrestrial ball.” The single man must be brought to justice. The speaker then remarks bluntly, “Thou art a human solo,” along with a melancholy description of unhappiness that being alone can bring. She rhetorically asks if he does not spend many hours and sad minutes of reflecting on this situation.
Of course, she is implying that she knows he does wallow in this sorrowful state, and thus she has the antidote for eliminating all the miserable melancholy. She will turn his melancholic “wailing” back into “song.” If only he will follow her sage advice, he will become the happy soul he wishes to be.
Fourth Movement: A Shakespearean Command
There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair, And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair! Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree; Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb, And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time! Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower, And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower — And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum — And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
The speaker now names six young damsels—Sarah, Eliza, Emeline, Harriet, and Susan; she refers to the sixth young damsel—herself—without naming her, only that she is “she with curling hair.”
The speaker opines that any one of these young ladies is fit to become a valuable partner for her solo, sad, single young man. The speaker commands the young bachelor to choose one and take her home to be his wife.
In order to make that demand, she creates a little drama by having the ladies situated up in a tree. She commands the young man to climb the tree boldly but with caution, paying no attention to “space, or time.”
The young man then is to select his love and run off to the forest and build her a “bower” and lavish upon her what she wishes, “jewel, or bird, or flower.” After a wedding of much music and dancing, he and his bride will flit away in glory as they head home.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 36 “When we met first and loved, I did not build”
In sonnet 36 “When we met first and loved,” the speaker reveals her inability to fully accept the love relationship that is growing with her belovèd suitor. She is constantly trying to prevent her heart from being broken, in case the relationship fails to reach it full potential.
Introduction and Text of Sonnet 36 “When we met first and loved, I did not build”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet 36 “When we met first and loved, I did not build” from Sonnets from the Portuguese reveals the speaker’s apprehension that the first moments of a new love might prove to be illusive; thus, she refuses to believe unwaveringly in the possibility that love had arrived.
This speaker always remains aware that she must protect her heart from disaster. And at this point in their relationship, she knows that she could suffer a terrible broken heart if the relationship fails to flourish.
Sonnet 36 “When we met first and loved, I did not build”
When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear … O love, O troth … Lest these enclaspèd hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down between us both As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath, Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.
Commentary on Sonnet 36 “When we met first and loved, I did not build”
The speaker again is demonstrating her inability to fully accept the love relationship that is growing with her belovèd suitor. The speaker must protect her poor heart, which could so easily be shattered if the love relationship should end.
First Quatrain: Love between Sorrow
When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
The speaker says that when she and her belovèd first met and love began to flower, she did not readily accept that the feelings were genuine; she refused to imagine that such a relationship could become solid. She must continue to guard her heart by holding in abeyance only the possibility of a lasting love relationship.
She questions whether love could endure for her because of the many sorrows she has experienced. She, instead, continued to think of only the potential of love, existing between one sorrow after the next sorrow. She felt more confident that sorrow would remain in the offing than that love would come to rescue her out of her melancholy.
The reader is by now quite familiar with the sadness, pain, and grief this speaker has suffered in her life and that she continues to suffer these maladies. For this melancholy speaker to accept the balm of love remains very difficult. Her doubts and fears continue to remain more real to her than these new, most cherished feelings of love and affection.
Second Quatrain: Continuing Fear
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed
Answering her own question in the negative, the speaker asserts that she preferred to remain skeptical of the hints that seemed to suggest a progression toward the loving relationship.
The speaker’s fears continue to prompt her to hold back her heart because she continued to remains afraid that if she gave way at even a “finger[’s]” length, she would regret the loss so much that she would suffer even more than she already had done.
Quite uncharacteristically, the speaker admits that since that early time at the very beginning of this love relationship, she has, indeed, “grown serene / And strong.” Such an admission is difficult for the personality of this troubled speaker, but she does remain aware that she must somehow come to terms with her evolving growth.
First Tercet: Skepticism for Protection
A still renewable fear … O love, O troth … Lest these enclaspèd hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down between us both
Still, even though this wary speaker is cognizant of her growth in terms of serenity and strength, she believes that God has instilled in her the ability to remain somewhat skeptical in order to protect herself from certain torture at having been wrong about the relationship.
This speaker knows that if, “these enclaspèd hands should never hold,” she would be devastated if she had not protected her heart by retaining those doubts. If the “mutual kiss” should “drop between us both,” this ever-thinking speaker is sure her life would be filled with even more grief and sorrow.
Second Tercet: Wrenching Feeling
As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath, Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold.
The speaker then spreads across the border of the tercets the wrenching feeling that her words are causing her. This melancholy speaker feels that she must give utterance to these thoughts, but she knows that they will cause pain, even to her belovèd. But if, “Love, be false,” then she simply must acknowledge that possibility for both their sakes.
The speaker anticipates the likelihood that she might have to “lose one joy” which may already be written in her stars, and not knowing which joy that might be, she must remain watchful that it might be the very love she is striving so mightily to protect.
Literary studies is the academic discipline devoted to the analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and contextualization of literature; it also includes the generalized act of commentary on literary works.
Literary studies examines written works—from poetry, fiction, and drama to essays and emerging digital forms—not simply as artistic objects but as cultural, historical, philosophical, linguistic, and aesthetic expressions. At its core, literary studies asks:
What do texts mean?
How do they work?
Why do they matter?
The field draws from a range of approaches, including philology, historical scholarship, theory, philosophy, linguistics, theology, and cultural analysis. Each special focus from analysis to commentary engages its own experts who employ each of these fields in unique combinations of endeavor.
For example, the analyst may emphasize historical scholarship in explicating a poem, while the commentarian will dip into any number of those approaches in order to elucidate meaning from informed personal experience.
At the core of the literary field is human experience. From humankind’s first finding itself in world of pairs of opposites that operate sometimes for good and sometimes for ill, the mind of mankind has grappled with the very meaning of existence. Literature provides a written record of that grappling.
That record makes it so that humanity need not learn all over again and again everything required for living a well-seasoned and reasonably comfortable, prosperous life. Human beings can read about many more experiences than they can ever actually experience.
And while personal experience is always central to one’s psyche, it serves as a bedrock for understanding those contemporaries living in the immediate environment and those ancestors who lived in the past.
Literature and literary studies offer a treasure trove of material keeping the mind and heart balanced and harmonious as each human being travels a unique path to spiritual understanding and ultimate awakening to soul-reality—the final stage in understanding and uniting the soul with the Creator of creation (God).
Historical Development
1. Origins in Antiquity
The roots of literary studies reach back to ancient civilizations.
Greece: Thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle explored poetry’s moral and aesthetic value, laying foundational concepts in mimesis, genre, and rhetoric.
Rome: Critics such as Horace, Longinus, and Quintilian systematized literary technique and rhetorical education.
These early traditions treated literature as part of a wider program of moral, civic, and rhetorical training.
2. Medieval and Renaissance Scholarship
During the Middle Ages, literature was primarily studied through the lens of theology and classical rhetoric. With the Renaissance, renewed attention to classical texts and humanism broadened interpretation, emphasizing:
textual editing
authorial biography
moral philosophy
artistic imitation and originality
Figures such as Petrarch, Erasmus, and later Sir Philip Sidney were important for literary criticism as an intellectual discipline.
3. Philology and the Birth of Modern Literary Studies (18th–19th
Centuries)
The modern university model grew out of European philology—systematic study of languages, manuscripts, and textual origins. Key figures included:
Friedrich August Wolf, who formalized classical philology
Wilhelm Dilthey, who argued for the humanities as a distinct form of knowledge
The Grimm brothers, whose linguistic scholarship shaped historical study of culture
In Britain and the United States, literary study emerged gradually as its own discipline, often housed in departments of English language and rhetoric.
4. The Rise of Criticism and Theory (20th Century)
The 20th century saw a dramatic diversification of methodologies, often called literary theory. Important movements and contributors include:
New Criticism (T. S. Eliot, Cleanth Brooks, I. A. Richards): close reading, textual autonomy
Feminist and gender studies (Woolf, Gilbert & Gubar, Butler)
Postcolonial studies (Said, Spivak, Bhabha)
Reader-response theories (Iser, Fish)
This pluralism made literary studies one of the most interdisciplinary fields in the humanities.
5. Literary Studies in the 21st Century
The field continues to evolve with:
digital humanities (text mining, digital archives, computational analysis)
environmental humanities (ecocriticism)
narrative medicine
world literature studies
renewed interest in classical rhetoric and formal aesthetics
Today, literary studies includes both traditional close reading and technologically advanced methodologies.
Internal Tensions and Contemporary Challenges in Literary Studies
Despite its intellectual richness and adaptability, literary studies has faced sustained internal tensions and external pressures, particularly since the late twentieth century. Acknowledging these challenges is essential for an honest account of the discipline’s current condition.
1. Debates over Theory and Method
One of the most persistent internal debates concerns the role and dominance of literary theory. While theory expanded the field’s conceptual reach and interdisciplinary influence, critics have argued that its institutionalization sometimes displaced close reading, historical knowledge, and aesthetic judgment.
This tension has produced ongoing disagreements between theoretically driven approaches and those advocating a return to formal analysis, philology, rhetoric, or historically grounded criticism. The result has been both fragmentation and productive pluralism.
2. Institutional Pressures and Decline
Literary studies has also experienced institutional contraction, particularly in Anglophone universities. Declining enrollments, reduced funding, and departmental closures have forced the field to defend its place within increasingly market-driven educational systems.
These pressures have reshaped curricula, hiring priorities, and research agendas, often privileging demonstrable “impact” over long-term scholarly depth.
3. Economic Justification of the Humanities
A related challenge is the growing demand to justify literary studies in economic or utilitarian terms. Arguments emphasizing transferable skills—critical thinking, communication, adaptability—have helped defend the discipline, but they risk narrowing its intellectual and cultural aims.
Many scholars contend that literature’s value cannot be fully captured by metrics of employability, insisting instead on its role in ethical reflection, cultural memory, and imaginative freedom.
4. Public Relevance and Authority
Literary studies has also confronted questions about its public authority. As cultural commentary has migrated to digital platforms and popular media, academic criticism has sometimes appeared insular or inaccessible.
In response, there has been renewed interest in public humanities, essayistic criticism, and teaching-oriented scholarship that reconnects academic work with broader audiences.
5. Renewal through Self-Critique
These tensions have not merely weakened the discipline; they have also prompted self-examination and renewal. Contemporary literary studies increasingly combines theoretical sophistication with historical depth, formal attentiveness, and ethical seriousness. The field’s willingness to critique its own assumptions remains one of its defining strengths.
By recognizing these internal debates and structural challenges, literary studies presents itself not as a settled or complacent discipline, but as one engaged in ongoing reflection about its methods, purposes, and responsibilities in a changing cultural and institutional landscape.
Purpose of Literary Studies
Interpretation and Meaning
The primary purpose of literary studies is to interpret texts richly and responsibly, explaining how literature creates meaning through form, language, imagery, voice, and structure.
2. Preservation of Cultural Heritage
Through editing, archiving, and historical scholarship, literary studies preserves important works and makes them accessible to future generations.
3. Critical and Ethical Inquiry
Literature is a testing ground for human experience. Studying literature helps individuals:
examine moral and philosophical questions
understand diverse viewpoints
confront social issues
explore the imagination’s power
4. Training in Analytical and Communicative Skills
Literary discipline develops skills essential across professions:
close attention to detail
critical thinking
persuasive writing
interpretive reasoning
cultural literacy
5. Exploration of Aesthetics
Literary studies also seeks to understand the pleasures and structures of artistry—why poetry moves us, how narrative creates suspense, how style functions, and what beauty means in language.
Importance of Literary Studies
Cultural Understanding and Memory
Literature is a record of humanity’s inner life. Studying it helps societies remember, reflect, and interpret their history, values, and aspirations.
2. Empathy and Human Connection
Reading literature strengthens the capacity to imagine the lives of others, fostering empathy and reducing cultural isolation.
3. Intellectual Freedom
Literary analysis encourages questioning, debate, and openness to multiple interpretations—essential qualities for democratic societies.
4. Preservation of Language
Through the study of style, genre, and linguistic change, literary studies enriches and preserves the expressive possibilities of language itself.
5. Influence Across Disciplines
The methods employed in literary studies inform philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, political theory, theology, and even medicine and law.
Place in Society
1. Education
Literary studies is central to curricula from primary schools to graduate programs. It cultivates literacy, imagination, ethical reflection, and intellectual maturity.
2. Cultural Institutions
Libraries, publishing houses, museums, and arts organizations rely on literary scholars for:
editing and curating texts
creating anthologies
interpreting archives
preserving rare works
3. Public Discourse
Literary critics influence cultural conversations through essays, reviews, public scholarship, and commentaries.
4. Media and the Arts
Film, theater, screenwriting, advertising, and media studies use literary analysis to shape storytelling, symbolism, and audience impact.
5. Humanities and Civic Life
As part of the broader humanities, literary studies sustains thoughtful civic engagement by nurturing critical reflection, historical awareness, and nuanced communication.
Cornerstone of the Humanities
Literary studies is a cornerstone of the humanities, offering tools to understand texts not only as artistic creations but as expressions of human thought, feeling, and cultural identity. Its long history—from ancient rhetoric to digital humanities—shows a discipline continuously reinventing itself to meet new forms of storytelling and new intellectual challenges.
By cultivating interpretation, empathy, cultural memory, and critical reasoning, literary studies plays a vital role in shaping educated citizens and sustaining a thoughtful, imaginative, and spiritually enlightened society.
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My Personal Engagement with Literary Studies
From my earliest love of music to my first unpleasant encounter with literary studies as a high school sophomore, it may seem rather odd that I did ever so engage.
Music: My First Love
It is true that my first love was music. I especially loved piano. As I was but a toddler, I watched and listened with awe as my Aunt Winnie played the piano during visits to my paternal grandparents home in Kentucky. Winnie was in her teens and played beautifully only by ear. So I fell in love with the piano, later thrilling to the TV performances of Liberace.
I also persuaded my parents to let me take piano lessons at our little four-room school house in Abington, Indiana, when I was in about the third grade around age 9. The music teacher, Mrs. Frame, came once a week and gave lessons to students, who were permitted the leave the classroom for about a half hour for the lessons.
Unfortunately, the school board decided after about three years into my lessons to ban Mrs. Frame from using out little school to give her lessons; she then continued them at her home. But we had to then travel to her home, and my dad was often too busy to take me to my lessons.
To relieve my dad of that chore, I stopped the lessons fairly soon after Mrs. Frame’s banishment. I have often wished I could have continued the lessons beyond the three years. But I have continued to keep a piano in my home and to play it from time to time.
Literature in High School
During my sophomore year in high school, Mrs. Edna Pickett was my English teacher. The first semester we studied grammar, and I was a straight A student in grammar.
On the first day’s meeting in Mrs. Pickett’s class, she asked the class to name the 8 parts of speech. No one offered to do it, so I raised my hand a spouted them off for her; she was impressed, and she remained impressed with my ability to handle English grammar.
Then second semester arrived. And instead of my beloved grammar, the focus was on general literature. We would read stories and poems in the literature text book—a big thick thing that I had no love for—and then discuss them.
Oddly, I had no yardstick for measuring the height, depth, and width of those works. It seemed that we were supposed to fathom something in the stories that I could not seem to fathom. The study seemed terribly vague and unwieldy, not like grammar, which had real answers and followed logical patterns.
To make matters worse, Mrs. Pickett required us to write book reports. If we did not write a book report, we could not get a A, regardless of our accumulated number.
I thought that book report requirement was unfair, and I refused to write one. True to her word, Mrs. Pickett marked me down to a B, even though my grad average was in the high 90s as usual, which under normal circumstances would have given me my usual A.
I’m not sure how I managed to get A’s on the literature tests, but somehow I did. And Mrs. Pickett said when she assigned the B that she was sad about it, also. That B really stung, and from then on, I went ahead and read books and reported on them.
After sophomore English came junior English which was focused on American literature, in addition to the grammar, of course. By then I had fallen in love the poetry and began to appreciate literature more. So my American literature focus caused me no real consternation.
However, I did not take British literature with Mrs. Pickett in my senior year; that year a course in creative writing was offered and it fulfilled the requirement for academic curricula specialty, so I enrolled in creative writing instead of senior English. I have often regretted not taking both the Brit lit and the creative writing. I could have done so because I had two study hall periods that year.
Curiously, it is also the oddity that I ended up taking British/Irish literature as the main concentration for my PhD studies, writing my dissertation of William Butler Yeats’ focus on Eastern philosophy and religion.
PhD in British Literature
So the next part of this story ends on a reversal that could not have been predicted. And it has some twists and turns. As I enjoyed grammar in early high school, I also enjoyed and was good at foreign language, beginning with Latin. The study of Latin even enhanced my aptitude for English grammar.
I took Latin my freshman year, then I took Spanish my sophomore year; my junior year I took Latin II and Spanish II and then took French my senior year (Mrs. Pickett taught the French class, and it was the first year French had been offered. She even spent the summer at the Sorbonne in Paris boning up on her French stills.)
So my interest become completely ensconced in foreign language, and I knew that in college I would major in foreign language—likely Spanish. But then my creative writing teacher, Mr. Malcolm Sedam, who was working on a masters degree in history, let me know that he needed to translate some works from German. He was writing his thesis on Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel, known as The Desert Fox, a German Generalfeldmarschall during World War II.
I had begun to study German, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese on my own. And I had been apprized of the similarities between German and English, and I decided that in college I would likely major in German.
So I made an attempt to translate some the text that Mr. Sedam needed. Of course, that was a total bust; I had only a smattering of German, not nearly enough to translate such material.
Nevertheless, I went ahead and began my German major at Ball State Teachers College which I entered summer quarter 1964. I had to wait until fall quarter to take my first course in German however.
I thoroughly enjoyed studying German at Ball State, transferred to Miami University after studying four quarters at BSU, graduated with a major in German from Miami in April 1967. I then taught German at Brookville, Indiana, for one year. I earned my MA in German from BSU in 1971 then taught 2 more years of German at Brookville.
By this time, I had discovered that a career teaching German was not for me; to do a truly efficient job of such teaching and engaging such scholarship, I would have to travel and study in Germany probably on a yearly basis—a venture that I did not relish.
Besides, I had begun writing and studying poetry written in English and became convinced that as a native speaker of English and dedicated literary studies enthusiast, a concentration in literature written in English was my best focus.
I began an MA in English at BSU in 1976 but did not finish it. Then with many pages of poems, essays, and other writings, especially songs, in 1983, I began anew with the MA in English at BSU, and by this time I had decided that I would earn my PhD in English at BSU. And that’s what I did—finishing the MA in 1984 and the PhD in November 1987.
From 1983, I taught in the BSU writing program as graduate assistant, (1983-1984), doctoral fellow (1984-1987), and assistant professor (1987-1999.) In the fall of 1987, I accepted an offer of a teaching job at a now-defunct college in Virginia, but the job was so much different from what the administration had described that I left and returned to BSU by winter quarter that same year.
Independent Literary Scholar
After leaving the BSU writing program in 1999, I have become an independent scholar, writing, researching, and posting my works online on various sites that accept such works.
An example of my online writing endeavor is that I spent almost ten years posting on the recently defunct HubPages, accumulating over a thousand essays on poetry commentaries, political and social issues—even a few recipes and songs—along with several of my original poems and short stories.
Currently, I curate my own literary website at Linda’s Literary Site. The site features my writings in poems, songs, essays, short stories, fables, recipes, and commentaries.
The financial gain is close to non-existent, whereas I was able to gain a pittance on HubPages, but the satisfaction is enormous with no editorial noise to interrupt by voice.
Useful or Not?
The twists and turns featured in this overview are offered primarily to give readers the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they find my offerings in literary studies of any value for their own perusal.
As mentioned earlier, where I ended up regarding the study of literature had an inauspicious beginning. But it nevertheless has ended with me dedicating my time and effort to my once adversarial subject of literary studies.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 19 “The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise”
The two lovers exchange locks of hair, and the speaker makes a ceremony of the exchange as she again emphasizes the royalty of her lover’s station and talent.
Introduction with Text of Sonnet 19 “The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise”
In sonnet 18 “I never gave a lock of hair away” from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, the speaker dramatically celebrates giving a lock of her hair to her belovèd.
The little drama continues with sonnet 19 “The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise,” as she receives a lock from him. The two lovers exchange their locks of hair, and the speaker dramatizes a ceremony of the exchange, as she again celebrates the royalty of her lover’s station and talent.
Sonnet 19 “The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise”
The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise; I barter curl for curl upon that mart, And from my poet’s forehead to my heart Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,— As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, The bay-crown’s shade, Belovèd, I surmise, Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black! Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath, I tie the shadows safe from gliding back, And lay the gift where nothing hindereth; Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.
Commentary on Sonnet 19 “The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise”
The two lovers exchange locks of hair, and the speaker makes a ceremony of the exchange as she again emphasizes the royalty of her lover’s station and talent.
First Quatrain: Oration and Commemoration
The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise; I barter curl for curl upon that mart, And from my poet’s forehead to my heart Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,—
As in sonnet 18 “I never gave a lock of hair away,” the speaker offers a bit of an oration, commemorating the exchange of locks of hair between the two lovers. She metaphorically compares the soul to a marketplace, the Rialto, an important commercial district in Venice. The speaker employs a commercial metaphor because of the trading of items that the two lovers are engaging in.
The speaker then reveals that she is accepting the lock of hair from the head of her beloved with all the enthusiasm that an individual might express if she were presented with large loads of valuable cargoes from vast commercial sailing ships.
The speaker enhances the value of that lock of hair by stating that it weighs even more than “argosies.” It is even more valuable than all the cargo arriving in vast commercial vessels that travel the seas.
Second Quatrain: Purple Black
As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, The bay-crown’s shade, Belovèd, I surmise,
In the second quatrain, the speaker emphasizes the blackness of her lover’s lock. The “curl,” she claims, is so black that it is “purply black.” Again, she employs the color of royalty to distinguish the high station of her talented, handsome, accomplished lover.
The speaker alludes to the ancient Greek poet Pindar, who is considered the greatest of the nine most famous ancient Greek poets, whom she references as “the nine white Muse-brows.” The speaker’s lover’s lock is as significant because he is as important to the poetry world as those Greek poets are.
First Tercet: Pindar Allusion
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black! Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath, I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
The speaker voices her assumption that “the bay-crown’s shade, Beloved / / Still lingers on the curl.” The “bay-crown” refers to that most famous poet, Pindar, whose shadow-presence influences her lover’s talent through his “purpureal tresses.”
The speaker insists that because of the high value she places on that black lock of hair, she will keep the lock close to her heart to keep it warm. Likely, the speaker will place it in a locket, but she exaggerates her drama by saying she is binding it with her “smooth-kissing breath” and tying “the shadows safe from gliding back.”
Second Tercet: Ceremony of the Lock
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth; Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.
In placing the lock next to her heart, the speaker is safe-guarding the “gift where nothing” can disturb it. Close to the speaker’s heart, the lock will “lack / No natural heat” until, of course, the speaker “grows cold in death.” The ceremony of the lock exchange is complete, and the love relationship will then progress to the next important stage.
Image: Created by ChatGPT inspired by the suggestion of a poetaster
What Is a Poetaster?
Poetaster (pronounced /poʊɪt’æstər/), like rimester or versifier, is a derogatory term applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, poetaster has implications of unwarranted pretensions to artistic value. The word was coined in Latin by Erasmus in 1521 [1].
It was first used in English by Ben Jonson in his 1600 play Cynthia’s Revels [2];immediately afterwards Jonson chose it as the title of his 1601 play Poetaster. In that play the “poetaster” character is a satire on John Marston, one of Jonson’s rivals in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres [3].
Usage
While poetaster has always been a negative appraisal of a poet’s skills, rimester (or rimer) and versifier have held ambiguous meanings depending on the commentator’s opinion of a writer’s verse. Versifier is often used to refer to someone who produces work in verse with the implication that while technically able to make lines rime they have no real talent for poetry. Rimer on the other hand is usually impolite.
The faults of a poetaster frequently include errors or lapses in their work’s meter, badly riming words which jar rather than flow, over-sentimentality, too much use of the pathetic fallacy and unintentionally bathetic choice of subject matter.
Although a mundane subject in the hands of some great poets can be raised to the level of art, such as “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats or “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes” by Thomas Gray, others merely produce bizarre poems on bizarre subjects, an example being James McIntyre, who wrote mainly of cheese.
Other poets often regarded as poetasters are William Topaz McGonagall, Julia A. Moore, Edgar Guest, J. Gordon Coogler, Dmitry Khvostov, and Alfred Austin. Austin, despite having been a British poet laureate, is nevertheless regarded as greatly inferior to his predecessor, Alfred Lord Tennyson. Austin was frequently mocked during his career and is little read today.
The American poet Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918), known for his 1913 poem “Trees”, is often criticized for his overly sentimental and traditional verse written at the dawn of Modernist poetry, although some of his poems are frequently anthologized and retain enduring popular appeal [4] [5]. “Trees” has been parodied innumerable times, including by Ogden Nash [6].
Modern Use
Musician Joanna Newsom on the album The Milk-eyed Mender uses the term to refer to a struggling narrator wracked with ambition to create beautiful poetry in a verse from “Inflammatory Writ”:
And as for my inflammatory writ? Well, I wrote it and I was not inflamed one bit. Advice from the master derailed that disaster; he said “Hand that pen over to me, poetaster”
Rapper Big Daddy Kane uses an adjectival form as an insult in his song “Uncut, Pure”:
Your poetasterous style it plain bore me Pardon the vainglory, but here’s the Kane story The band Miracle Fortress has a song entitled “Poetaster”.
In Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Lee Ross refers to political influencer Cy Draven as an “opportunistic poetaster”.
Variants
In the sense that a poetaster is a pretended poet, John Marston coined the term parasitaster, for one who pretends to be a parasite or sycophant, in his play Parasitaster, or The Fawn (1604). Later in the 17th century (the earliest cited use is from 1684) appeared the term criticaster for an inferior and pretentious critic.
[3] Ben Jonson ed. C. H. Herford, P. and E. Simpson, vol. 9 (Oxford, 1950) p. 533.
[4] Robert Cortes Holliday. “Memoir,” in Joyce Kilmer, edited by Holliday (New York: Doran, 1918), I: 17–101.
[5] Conrad PotterAiken. “Confectionery and Caviar: Edward Bliss Reed, John Cowper Powys, Joyce Kilmer, Theodosia Garrison, William Carlos Williams” in Scepticisms. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1919), 178–86.
[6] OgdenNash. “Song of the Open Road” first published in Argosy. Vol. 12 No. 8. (July 1951), 63.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet 7, “The face of all the world is changed, I think,“ offers a tribute to the speaker’s lover, who has wrought deep and lasting important changes in the speaker’s life.
Introduction with Text of Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet #7, “The face of all the world is changed, I think,” from Sonnets from the Portuguese expresses the speaker’s astonishment and delight at a new awareness she is sensing.
She has begun to notice that her situation is in the process of a unique transformation, and she, therefore, wishes to extend her gratitude to her belovèd suitor for these marvelous, soul-inspiring changes in her life.
Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”
The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink, And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear. The names of country, heaven, are changed away For where thou art or shalt be, there or here; And this … this lute and song … loved yesterday, (The singing angels know) are only dear Because thy name moves right in what they say.
Reading
Commentary on Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet 7, “The face of all the world is changed, I think,” focuses specifically on the tribute to the speaker’s belovèd partner in love, who has wrought deep and lasting important changes in her life.
In fact, the entire sonnet sequence performs the awe-inspiring task of recording the evolution of the poet’s life transformation after meeting and becoming the partner of her belovèd life mate.
First Quatrain: The Speaker’s Changing Environment
The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
The emotional speaker notes that all things in her environs have changed their appearance because of her new outlook after having become aware of her new love. Lovers traditionally begin to see the world through rose-colored glasses upon falling in love. The happiness in the heart spreads like a lovely, fragrant flower garden throughout the lover’s whole being.
Every ordinary object takes on a brilliant, rosy glow that flows like a gentle river from the happiness in the heart of the romantic lover.This deep-thinking speaker asserts that her lover has placed himself between her and the terrible “death.”
Heretofore, she had sensed that all she had to look forward to was more misery and ultimately the act of leaving her physical body. That mindset had continued to engulf her being her whole lifelong.
But now the “footsteps” of her belovèd suitor have been so gentle that they seemed to be the soft sounds of his soul approaching her. His meaning for her has become deep and abiding, spreading meaning and joy in her life.
Second Quatrain: Doomed Without Love
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, Was caught up into love, and taught the whole Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
The speaker had been convinced that without such a love to save her she would be doomed to “obvious death.” She finds herself suddenly transported to a new world, a new “life in a new rhythm” with the arrival of her belovèd suitor.
She has been so mired in sadness that it seemed that she was being “baptized” in that mindset, as one drowning in one’s own fears and tears.However, the melancholy speaker finds herself reluctant to allow herself complete immersion in her newfound happiness, but still she has to admit that her new status is overcoming her prior terror.She is beginning slowly to change her doubts to delightful possibilities.
First Tercet: A Universal Change
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear. The names of country, heaven, are changed away For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
The speaker must extol the “sweetness” that she receives from her new belovèd swain. Because he is beside her, she has changed in a universal way—”names of country, heaven, are changed away.”
Nothing is the same, even the ordinary names of things seem altered and in a good way; all of her old cheerless, dreary life is transforming utterly, and she finally seems to become able to enjoy and appreciate this transformation.The more confident speaker is now willing to entertain the notion that he will remain by her side to delight her life permanently, throughout time and space.
Second Tercet: The Singing of Angels
And this … this lute and song … loved yesterday, (The singing angels know) are only dear Because thy name moves right in what they say.
The glad speaker hears the angels singing in the voice of her belovèd suitor.Even as she loved his poems and music before this new awakening of love between the two, she has now become even more enamored with those art forms after only a brief period of time has passed. His very name motivates the speaker in a heavenly manner. As the angels sing and heavenly music delights her, she realizes that her belovèd has brought about her pleasant state of mind.
The thankful speaker wants to give him all the tribute he deserves. She feels that she cannot exaggerate the magnitude of his effect on her state of being and thinking.And everything she knows and feels now fills her heart and mind with new life.
Earlier in her life, she had become convinced that she could never experience the joy and fulfillment that she sees herself heading into now because of this special, accomplished man.
With such an important transformation, she now senses that she cannot say enough to express the value of such an vital act for her well-being and growth. She has only words of love to express her state of mind, and she works mightily to make those words the best, placed in the best order with as much emphasis as she can garner.
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