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 “Could live – did live”
Emily Dickinson’s speaker in “Could live – did live” is speculating about the possible inner motivation that urged on the heart of an individual acquaintance who has now died. He did live, she insists, but what drove him?—This man, who seems to have maintained such an even-minded temperament.
Introduction and Text of “Could live – did live”
In Emily Dickinson’s “Could live – did live,” the speaker is speculating about the inner life of an individual who has died. Because she refers to the deceased as “he” and “his” in the lines, “Through faith in one he met not, / To introduce his soul,” it is safe to assume that the individual is a man or boy—more likely a man because of the nature of the information offered by the speaker.
The dead man has experienced enough of life that the speaker, who has observed at least periodically the man living his life, has acquired and retained enough information to make certain assumptions about how he thought and felt and what his inclinations might have been.
As Dickinson is wont to do, in this poem, the poet is playing with English grammar. She is employing the conditional mood of verbs. In the opening two lines, she juxtaposes the conditional mood use with the indicative mood emphatic; thus, she moves from “could live” to “did live.”
That the poet added her own emphasis to the emphatic “did” further highlights her play on the language. In modern print, the emphasis is shown by italicizing—”did“—while in her handwriting, Dickinson shows that emphasis by underlining–”did.”
Could live – did live
Could live – did live – Could die – did die – Could smile upon the whole Through faith in one he met not, To introduce his soul.
Could go from scene familiar To an untraversed spot – Could contemplate the journey With unpuzzled heart –
Such trust had one among us, Among us not today – We who saw the launching Never sailed the Bay!
Commentary on “Could live – did live”
The speaker in this Dickinson gem is offering a somewhat clipped observation about the possible inner life of an individual male acquaintance who has died. She has observed at least enough of the individual’s comings and going that she remains capable of forming an opinion about him.
Interestingly, what the speaker claims about the possible inner life of another more than likely remains even more on target about her own station in life.
First Stanza: Conditional Speculation
Could live – did live – Could die – did die – Could smile upon the whole Through faith in one he met not, To introduce his soul.
The speaker begins by contrasting the difference between the conditional and the indicative moods. She states elliptically that someone had been able to live —”could”—but then adds immediately that he did, in fact, live.
The first proposition is stated with the conditional mood auxiliary verb “could,” and the second half of her statement features the emphatic form “did” of the indicative mood “live.”
In the second line, she repeats the conditional vs indicative moods again with the opposite of “live.” Thus she is reporting that someone who could have lived, did, in fact, live, and then this same individual could have died—because he lived, of course—and he, in fact, “did die.”
By playing with the grammar of the language, the speaker indicates that her own solemn mood may be moving her to speculate and to postpone her grieving for this individual. But then she launches another conditional mood “could smile,” as she reports the level of the deceased’s faith.
The deceased was able to smile upon the whole bewildering commotion of life and death likely remaining quite neutral about any deep meaning those puzzling acts might hold; he, at least, possessed some level of faith to be able to hold such a smile, and his soul thereby has remained an entity without dedication to a higher consciousness. The speaker, however, is merely reporting, not judging.
Second Stanza: Remaining Conditional
Could go from scene familiar To an untraversed spot – Could contemplate the journey With unpuzzled heart –
Returning again to the conditional mood, the speaker continues to report on the deceased’s ability to face the various vicissitudes of life. His temperamental state seems to have remained somewhat even-minded whether he was moving in “familiar” territory or venturing out to parts unknown.
The speaker asserts that the deceased “could go” and was also able to “contemplate” his travels without his “heart” becoming puzzled, or likely even frazzled. The speaker is offering only her interpretation of how the deceased felt; thus the continued employment of the conditional mood remains operative and most appropriate.
While her uncertainly is not paramount, she, nevertheless, does not wish to sound as though she can make any final pronouncement about how the deceased went about his life and his days upon planet Earth.
She knows that too deep a speculation would ultimately amount to judging. She does imply that she likely would not retain such an even-minded ability throughout her puzzling sojourn through life and death.
Third Stanza: Trust and Faith in Life’s Inner Turmoil
Such trust had one among us, Among us not today – We who saw the launching Never sailed the Bay!
The speaker finalizes her speculative evaluation of the deceased’s inner mental/heartfelt state by asserting that his trust, which did not rise to level of faith, was as she has thus far described. He was “among us,” and today he is no longer “among us.”
The speaker then concludes by remarking that although “we,” the living, have been able to observe the manner in which the deceased passed his days, we cannot know for certain how his experience actually shaped and formed his deep heart’s core and ultimate mental state.
While we may have observed, an observation is not the actual experience. The deceased is the only one who has “sailed the Bay”; his friends, family, and acquaintances merely caught certain glimpses of his “launching.” They remain in state of “should, would, could” as far as the deceased’s inner life is concerned.
The speaker offers an observation, however, that may be quite accurate, but in the long run, the accuracy is in her own self-revelation, not necessarily in that of the target of her report.
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 “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!”
The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!” dramatizes the intensity with which an individual may view the simple act of the opening of a day. She concludes by revealing the superior power of the soul in overcoming all adversity.
Introduction and Text of “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!”
The speaker of Emily Dickinson’s “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!” opens with an effusion, calling for assistance—another day is here and dire need, calamity, and trials and tribulations are on the horizon. This speaker has opened her heart and mind to the material level of reality and is reacting to the cant and cacophony that that level brings the sensitive individual.
After offering a broad scope for consideration of national and worldly events, the speaker concludes with the same heartfelt level of awareness that leads the speaker and her environment of sensitivities back to her garden of soul reality. The soul triumphs despite upsetting—even disastrous—worldly or national events. The soul remains able to “stand unshaken amid the crash of breaking worlds.”
A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
A Day! Help! Help! Another Day! Your prayers, oh Passer by! From such a common ball as this Might date a Victory! From marshallings as simple The flags of nations swang. Steady — my soul: What issues Upon thine arrow hang!
Commentary on “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!”
The speaker offers a contrasting movement from effusion at possible impending calamity to revelation of steadfast, complete endurance in the face of all chaos and consternation.
First Movement: A Cry of Consternation
A Day! Help! Help! Another Day! Your prayers, oh Passer by!
The speaker stations herself in an etherial location from which she can contemplate and consider the vicissitudes of life. Upon awakening to the breaking of “Another Day!,” she offers a prayerful command to one who “[p]ass[es] by” her vision, imploring that individual for “Prayers.”
At this point, the speaker has offered only a nebulous environment from which she can view activities, contemplate events, and make judgments about them. Little can be fathomed from such an effusive outcry, but she has attracted attention for her discourse.
The speaker’s opening cry that another day has opened, and then her subsequent cry for “Help! Help!” alerts those around her that all is not well, or at least, not likely to remain so for long.
Thus something must be out of order, or some circumstance which eludes her control prompts her to command assistance—all for the simple act of another day arriving. At first blush, such drama may seem melodramatic, but as the speaker continues, all events, thoughts, and feelings take their appropriate place upon the horizon.
Second Movement: The Potential for Winning
From such a common ball as this Might date a Victory!
The speaker continues to remain somewhat vague, yet at the same time she refers to the planet upon which she takes her breaths and pulses her blood. Calling Earth a “common ball,” she adds that despite her opening call for help, such a place may offer the scope and time allotment for great winning.
The “Victory” upon which the speaker may stand remains at this point a forethought, perhaps even an illusion. She has not yet revealed any specific reason for her opening effusive cry or for implying that some victorious event may occur.
As she continues to riddle and minimize, she yet opens her toolkit of ideas, images, and emotions to a vast array of pairs of opposites, such as the trope of winning and losing, and then to opening and closing, weakness and strength, close and far, life and death.
Third Movement: A Pride of Being
From marshallings as simple The flags of nations swang.
The speaker then alludes to national pride—the allowing to swing the banners of nations; thus she indicates that the country has accrued some level of success in some undertaking. Such prideful acts could include war, treaties with potential enemies, or creating a national harmony that permits citizens to crave out better, more prosperous lives.
The speaker still has not delineated any specifics, for her purpose remains to make a general statement, a simple remark in passing regarding the nature of reality and how actions and events accrue to yield any given result. She has, thus far, opened the day with a concerning cry but then yielded to the possibility of victory—which at the same time yields the possibility of utter failure.
Now by referring to “flags,” the speaker has opened her discourse to the likelihood that she wishes to make a generalized statement about events that in no way remain in the private or personal sphere of reality.
The speaker now has only one way to continue this observation—she must bring events into her own sphere, else she will have to abandon any hope making a sensible observation.
Fourth Movement: The Soul’s Victory
Steady — my soul: What issues Upon thine arrow hang!
The speaker then abruptly addresses her own soul, admonishing it to be “Steady.” She has touched, even if lightly, on activities, events, and possibilities at worldly and national levels. She has implied that these activities, events, and possibilities may have a detrimental effect on her as an individual.
Such detriment would rattle the hearts and minds of any individual, perhaps even to soul level. Thus the speaker now closes her investigation on those outside possibilities, concentrates on the purely personal, and discovers that she must calm her heart and mind in order for her soul to become once again “Steady.”
The speaker’s final effusion is the simple remark that profundity clings to the sharp point of soul clarity. Metaphorically likening the soul to an “arrow” allows her to demonstrate that the soul is the only weapon that can discharge and conquer the “issues” that fluster, confuses, and cause pain and anguish in the hearts and minds of individuals.
Obsolete Usage: “Swang”
The term “swang” is the obsolete irregular simple past tense form of “swing,” which apparently was still in use in the Dickinsonian century; current usage requires “swung,” the same form as the past participle “swung.” Similar verb forms such as “sting,” “sling,” and “fling” have all lost their simple past tense form of “stang,” “slang,” and “flang.”
The verb “ring” however retains its irregular simple past tense form of “rang”: “ring, rang, rung” remain the three usages that continue in the current American parlance.
The terms, “ding,” which has a similar meaning to “ring,” and “bring” both have different simple past and participle forms: “ding” follows the regular verb formation by merely adding the suffix “-ed” to the present tense form, while “bring” has the irregular form of “brought” in both simple past and past participle forms.
A close study of the etymology of these terms would reveal the trajectory of those changes, and they would likely be perfectly sensible, even though a mere glance seems that this change in language usage has no rime or reason.
Emily Dickinson composed several poems that are just pure fun; they work similarly to riddles, not mentioning their subject that can be determined only by a correct interpretation of the poetic devices.
Introduction and Text of “It sifts from Leaden Sieves”
It is widely understood that Emily Dickinson fashioned most of her poems to focus on profound themes: life, death, the afterlife (immortality), and complex human relationships.
However, the Amherst recluse also composed a number of poems that show a propensity for pure fun. These poems may be validly called riddles as they describe the subject but allow the reader to ferret out what the subject is.
It sifts from Leaden Sieves
It sifts from Leaden Sieves – It powders all the Wood. It fills with Alabaster Wool The Wrinkles of the Road –
It makes an Even Face Of Mountain, and of Plain – Unbroken Forehead from the East Unto the East again –
It reaches to the Fence – It wraps it Rail by Rail Till it is lost in Fleeces – It deals Celestial Vail
To Stump, and Stack – and Stem – A Summer’s empty Room – Acres of Joints, where Harvests were, Recordless, but for them–
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts As Ankles of a Queen – Then stills its Artisans – like Ghosts – Denying they have been –
Commentary on “It sifts from Leaden Sieves”
This Dickinson poem functions as a riddle and remains on of her most widely anthologized creations. The poem displays in 5 four-line stanzas.
First Stanza: The Opening Metaphor
It sifts from Leaden Sieves – It powders all the Wood. It fills with Alabaster Wool The Wrinkles of the Road –
The speaker begins by metaphorically describing the item as a material that behaves much as does flour that one would use to bake a cake. The substance that “sifts from Leaden Sieves” is behaving as if a housewife or baker might be doing in sifting flour for baking.
As the housewife sifts the flour, she places it in a bowl to prepare the dough; then she spreads the flour over a countertop or cutting board so she can roll out the dough. However, the poem’s sifted substance does not end up in a bowl, not even in the house at all, but in the woods. As it does so, it fills in the cracks in the road and has the appearance of “Alabaster Wool.”
Second Stanza: A Kitchen Metaphor
It makes an Even Face Of Mountain, and of Plain – Unbroken Forehead from the East Unto the East again –
Then the kitchen metaphor transforms into a hyperbolic face as the speaker asserts that this substance has piled so high that it creates the illusion that a mountain and the plain that appear level; it is “Unbroken Forehead from the East / Unto the East again.”
Third Stanza: Moving Outdoors
It reaches to the Fence – It wraps it Rail by Rail Till it is lost in Fleeces – It deals Celestial Vail
The speaker then has the substance reaching to the fence where it forms a ring around the rail, making the fence appear to be wearing wedding gear. The speaker describes the fields on which the substance has landed as “Summer’s empty Room”; the fields have been harvested and only stubble is still standing.
Fourth Stanza: A Substance That Seems Ubiquitous
To Stump, and Stack – and Stem – A Summer’s empty Room – Acres of Joints, where Harvests were, Recordless, but for them–
Now the substance fills up the empty field. It become unrecognizable as a field but for the several stalks that still stand up through the white material that has fallen on them like flour over a countertop.
Fifth Stanza: The Sifting Powder Made Plain
It Ruffles Wrists of Posts As Ankles of a Queen – Then stills its Artisans – like Ghosts – Denying they have been –
In the final stanza, the speaker portrays the substance of some lace-like material that might be worn by a queen, but it is adding ruffles to the “Wrists of Posts.” Suddenly, the weather changes, it stops snowing, and it seems that craftsmen suddenly ceased their work.
The scene has been created, and by this time, readers and listeners will be aware that the substance that “sifts from Leaden Sieves” and “powders” the landscape is none other than snow, which the poem/riddle has never named, but only suggested.
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 “Through lane it lay – through bramble”
Emily Dickinson’s speaker employs an extended metaphor that likens the human’s path through life on a troubled planet to a simple walk through the woods—a woods that is, however, anything but ordinary.
Introduction and Text of “Through lane it lay – through bramble”
The speaker in Dickinson’s “Through lane it lay – through bramble” takes her audience through an imaginary journey that on the superficial level remains a journey of fantasy filled with danger, as it is colorfully allusive to mythological creatures attempting to attack a flock of children as they venture home.
But Dickinson never leaves her readers moving gleefully from the adventure story stage; thus, her simple adventure is actually performing as an extended metaphor likening the life of human beings on this earth to a dangerous journey through a mythological forest.
Through lane it lay – through bramble
Through lane it lay – through bramble – Through clearing and through wood – Banditti often passed us Upon the lonely road.
The wolf came peering curious – The owl looked puzzled down – The serpent’s satin figure Glid stealthily along –
The tempests touched our garments – The lightning’s poinards gleamed – Fierce from the Crag above us The hungry Vulture screamed –
The satyr’s fingers beckoned – The valley murmured “Come” – These were the mates – This was the road Those children fluttered home.
Commentary on “Through lane it lay – through bramble”
The speaker in “Through lane it lay – through bramble” is using an extended metaphor, likening the human life-path on a distressed planet to a simple walk through a woodland; however, this woodland is quite extraordinary.
First Stanza: Another Jaunty Riddle
Through lane it lay – through bramble – Through clearing and through wood – Banditti often passed us Upon the lonely road.
In the opening stanza, the speaker begins rather quietly and again almost hinting that this poem will be another jaunty riddle. She inserts that nebulous “it,” only stating where it “lay” and led: in a lane and rambled through “bramble”; it also ran through a “clearing” and also through a “wood.”
The speaker then identifies the “it” as a “lonely road,” in the same breath as asserting that the little group of folks was often passed by marauding robber gangs, or “banditti.” She employs the rare spelling for “bandits.”
One can imagine the poet running upon that word and laying it away for later use in a poem. Dickinson did enjoy the appearance of cosmopolitanism; she was amused by the charm of worldly engagement, even as she peered intensely into the ultra personal, the ultimate individual soul.
Second Stanza: The Fantastic Journey
The wolf came peering curious – The owl looked puzzled down – The serpent’s satin figure Glid stealthily along –
The speaker continues the fantastic journey. After describing the “lonely road” on which the travelers are traveling, she now describes animals that the group encounters. Wolves that seem quite nosey come and stare at them. From up in trees, “puzzled” owls peer down at them. They even observe snakes slithering “stealthily along.”
The speaker skillfully now begins to drop hints that this is no ordinary walk through the woods. After providing imagery that has thus far remained quite literally earthly, she employs the term “serpent” for snake.
The term “serpent” adds heft to the image of the creature that simply glides upon the earth because that term immediately identifies that creature as the creature from the biblical Genesis–that evil one who tempted the first pair of human beings to ignore the only commandment placed upon them by their Creator-God.
Third Stanza: No Ordinary Journey
The tempests touched our garments – The lightning’s poinards gleamed – Fierce from the Crag above us The hungry Vulture screamed –
The speaker continues to deviate her description from an ordinary jaunt through the woods. Now she asserts that their clothes were disheveled by “tempests” – not merely did a storm blow up and get them wet.
The storms were “tempests,” or many violent storms, a term which again increases the severity the situation and likely alludes to the Shakespeare play, “The Tempest,” which featured a convoluted tale of intrigue and romance, in other words, a simulacrum of the world with its trials and tribulations along with intrigue and romance.
As the speaker describes the lightning from these “tempests,” she employs the term “poinards.” That French term “poignard” means dagger. When anglicized, the correct spelling of the term is “poniard.”
Yet for some reason Dickinson has once again baffled her readers with an obvious departure from the accurate spelling of the term. And again one wonders why Thomas H. Johnson, the editor who restored Dickinson’s poems to the forms that more closely represent her originals, did not quietly correct that spelling.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the spelling “poinards,” the speaker uses the term for the continued purpose of supporting the extended metaphor of a treacherous journey through life on earth. Just as the storms are “tempests,” the lightning gleams in daggers.
The claims of the scenarios must remain somewhat exaggerated in order to deepen and widen the metaphor from simple journey through the woods to complex journey on the path of life through a threatening world.
The speaker thus continues to transport her audience from that simply walk through the woods to the journey on the path of life through a menacing world.
Fourth Stanza: The Allure of Lust
The satyr’s fingers beckoned – The valley murmured “Come” – These were the mates – This was the road Those children fluttered home.
The final movement finds the speaker addressing the issue of human lust. Just as the first pair was hassled by the serpent and urged to commit the one sin that would banish them from their garden paradise, all of the children resulting from that pair’s falling are hassled and urged to commit that same sin repeatedly.
This “road’ through life is replete with the fingers of lust luring, “beckon[ing]” the children to “come” into that “valley” of lustful pleasure. The not-so-subtle images of “fingers” and “valley” complete the metaphor and remind the audience that those “mates” on this road have caused “those children” the misery of having to “flutter” on their way home.
The only bright and optimistic hope is that those children are, in fact, on their way home, and that they will finally begin to realize that those satyr “fingers” plunging into those “valleys” only beckon one to death, not to the pleasure promised by those liars.
The Shakespearean speaker presents Orpheus as the embodiment of music’s power, showing how art, particularly music, has the ability to harmonize nature and relieve human suffering through its transformative, calming influence.
Introduction and Text of the “Shakespeare Lyric ‘Orpheus’”
Excerpted from Henry VIII (Act III, Scene 1), this brief lyric distills the ancient myth of Orpheus into a musing on the transformational and consolatory power of music.
The speaker expresses a vision in which art exerts a gentle but irresistible authority over nature itself, bringing harmony where there is chaos, motion where there is stillness, and rest where there is unrest.
The figure of Orpheus becomes less a mythological character than an emblem of art’s highest potential: to reshape the external world and quiet the inward life. I have employed the Orpheus ethos in my plea for more control and better expression in the art of poetry.
“Orpheus” (from Henry VIII – Act III, Scene 1)
Orpheus with his lute made trees And the mountain tops that freeze Bow themselves when he did sing: To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
Commentary on “The Shakespeare Lyric ‘Orpheus’”
In this Shakespeare excerpt that functions as a stand-alone poem, the speaker is alluding to the Greek mythological character Orpheus to celebrate music as a force of order, renewal, and inward healing. Orpheus was the god of music and poetry i Greek mythology.
Stanza 1: Music’s Powerful Influence
Orpheus with his lute made trees And the mountain tops that freeze Bow themselves when he did sing: To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring
The speaker opens with a striking assertion of music’s powerful influence over the natural world. The phrasing remains condensed, as though the act of music itself compresses time and causation. Trees and mountain tops do not merely respond; they are “made” or commanded to respond by bowing to the sound of Orphean singing.
This shaping force exerts itself to images of rigidity and lifeless cold. That mountain summits are called to “bow themselves” introduces a paradox: what is fixed becomes responsive, what is cold becomes animate, and what is elevated yields in humility.
The verb “bow” carries a dual resonance. It suggests both submission and grace, implying that nature’s response is not actually coerced but harmonized. The speaker presents music not as domination but as persuasion, a gentle authority that draws all things into alignment. Even the harshest elements—frozen peaks—are softened by sound, indicating that art reaches where physical force cannot.
The hyperbole exerted in these images is astounding, leading not to disbelief but to the famous Romantic assertion by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.” After all, the purpose of exaggeration is only to emphasize a claim, not to make a melodramatic spectacle.
The stanza then shifts from gesture to growth: “plants and flowers / Ever sprung.” The effect is not momentary but continuous, captured in the word “ever.” Music generates an ongoing fertility, a perpetual blossoming that resists decay.
The comparison to “sun and showers” grounds this transformation in natural cycles, yet the phrase “lasting spring” exceeds ordinary seasonal change. Spring, typically transient, becomes permanent under the influence of music. The speaker thus elevates art above nature’s own processes, suggesting that while sun and rain produce life, music sustains it indefinitely.
The imagery moves from rigidity (mountains) to vitality (flowers), tracing a progression from stillness to generative abundance. The speaker’s syntax reinforces this flow, with lines that seem to unfold organically, mirroring the growth they describe. Music becomes both cause and condition of harmony, a principle that unifies disparate elements—earth, air, and life itself.
What emerges is not merely a portrait of Orpheus but an argument about art’s capacity to reconcile opposites: cold and warmth, height and humility, barrenness and fertility. The speaker implies that music achieves what nature alone cannot—a permanence of renewal, a “lasting spring” that suspends the ordinary limits of time and change.
Again, as in most successful art, the tension of the pairs of opposites makes an appearance. As the great Guru Paramahansa Yogananda has explained, the force of Maya, the very cause of the material level of being, works through the pairs of opposites.
Stanza 2: The Universal Influence of Music
Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.
The second stanza broadens the scope from land to sea, extending the reach of music to “Every thing that heard him play.” The universality is emphatic; nothing remains outside the sphere of music’s influence.
While the first stanza emphasizes growth and animation, the second turns toward quieting and rest. The “billows of the sea,” emblematic of motion and unrest, are personified “h[anging] their heads and then l[ying] by.” The image suggests human beings becoming calm after turbulence, with ceaseless motion transforms into stillness.
The phrase “hung their heads” echoes the earlier “bow themselves,” reinforcing the motif of submission, yet here it carries a more subdued, almost weary connotation. The sea, often a symbol of emotional excess or instability, is brought into repose. The progression from bowing to lying still marks a deepening effect: music does not merely elicit acknowledgment; it also induces tranquility.
The final lines turn inward with even more gravity, shifting from the external world to the human condition: “care and grief of heart.” The speaker identifies these as persistent burdens, analogous to the restless sea.
Music’s power is now psychological and emotional, not merely physical. The phrase “killing care” is striking in its severity; music does not soothe lightly but eradicates distress at its root.
Yet the resolution is nuanced: care and grief either “fall asleep, or hearing, die.” The dual possibility suggests degrees of relief. Sleep implies temporary suspension, while death indicates permanent release. The ambiguity allows for a range of experience—music may offer respite or complete transformation. In either case, it alters the condition of suffering.
The line “In sweet music is such art” functions as a reflective statement, drawing together the stanza’s implications. “Sweet” emphasizes harmony and pleasure, but “art” underscores intention and craft. The speaker presents music as both aesthetic and efficacious, capable of shaping not only perception but feeling itself.
The movement of the stanza—from the vast sea to the inner heart—compresses the scale of influence, suggesting that the same force governs both realms. The calming of waves parallels the quieting of grief, establishing a correspondence between outer and inner worlds. Music becomes a mediating principle, aligning nature and human emotion within a single order of harmony.
The final stanza affirms that art’s highest function lies not merely in delight but in restoration. It brings the restless to rest, the troubled to peace, and in doing so, offers a vision of existence in which discord is not denied but resolved.
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.
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 “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”
For Emily Dickinson, the seasons offered ample opportunities for verse creation, and her love for all of the seasons is quite evident in her poems. However, her poetic dramas become especially deep and profound in her winter poems.
First Winter Poem: “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”
Emily Dickinson creates speakers who are every bit as a tricky as Robert Frost’s tricky speakers. Her two-stanza, eight-line lyric announcing, “Winter is good” attests to the poet’s skill of seemingly praising while showing disdain in the same breath.
The rime scheme of “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights” enforces the slant rime predilection with the ABAB approximation in each stanza. All of the rimes are near or slant in the first stanza, while the second boasts a perfect rime in Rose/goes.
Winter is good – his Hoar Delights
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.
Commentary on “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”
Emily Dickinson loved all of the seasons, and she found them inspiringly colorful in their many differing attributes. These seasonal characteristics gave this observant poet much material for her creative little dramas.
First Stanza: Winter’s Buried Charms
Winter is good – his Hoar Delights Italic flavor yield – To Intellects inebriate With Summer, or the World –
The speaker claims rather blandly that “Winter is good” but quickly adds not so plainly that his frost is delightful. That winter’s frost would delight one, however, depends on the individual’s ability to achieve a level of drunkenness with “Summer” or “the World.”
For those who fancy summer and become “inebriat[ed]” with the warm season’s charms, winter takes some digging to unearth its buried charm. And the speaker knows that most folks will never bother to attempt to find anything charming about the season they least favor.
But those frozen frosts will “yield” their “Italic flavor” to those who are perceptive and desirous enough to pursue any “Delights” that may be held there. The warmth of the Italian climate renders the summer flavors a madness held in check by an other-worldliness provided by the northern climes.
The speaker’s knowledge of the climate of Italy need be only superficial to assist in making the implications this speaker makes. Becoming drunk with winter, therefore, is a very different sport from finding oneself inebriated with summer, which can be, especially with Dickinson, akin to spiritual intoxication.
Second Stanza: Repository of Fine Qualities
Generic as a Quarry And hearty – as a Rose – Invited with Asperity But welcome when he goes.
Nevertheless, the speaker, before her hard-hitting yet softly-applied critique, makes it clear that winter holds much to be honored; after all, the season is “Generic as a Quarry / And hearty – as a Rose.” It generates enough genuine qualities to be considered a repository like a stone quarry that can be mined for all types of valuable rocks, gems, and granite.
The season is “hearty” in the same manner that a lovely flower is “hearty.” The rose, although it can be a fickle and finicky plant to cultivate, provides a strength of beauty that rivals other blossoms. That the freezing season is replete with beauty and its motivating natural elements render it a fertile time for the fertile mind of the poet.
But despite the useful and luxuriant possibilities of winter, even the mind that is perceptive enough to appreciate its magnanimity has to be relieved when that frozen season leaves the premises or as the speaker so refreshingly puts it, he is “welcome when he goes.” The paradox of being “welcome” when “he goes” offers an apt conclusion to this tongue-in-cheek, left-handed praise of the coldest season.
The speaker leaves the reader assured that although she recognizes and even loves winter, she can well do without his more stark realities as she welcomes spring and welcomes saying good-bye to the winter months.
Full Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Some bones stand like corn stalks After late harvest. They bristle in the field. They remain unclean though they look Bleached and scrubbed.
Skeletons may hang in closets But not these bones—the ones That are losing themselves As they scream and pound sand.
Some bones cry for a thinner cloak But unlike some hearts They have never broken themselves Over the pain of this mud ball.
Some bones slash themselves in early spring And cleave to youth too late in summer. A young brain cannot pool its dreams To yield the pith of adult philosophy.
Some bones have no star to guide errant ways. They may stitch themselves by valves But sense no light in the chambers That wobble and bleed ugly passions.
Some bones keep wobbling, sputtering, Spitting in the face of any thought That might hold them to account Lingering in the mud of passing time.
A Prose Commentary on My Original Poem “Some Bones”
In my poem “Some Bones,” I have created a speaker who is musing on fragmentation, arrested development, and the failure of inner cohesion, using the recurring image of bones—stripped, exposed, and stubbornly animate—as a controlling metaphor for the human condition when it is cut off from spiritual integration.
Unlike the quiet endurance of stone, bone suggests a harsher, more restless existence: something once living that refuses, even in its partial ruin, to settle into peace. Such failure epitomizes the blocked condition of generations of unhappy, prideful, and dangerous individuals who have remained strangers to themselves.
The language remains constructively physical—bones, closets, sand, mud, valves—yet it continually gesticulates toward psychological and spiritual disarray. My speaker does not offer consolation; instead, she allows the imagery to confront the reader with a kind of unresolved agitation. Where wisdom might emerge, it does so jarringly, often obstructed by immaturity, illusion, or sheer refusal.
Underlying the poem is my own sense that without a guiding metaphysical orientation—whether one names it divine light, higher consciousness, or moral clarity—the human being risks becoming disjointed, reactive, and perpetually unfinished. Such an orientation of mind has been instilled in my mindset by my blessèd Guru Paramahansa Yogananda.
First Stanza: Residue after Harvest
In the opening stanza, my speaker presents bones as remnants, likened to corn stalks left standing after harvest. This simile is intentional: what remains is not fruitful but residual, something overlooked, perhaps even abandoned. The bones “bristle,” suggesting defensiveness, a kind of posturing that masks emptiness.
Though they appear “bleached and scrubbed,” they remain “unclean.” This contradiction establishes a central tension: outward purification does not equate to inner transformation.
The bones carry a stain that cannot be washed away by exposure or time alone. I wanted the speaker to imply that mere survival or endurance does not guarantee wisdom; one can persist and yet remain fundamentally unresolved.
Second Stanza: Refusal of Containment
Here, my speaker contrasts the familiar idiom of “skeletons in closets” with these bones, which refuse concealment. They are not hidden but actively “losing themselves / As they scream and pound sand.” The image is specifically chaotic and futile—pounding sand accomplishes nothing, yet it expresses frustration and desperation.
These bones are not passive relics but disintegrating agents, unable to maintain coherence. The phrase “losing themselves” suggests a failure of identity, a dissolution rather than a stable essence. The speaker is emphasizing a kind of existential noise: movement without direction, expression without meaning—a condition that will remind my readers of the influence of postmodernism on poetry.
Third Stanza: Avoidance of True Suffering
In this stanza, the bones “cry for a thinner cloak,” desiring relief or escape, yet my speaker contrasts them with hearts that have “broken themselves / Over the pain of this mud ball.” The implication is that these bones have avoided the kind of deep suffering that refines and transforms.
There is, in my view, a necessary breaking that accompanies genuine emotional or spiritual growth. These bones, however, remain intact in a superficial sense precisely because they have not undergone that process.
Their complaint is shallow; they seek comfort without having earned insight. The “mud ball” underscores the earth’s dirty imperfection, a condition that must be confronted rather than evaded.
Fourth Stanza: Temporal Dislocation and Immaturity
The fourth stanza examines the misalignment of time and development. The bones “slash themselves in early spring” and “cleave to youth too late in summer,” suggesting a disordered relationship to life’s natural phases. There is both premature self-harm and delayed attachment to youth.
The concluding line suggests frenetically what the imagery implies: maturity requires synthesis. Dreams alone, without discipline or time, cannot produce wisdom. I wanted the speaker to assert that intellectual and spiritual depth cannot be rushed or improvised; it must be cultivated through experience and reflection.
Fifth Stanza: Absence of Guiding Light
Here, my speaker turns sternly to the absence of direction. The image that “Some bones have no star to guide errant ways” invokes the ancient image of navigation by the heavens. Without such a reference point, these bones attempt a kind of self-repair—“stitch themselves by valves”—but the effort is mechanical and insufficient.
The “chambers” evoke both the heart and the mind, yet they “sense no light.” This lack is crucial: the structure exists, but illumination does not. The result is a system that “wobbles and bleed[s] ugly passions,” governed not by clarity but by disorder. The speaker is averring that without an orienting principle, human faculties become unstable, even grotesque.
Sixth Stanza: Defiance and Stagnation
In the final stanza, the bones persist in their agitation—“wobbling, sputtering”—but now their resistance is directed against accountability itself. They reject introspection or discipline.
The closing image, “Lingering in the mud of passing time,” echoes to the earlier “mud ball,” but now it emphasizes stagnation. Time moves, yet the bones do not progress; they remain mired, neither decaying fully nor transforming.
This eventuality is, perhaps, the most severe judgment in the poem: not suffering, not even failure, but refusal—the unwillingness to engage the very processes that might lead to growth.
An Afterthought
In “Some Bones,” I have attempted to portray a condition of partial existence—one in which the human being retains structure and motion but lacks integration, direction, and illumination. The bones are not dead, but neither are they fully alive in any meaningful sense.
Where my earlier musing on stone suggested endurance and the possibility of quiet wisdom, here I explore a more troubled state: persistence without purpose, animation without coherence.
The poem ultimately argues, though indirectly, that without a willingness to suffer, to mature, and to orient oneself toward a higher principle, one risks becoming like these bones—restless, exposed, and perpetually incomplete.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”
Returning to the melancholy character in sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee,” as she has so often maintained, the speaker contrasts her light-hearted childhood’s response with her serious maturity.
Introduction and Text of Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”
The character speaking in Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee” from Sonnets from the Portuguese has returned to her melancholy attitude. Now she is contrasting her happy, carefree childhood years to her very stern and serious life as a mature adult.
The speaker however is addressing her belovèd, imploring him to consider how important he is to her. As earnest, obedient, and steadfast as she was as a child, now her constancy with her belovèd is even more in evidence. The speaker continues to build her case for deserving the love of such an accomplished man, whom she considers to be much above her own station in life.
Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”
With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name— Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy? When called before, I told how hastily I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game, To run and answer with the smile that came At play last moment, and went on with me Through my obedience. When I answer now, I drop a grave thought, break from solitude; Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how— Not as to a single good, but all my good! Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.
Commentary on Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”
Returning to the melancholy character she has so often maintained, the speaker contrasts her light-hearted childhood’s response with her serious maturity.
First Quatrain: The Necessity of Consistency
With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name— Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?
The pensive speaker professes a need to be consistent; thus, she repeats the word “same” three times in three lines. She is of the “same heart” as she was earlier in her lifetime. She is called by “[her] name. But she is unsure about “life’s strategy.” She is even “perplexed and ruffled” by it.
The speaker hopes to convince herself that love has merely continued to flow into around her life. She also demands from her new love relationship a constant heart as she lovingly and gently makes demands on her belovèd.
Second Quatrain: The Obedient One
When called before, I told how hastily I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game, To run and answer with the smile that came At play last moment, and went on with me
Earlier in her lifetime, the melancholy speaker had played the obedient one, coming when called, dropping her “flowers” or leaving off her “game.” She ran to answer and even “with a smile” she appeared. Such behavior continued because of her dedication to obedience.
The speaker needs to be always consistent in her emotional responses. The static melancholy that she has experienced has programmed her to need a steady environment, even if she must create it from fragments of memory and emotional responses from the past.
First Tercet: Adult Life Different Details
Through my obedience. When I answer now, I drop a grave thought, break from solitude; Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—
Now the specific details of life are a bit different. Instead of games and flowers, she answers from the position of having dropped “a grave thought” or a “break from solitude.” But her heart goes now always to the belovèd. She spills out a command before venturing on, telling her beloved to “ponder how . . . .”
Even though the details of her adult life are different, her emotional responses are essentially the same. Her same heart-responses continue to guide her. Her new love relationship has become even more important to her than any relationship before.
Second Tercet: From Childhood to Adulthood
Not as to a single good, but all my good! Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.
The speaker then concludes that the good her beloved has done her is not one in one single area but in “all my good!” She asks her beloved to understand that as fleet foot as she was at obedience as child, she is much faster at running to her belovèd than she could have ever been in her earlier life.
The speaker’s blood now runs faster and with more passion than ever her foot did as a child. As important to her as were her earlier loves, her new belovèd has become even more vital to her life.
The speaker’s melancholy seems to be desperate for her lover to grasp his importance to her. Thus, she continues to compare and contrast her life’s environments from childhood to maturity.
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.
Linda's Literary Home 