fly

At the intersection of family history and literary scholarship, Carol Damon Andrews has found what may be the secret source of much of Emily Dickinson’s most interesting and passionate poetry: a doomed love affair with George Gould.

Gould was a student at Amherst College at the time, and a friend of Dickinson’s brother Austin. He worked on the Dickinson farm before going west to work on the railroads, and returned to Amherst to follow a career as a respected clergyman. And, according to the journal of Andews’ ancestor Ann Eliza Houghton Penniman, he was briefly engaged to Emily Dickinson, before her father “vetoed the whole affair, . . . and poor Emily’s heart was broken.”

Andrews is not the first to have proposed the Gould engagement theory; Genevieve Taggard explored the possibility in The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson in 1930, presenting the “purloined valentine” that Taggard argued was intended for Gould. 1930, though, was a bit too close still to 1886, and Taggard’s search for Dickinson’s doomed love affair was quashed by the Dickinson family and the scholarly world. Dickinson as lovelorn spinster remains the received image of her, rather than Dickinson the passionate young woman.

Published in the June issue of The New England Quarterly, Andrews’ article discloses not only the sketch of this doomed affair but also Dickinson’s early musical education. Both revelations are of interest to Dickinson scholars and readers: that the musicality of her poetry has its roots at an earlier age than previously suspected (she was eight years old in the Penniman journal), and that her aching, longing love poetry is grounded in an all-too-real disappointment, enrich our understanding of her poetry, and add a human dimension to the “Belle of Amherst” prism through which we too often see her life.

That there was a flesh and blood source for Dickinson’s love poems–often bitter, frequently playful, sometimes passionate–should not come as a surprise to those who’ve spent some time reading them. And should come, too, as a relief to those who have shared with Dickinson “the kind of early romantic entanglement and disappointment that so many young people have,” as Christopher Benfey has it in Slate, that she made something so extraordinary from such ordinary sources.

The past is such a curious creature,
To look her in the face
A transport may reward us,
Or a disgrace.

Unarmed if any meet her,
I charge him, fly!
Her rusty ammunition
Might yet reply!

Are friends delight or pain?
Could bounty but remain
Riches were good.

But if they only stay
Bolder to fly away,
Riches are sad.

I had a guinea golden;
I lost it in the sand,
And though the sum was simple,
And pounds were in the land,
Still had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye,
That when I could not find it
I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson robin
Who sang full many a day,
But when the woods were painted
He, too, did fly away.
Time brought me other robins, –
Their ballads were the same, –
Still for my missing troubadour
I kept the ‘house at hame.’

I had a star in heaven;
One Pleiad was its name,
And when I was not heeding
It wandered from the same.
And though the skies are crowded,
And all the night ashine,
I do not care about it,
Since none of them are mine.

My story has a moral:
I have a missing friend, –
Pleiad its name, and robin,
And guinea in the sand, –
And when this mournful ditty,
Accompanied with tear,
Shall meet the eye of traitor
In country far from here,
Grant that repentance solemn
May seize upon his mind,
And he no consolation
Beneath the sun may find.

A few Dickinson news items have drawn our attention, and might warrant yours:

• Guy Noir sings Emily Dickinson?: the Amherst Bulletin notes that Emily Dickinson was the butt of an extended joke on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion last week, with the erstwhile P.I. Guy Noir auditioning for a role in “Stop for Death,” a Dickinson musical. Of course, this is the same Keillor whose latest CD is called “English Majors” and who holds sonnet contests, so I’m sure the joke was in good fun (Cub Scout activities kept me from hearing the show myself, alas). I seem to remember an amusing riff a few months ago that involved Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and wood ticks; Keillor is certainly one to monitor . . .
• Dickinson Marathon in St. Paul: another story with a Minnesota connection: St. Thomas University will hold a Dickinson marathon on April 25, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, in the O’Shaughnessy Room of O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center. “The goal: To read aloud all of Dickinson’s poems — from #1 to #1,789 — between 8 a.m. and midnight. Readers can come and go as they please; stay for a half-hour or make a day of it. Participants will sit in a circle and take turns reading; listeners are welcome too.” Common Good Books–Garrison Keillor’s bookstore–has provided copies of Franklin’s edition of Dickinson; this seems like a conspiracy . . .
• Wild Nights! reviews are all around us this Spring: the Minneapolis Star Tribune weighs in (will these Minnesotans not leave poor Dickinson be?), as does the New York Times Book Review. According to the Book Review’s podcast, the NYT reviewer Brenda Wineapple has a book about Dickinson and Higginson hitting the shelves this August.
• A Summer of Hummingbirds by Christopher Benfey is the next Dickinson-related book to watch: a fascinating look into the intersections of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, and Martin Johnson Heade, a naturalist and artist who specialized in hummingbirds, a creature which frequently inhabits Dickinson’s poems.
• Fleda Brown discusses “I heard a fly buzz” in her ongoing series for National Poetry Month (and you thought April was just about fools and taxes . . .)
• Finally, we hope that the “Daily” aspect of “Daily Dickinson” will return this week, with several non-poetic things coming under control here at DailyDickionson World Headquarters; stay tuned!

If I should die,
And you should live,
And time should gurgle on,
And morn should beam,
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done;
If birds should build as early,
And bees as bustling go, –
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
‘T is sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with daisies lie,
That commerce will continue,
And trades as briskly fly.
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene,
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!

The gentian weaves her fringes,
The maple’s loom is red.
My departing blossoms
Obviate parade.

A brief, but patient illness,
An hour to prepare;
And one, below this morning,
Is where the angels are.

It was a short procession, –
The bobolink was there,
An aged bee addressed us,
And then we knelt in prayer.

We trust that she was willing, –
We ask that we may be.
Summer, sister, seraph,
Let us go with thee!

In the name of the bee
And of the butterfly
And of the breeze, amen!

Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning’s flagons up,
And say how many dew;
Tell me how far the morning leaps,
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadths of blue!

Write me how many notes there be
In the new robin’s ecstasy
Among astonished boughs;
How many trips the tortoise makes,
How many cups the bee partakes, –
The debauchee of dews!

Also, who laid the rainbow’s piers,
Also, who leads the docile spheres
By withes of supple blue?
Whose fingers string the stalactite,
Who counts the wampum of the night,
To see that none is due?

Who built this little Alban house
And shut the windows down so close
My spirit cannot see?
Who ‘ll let me out some gala day,
With implements to fly away,
Passing pomposity?