Poety:
EMILY DICKINSON
Before You Read
At the time of her death in 1886, Emily Dickinson-today considered one of America's greatest poets-had published only ten of the almost 1,800 poems she had penned. Instead, Dickinson made use of an unusual form of self-publication, copying drafted poems into bound packets of folded, unlined paper, each containing around twenty poems. Scholars refer to these handwritten booklets as "fascicles." The fascicles have provided fodder for many literary critical debates about Dickinson's work: scholars have debated the significance in which the poems are arranged, the punctuation and spacing of words within poems, and Dickinson's practice of including notations for alternative words and phrasings within particular poems. No printed text of a Dickinson poem can accurately capture its appearance in handwritten form in her fascicles, so editors and publishers have had to make difficult decisions about how to reproduce the poems in print. Early editors often insisted on regularizing Dickinson's punctuation, assigning titles (Dickinson left all of her poems untitled), and rephrasing lines they considered ambiguous or controversial. Some poems, particularly those which have many alternate versions in the fascicles, have had convoluted publication histories.
"[Because I could not stop for Death]" does not have as complicated a publication history as some of Dickinson's other poems, but it has appeared in different forms at different times.
Reading
Because I could not stop for Death-
He kindly stopped for me-
The Carriage held but just Ourselves-
And Immortality.
We slowly drove-He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his Civility-
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess-in the Ring-
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain-
We passed the Setting Sun-
Or rather-He passed Us-
The Dews drew quivering and chill-
For only Gossamer, my Gown-
My Tippet-only Tulle-
We paused before a House that seemed
A swelling of the Ground-
The Roof was scarcely visible-
The Cornice-in the Ground-
Since then-'tis Centuries-and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity-
Re-Reading
• Re-read "[Because I could not stop for Death-]" paying particular attention to the highlighted words and phrases.
5
10
15
20 Because I could not stop for Death-
He kindly stopped for me-
The Carriage held but just Ourselves-
And Immortality.
We slowly drove-He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his Civility-
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess-in the Ring-
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain-
We passed the Setting Sun-
Or rather-He passed Us-
The Dews drew quivering and chill-
For only Gossamer, my Gown-
My Tippet-only Tulle-
We paused before a House that seemed
A swelling of the Ground-
The Roof was scarcely visible-
The Cornice-in the Ground-
Since then-'tis Centuries-and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity-
Question:
Write a one- to two-page response paper about the differences between this poem and the version that appears in The Norton Introduction to Literature. How is the poem changed by changes in punctuation? Changes in wording? What is the effect of leaving out stanza 4? Why do you think the 1890 editors might have made these alterations?
Images/Media
• PDF of fascicle page of 'Because I could not stop for Death'
By permission of The Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Am 1118.3 (165a). © The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Biography
EMILY DICKINSON (1830-1886)
From childhood on, Emily Dickinson led a sequestered and obscure life. Yet her verse has traveled far beyond the cultured yet relatively circumscribed environment in which she lived: her room, her father's house, her family, a few close friends, and the small town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Indeed, along with Walt Whitman, her far more publiccontemporary, she all but invented American poetry. Born in Amherst, the daughter of a respected lawyer whom she revered ("His heart was pure and terrible," she once wrote), Dickinson studied for less than a year at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, returning permanently to her family home. She became more and more reclusive, dressing only in white, seeing no visitors, yet working ceaselessly at her poems-nearly eighteen hundred in all, only a few of which were published during her lifetime. After her death, her sister Lavinia discovered the rest in a trunk, neatly bound into packets with blue ribbons-among the most important bodies of work in all of American literature.
Assignment:
Answer question of the Emily Dickinson workshop. I expect about 1 page of writing. Please proof-read your work before submitting.