Department of English
Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
"There's a certain Slant of light"
(1890)
Emily
Dickinson
(December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)
There's
a certain Slant of light, |
|
Winter
Afternoons – |
|
That
oppresses, like the Heft |
|
Of
Cathedral Tunes – |
|
|
|
Heavenly
Hurt, it gives us – |
5 |
We
can find no scar, |
|
But
internal difference, |
|
Where
the Meanings, are – |
|
|
|
None may teach it – Any – | |
'Tis the Seal Despair – | 10 |
An imperial affliction | |
Sent us of the Air – | |
When it comes, the Landscape listens – | |
Shadows – hold their breath – | |
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance | 15 |
On the look of Death – |
Notes
5 Hurt:
10 Seal:
11 imperial:
11 affliction:
What
was the United States like that Whitman and Dickinson were born into?
Source: Ed
Folsom, Selected American Authors: Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman
EMILY DICKINSON is born in 1830, the year President Andrew Jackson signs the Great Removal act, forcibly resettling all Indians west of the Mississippi; Jackson addresses the nation, "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute?" The Sac and Fox tribes, over objections of chief Black Hawk, give up all their lands east of Mississippi River ; Choctaws do the same; other tribes like Chickasaws follow suit within a year or two. Only the Cherokees, literate farmers who wanted citizenship, hold out. In 1832, Black Hawk leads some Sac and Fox back across Mississippi into Illinois --they are eventually ambushed and massacred in the Michigan Territory , and Black Hawk is turned over to U.S. authorities by the Winnebago Indians. Major Congressional debate is over whether or not the sale of Western lands should be restricted; Western senators sense a plot by Eastern business interests to close the West so that cheap labor stays in the Northeast where factories demand low-paid workers. Joseph Smith publishes "The Book of Mormon", based on his deciphering of golden plates he claimed to have found on an upstate New York mountain, detailing the true church as descended through American Indians who were apparently part of the lost tribes of Israel (an idea quite common in early 19th-century America). The next year, 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville arrives in the U.S. and begins his journey around the country that would result in his massive book of observations, "Democracy in America ," including his analysis of “the three races in America ” (black, red, and white). Nat Turner, a Virginia slave who had visions from God of white spirits and black spirits engaged in bloody combat, leads a revolt with seven other slaves, killing his master and his family; with 75 insurgent slaves, he killed more than 50 whites on a two-day journey to Jerusalem, Virginia, where he was hanged along with sixteen of his companions (many other blacks are killed during the manhunt for Turner). The Turner Insurrection was the stuff of nightmares for white Southerners, who passed increasingly severe slave codes. The song "America" is sung for the first time in Boston on July 4.
Poetry
page
74, Poems (1890)
There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons That oppresses, like the Heft – Of Cathedral tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference When the meanings are –
None may teach it Any – 'Tis the Seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air –
When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, 'its like the Distance On the look of Death – |
5 10 15 |
There's
a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference, Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – 'Tis the Seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, 'its like the Distance On the look of Death – |
There’s a certain
slant of light, winter afternoons – that oppresses, like the heft
of cathedral tunes – heavenly hurt, it gives us – We can find no
scar, but internal difference, where the meanings, are – None may
teach it – any – 'Tis the Seal Despair – an imperial affliction
sent us of the air – When it comes, the landscape listens –
shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ‘tis like the distance
on the look of death – |
|
There's a certain slant of light, in some winter afternoons, that oppresses, like the weight of church organ music. It gives us spiritual wounds. We can find no external or physical scar, but we can find internal difference, where the meanings, are. No one may teach it, any of it. It is the hopeless mark, a commanding burden, sent to us from the air. When it comes, the landscape listens, shadows hold their breath. When it goes, it is like the distance on the look of death. | ||
There's a certain slant of light that happens on some winter afternoons that oppresses like the weight of music from the cathedral. It injures us spiritually. We cannot see any physical scar on our body, but we can feel a change inside of us, where the meanings reside. No one may teach it anything. It is the hopeless mark, an unavoidable curse sent to us on the air. When it comes, the landscape listens and shadows hold their breath. When it goes, it is like the distance on the look of death. |
Study Questions
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Vocabulary
fascicle
Sample Student Responses to Emily Dickinson's "There's a certain Slant of light"
Response 1:
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Reference
Link |
Texts
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Emily
Dickinson |
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Reference
Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1960. Print.
Further
Reading
Eberwein, Jane Donahue, Stephanie Farrar, and Cristanne Miller, eds. Dickinson in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates. Iowa: U of Iowa P, 2015. Print.
Grabher, Gudrun, Roland Hagenbüchle, and Cristanne Miller, eds. The Emily Dickinson Handbook. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1998. Print.
Griffith, Clark. The Long Shadow: Emily Dickinson's Tragic Poetry. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1964. Print.
Kirby, Joan. Emily Dickinson. New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1991. Print.
Martin, Wendy. The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print.
Martin, Wendy. The Cambridge Introduction to Emily Dickinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.
Miller, Cristanne. Emily Dickinson: A Poet's Grammar. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. Print.
Miller, Cristanne. Reading in Time: Emily Dickinson in the Nineteenth Century. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2012. Print.
Mitchell, Domhnall. Emily Dickinson: Monarch of Perception. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2000. Print.
Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1974. Print.
Smith, Martha Nell, and Mary Loeffelholz, eds. A Companion to Emily Dickinson. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008. Print.
Socarides, Alexandra. Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Process, Poetics. Oxford: OUP, 2014. Print.
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Last updated April 24, 2016