Dickinson, Faith, Doubt

In Our Time this time was on Emily Dickinson. It was a good, solid reminder of just how deeply religious the poems are. For me it was a corrective because on the whole I tend to focus on the doubts that hedge the faith rather than the faith itself. But yes indeed, the poems are both religious and full of doubt. One of my favorites, which underscores that duality, is this one:

 

I know that He exists.

Somewhere – in silence –

He has hid his rare life

From our gross eyes.

 

’Tis an instant’s play –

’Tis a fond Ambush –

Just to make Bliss

Earn her own surprise!

 

But – should the play

Prove piercing earnest –

Should the glee – glaze –

In Death’s – stiff – stare –

 

Would not the fun

Look too expensive!

Would not the jest –

Have crawled too far!

 

The faith, indeed the certainty of a divine presence, is obvious in the first line (I’m reminded of a student who once upon a time said she thought the poem was about a potential lover . . . sure, why not). But so is the doubt—the “silence,” the “hid” if the first stanza point in that direction, but then so does the “should” and the “would” of the third and fourth stanzas.

 

And even more importantly, the poem emphasizes a profoundly critical stance on the nature of the divinity that, without doubt for the speaker, shapes our ends. From the divine perspective, it’s all “play,” a “fond Ambush,” a “surprise”—a bit of fun. From the human perspective, on the contrary, there’s “piercing earnest,” “glaz[ing],” a “stiff stare,” so that the “fun” becomes something else entirely.

 

That “He,” then—not just a good guy, not just a benevolent, jolly hidden giant. It’s more like one of the several conjectures in King Lear. “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods. / They kill us for their sport.”