{"id":13622,"date":"2023-08-02T20:15:37","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T17:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/karenalkalay-gut.com\/?page_id=13622"},"modified":"2023-08-02T20:16:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T17:16:50","slug":"emily-at-home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/karenalkalay-gut.com\/emily-at-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Emily at Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"13622\" class=\"elementor elementor-13622\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-3b166619 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"3b166619\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-6d245838\" data-id=\"6d245838\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-864f486 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"864f486\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2fcecb5 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"2fcecb5\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1196dca elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"1196dca\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Emily Dickinson and Isolation<\/p>\n<p>Karen Alkalay-Gut<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is fitting that I\u2019m writing about this in lockdown.\u00a0 Because my subject is Emily Dickinson\u2019s freedom in her isolation, her decision to actively set herself apart from society.\u00a0 The society that demands conformity on every level of existence. \u00a0The poems I\u2019ll be reading illustrate this decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0It was not just her father, who, when he spoke to her mother she &#8220;Trembled, obeyed, and was silent.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0 It was not just the society that expected marriage, housekeeping, appearance, manners.\u00a0 It was also the literary world that demanded proper subjects. Women specifically wrote about flowers, mourning, love; they used proper grammar, proper punctuation, and their poems were confined to publication in women\u2019s journals. The male writers were threatened by them, complaining about the diminishment of the value of literature when women are added to the list of writers.\u00a0 \u201cThe damned mob of scribbling women,\u201d Nathaniel Hawthorne complained. Their names have not lasted into the twentieth century.\u00a0 The 10 poems that were published in her lifetime were edited: with commas and periods, removing the multi-directional force that her dashes enabled.\u00a0 The 1790 other poems were only published \u2013 edited &#8211; after her death.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The civil war that was going on all around her, with the south ceding from the US gave her the idea of using the word \u201csuccession.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>upon declaring independence from society, she becomes the queen of her one-room domain.\u00a0 To the editor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who kept suggesting changes, she explained that compromises with society would not give her the fame he hinted she should work towards. \u201cIf fame belonged to me, I could not escape her &#8211; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She had known failure, and, using the civil war analogy, saw that it helped her to understand, to feel, what it would be like to succeed.\u00a0 So she knew what she was giving up.<\/p>\n<p>Her choice, to wear clothes devoid of color, all white, also gave her the sense of separation, of untouchability. The touch of a stranger will stain her purity, just as the touch of an editor will stain her poem. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She was not always like that.\u00a0 She had grown up going to school and church and all the other places that women went.\u00a0 She seemed to have lived a normal life.\u00a0 But in her late thirties, she gave up trying to fit in, and although she continued to write, and prepared her poems by hand-sewing them together as books, she showed her works to no one but her sister-in-law, who kept her secrets.<\/p>\n<p>But that wasn\u2019t the end of her anonymity.\u00a0 After she died, and the poems were discovered in her room, Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thomas_Wentworth_Higginson\">Thomas Wentworth Higginson<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mabel_Loomis_Todd\">Mabel Loomis Todd<\/a>, though both heavily edited the content, making them available to a general audience while destroying their uniqueness.<\/p>\n<p>They revised the poems to make them more conventional, more appealing to the popular reader, and it wasn\u2019t until the poems appeared in their original form, in 1955, that their striking originality was revealed and they began to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n<p>Poems I take seriously are like the ones below:<\/p>\n<p>They shut me up in Prose\u00a0\u2013<br \/>As when a little Girl<br \/>They put me in the Closet\u00a0\u2013<br \/>Because they liked me &#8220;still&#8221;\u00a0\u2013<br \/><br \/>Still! Could themself have peeped\u00a0\u2013<br \/>And seen my Brain\u00a0\u2013 go round\u00a0\u2013<br \/>They might as wise have lodged a Bird<br \/>For Treason\u00a0\u2013 in the Pound\u00a0\u2013<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m ceded \u2014 I&#8217;ve stopped being Theirs \u2014<br \/>The name They dropped upon my face<br \/>With water, in the country church<br \/>Is finished using, now,<br \/>And They can put it with my Dolls,<br \/>My childhood, and the string of spools,<br \/>I&#8217;ve finished threading \u2014 too \u2014<br \/><br \/>Baptized, before, without the choice,<br \/>But this time, consciously, of Grace \u2014<br \/>Unto supremest name \u2014<br \/>Called to my Full \u2014 The Crescent dropped \u2014<br \/>Existence&#8217;s whole Arc, filled up,<br \/>With one small Diadem.<br \/><br \/>My second Rank \u2014 too small the first \u2014<br \/>Crowned \u2014 Crowing \u2014 on my Father&#8217;s breast \u2014<br \/>A half unconscious Queen \u2014<br \/>But this time \u2014 Adequate \u2014 Erect,<br \/>With Will to choose, or to reject,<br \/>And I choose, just a Crown \u2014<\/p>\n<p><br \/><br \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Success is counted sweetest<\/p>\n<p>By those who ne&#8217;er succeed.<\/p>\n<p>To comprehend a nectar<\/p>\n<p>Requires sorest need.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not one of all the Purple Host<\/p>\n<p>Who took the Flag today<\/p>\n<p>Can tell the definition<\/p>\n<p>So clear of Victory<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As he defeated \u2013 dying \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On whose forbidden ear<\/p>\n<p>The distant strains of triumph<\/p>\n<p>Burst agonized and clear.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>435<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Much Madness is divinist Sense &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>To a discerning Eye &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Much Sense &#8211; the starkest Madness &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Tis the Majority<\/p>\n<p>In this, as All, prevail &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Assent &#8211; and you are sane &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Demur &#8211; you\u2019re straightway dangerous<\/p>\n<p>And handled with a Chain &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>288<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m Nobody! Who are you?<\/p>\n<p>Are you &#8211; Nobody &#8211; Too?<\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s a pair of us!<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t tell! they&#8217;d advertise &#8211; you know!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>How dreary &#8211; to be &#8211; Somebody!<\/p>\n<p>How public &#8211; like a Frog &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>To tell one&#8217;s name &#8211; the livelong June &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>To an admiring Bog!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>285<br \/><br \/>The Robin&#8217;s my Criterion for Tune\u2014<br \/>Because I grow\u2014where Robins do\u2014<br \/>But, were I Cuckoo born\u2014<br \/>I&#8217;d swear by him\u2014<br \/>The ode familiar\u2014rules the Noon\u2014<br \/>The Buttercup&#8217;s, my Whim for Bloom\u2014<br \/>Because, we&#8217;re Orchard sprung\u2014<br \/>But, were I Britain born,<br \/>I&#8217;d Daisies spurn\u2014<br \/>None but the Nut\u2014October fit\u2014<br \/>Because, through dropping it,<br \/>The Seasons flit\u2014I&#8217;m taught\u2014<br \/>Without the Snow&#8217;s Tableau<br \/>Winter, were lie\u2014to me\u2014<br \/>Because I see\u2014New Englandly\u2014<br \/>The Queen, discerns like me\u2014<br \/>Provincially\u2014<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emily Dickinson and Isolation Karen Alkalay-Gut \u00a0 It is fitting that I\u2019m writing about this in lockdown.\u00a0 Because my subject is Emily Dickinson\u2019s freedom in her isolation, her decision to actively set herself apart from society.\u00a0 The society that demands conformity on every level of existence. \u00a0The poems I\u2019ll be reading illustrate this decision. \u00a0It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13622","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Emily at Home &#8212; 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