愛密莉. 狄金生
的
秘密花園
If we love Flowers,
Are we not “born
again” every Day..
E.D. to
Mrs.Dickerman,
1886
Emily /Dickinson1830-1886
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there’s a pair of Us?
Don’t tell! They’d advertise—you
know!
How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one’s name—the livelong
June—
To an admiring Bog!
• I must tell you about the character of Amherst. It is a lady
who the people call the Myth. She is a sister of Mr.
Dickinson, and seems to be the climax of all the family
oddity. She has not been outside of her own house in
fifteen years, except once to see a new church, when
she crept out at night, and viewed it by moonlight. No
one who calls upon her mother & sister ever see her, but
she allows little children once in a great while, & once at
a time, to come in, when she gives them candy, or some
nicety, for she is very fond of little ones.
•
(Jay Leyda, 357)
• Emily Dickinson’s
home
• Historical time and
place
• Family
• Education
是甚麼原因使家世良好的狄金生自我囚禁一生？
她謎樣的故事與吸引人的詩文百餘年來引發無
數讀者及學者的好奇探討。傳統派的人士一直
努力為她創造一個愛情悲劇，想找出她的
secret lover，那位讓她心碎而閉門與世隔絕的
男士。女性主義或同性戀者則宣稱他們從
Dickinson詩文中發現那位秘密戀人是位女性，
她是lesbian。在大眾心理學盛行之時，讀者、
學者以及心理醫師宣稱她隱居是因為心理的疾
病。至於是什麼病則眾說紛紜，從自閉症、空
間恐懼症到戀父情結都紛紛出籠。Depression?
Drawing a line: Me and They
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The Show is not the Show
But they that go－
Menagerie to me
My neighbor be－
Fair Play－
Both went to see－
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They shut me up in Prose
As when a little Girl
They put me in the closet－
Because they liked me “still”－
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Much Madness is divinest Sense—
To a discerning Eye—
Much Sense—the starkest Madness—
‘Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail—
Absent—and you are sane—
Demur—you’re straightway dangerous—
And handled with a Chain—
(#435)
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The Soul selects her own Society－
Then－shuts the Door－
To her divine Majority－
Present no more－
Unmoved－she notes the Chariots－pausing－
At her low Gate－
Unmoved－an Emperor be Kneeling
On her Rush mat－
I’ve known her－from an ample nation
Choose one－
Then－close the Valves of her attention
Like Stone－
What mystery pervades a
well!
The water lives so far—
A neighbor from another
world
Residing in a jar….
But Nature is a stranger yet;
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her
haunted house
Nor simplified her ghost
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How Happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone
He doesn’t care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears－
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the sun
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• Associates or glows alone,
• Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity－
時間的囚犯
• I sing to use the Waiting
• My bonnet but to tie
• And shut the Door unto
my House
• No more to do have I
• Till His best step
approaching
• We journey to the Day
• And tell each other how
we sung
• To keep the Dark away.
• A Night—there lay the Days
between—
• The Day that was Before—
• And Day was Behind—were
one—
• And now—‘twas Night—was
here-• Slow—Night—that must be
watched away—
• As Grains upon a shore—
• Too imperceptible to note—
• Till it be night—no more--
• Good Morning—
Midnight—
• I’m coming Home—
• Day—got tired of Me—
• How could I—of Him?
• Sunshine was a sweet
place—
• I liked to stay—
• But Morn—didn’t want
me—now
• So—Goodnight—Day!
• I can look—can’t I—
• When the East is Red?
• The Hills—have a way—
then—
• That puts the Heart—
abroad—
• You—are not so fair—
Midnight—
• I chose—Day—
• But—please take a little
Girl—
• He turned away!
The Brain is wider than the sky
•
The Brain－is wider than the
Sky－
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For－put them side by
side－
• The one the other will contain
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With ease－and You－
beside－
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• The Brain is deeper than the
sea－
For－hold them－Blue to Blue－
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• The one the other will absorb
－
• As Sponges－Buckets－do
• The Brain is just the
weight of God－
• For－Heft them－Pound
for Pound－
• And they will differ－if
they so－
• As Syllable from Sound－
Me from myself—to banish—
Had I Art—
Impregnable my Fortress
Unto All Heart--
Publication is the auction
Of the Mind of Man—
Poverty—be justifying
For so foul a thing…
In the Parcel--Be the
Merchant
Of the Heavenly Grace—
But reduce no Human Spirit
To Disgrace of Price—
(#709)
Gardening in Eden
• Every bird that sings,
and every bud that
blooms, does but
remind me more of
that garden unseen,
awaiting the hand that
tills it.
• Emily Dickinson to
Susan Gilbert,1852
We should not mind so
small a flower
Except it quiet bring
Our little garden that we lost
Back to the Lawn again.
That whoso sees this little
flower
By faith may clear behold
The Bobolinks around the
throne
And Dandelions gold
• Dear Friend,
• A Tree your Father
gave me, bore this
priceless flower.
• Would you accept
it because of him
Samuel Bowles chose 2 nicknames
for E.D.:his Daisy and his Queen
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The Daisy follows soft the Sun—
And when his golden walk is done
Sits shily at his feet—
He—waking—finds the flowers there—
Wherefore—Marauder—are thou here?
Because, Sir love is sweet!
We are the flower—Thou the Sun!
The letter Higginson wrote to his wife
• She came to me with 2 day
lilies which she put in a sort of
childlike way into my hand and
said, ‘These are my
introduction’ in a soft
frightened breathless childlike
voice & added under her
breath, Forgive me if I am
frightened: I never see
strangers & hardly know what I
say…
• I never was with any one who
drained my never power so
much. Without touching her ,
she drew from me. I am glad
not to live near her.
The Woodland Garden
• Susie,
• You will forgive me, for I
never visit. I am from the
fields, you know and
while quite at home with
the Dandelion, make but
sorry figure I a Drawingroom—Did you ask me
out with a bunch of Daisie,
I should thank you, and
accept—but with Roses—
Lilies”…I suffer much
embarrassment! (p.103)
Two years before she dies, she jotted this bleak poem on
the back of an envelope addressed to her Aunt E. Currier
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Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at it’s play—
In accidental power—
The blonde Assassin passes on—
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
To an Approving God--
The Enclosed Garden
• Some keep the Sabbath
going to Church—
• I keep it, staying at
Home—
• With a Bobolink for
Chorister—
And an Orchard, for a
Dome--
The Garden in the Brain
• When I believe the
Garden
• Mortal shall not see—
• Pick by faith it’s
blossom
• And avoid it’s Bee,
• I can spare this
summer-unreluctantly
• -
• To pack the Bud—oppose the Worm—
Obtain it’s right of Dew—
• Adjust the Heat—elude the Wind—
Escape the prowling Bee—
Great Nature not to disappoint
Awaiting Her that Day-To be a Flower, is profound
• Responsibility-
Obituary: Duties beautifully done
• Very few in the village knew Miss Emily personally,
except among the older in habitants, although the fact
of her seclusion and intellectual brilliancy was one of the
familiar Amherst traditions. There are many homes
among the classes into which her dainty treasures of fruit
and flowers and almost ambrosial
dishes for the sick and well were constantly sent, that will
forever miss those dainty traces of her unselfish
devotion ….
As she passed on in life, her
sensitive nature shrank from much
personal contact with the world,
• and more and more she turned
to her own large wealth of individual resources, for
companion-ship - sitting henceforth, as some
one said of her, "In the light of her own fire". Not
disappointed with the world, not an invalid
till within the past two years - not from any lack of all
embracing love,and sympathy - not because she was
insufficient for any mental work, or social career, her
endowments being so exceptional, but the "mesh of her
soul" as Browning calls the body, was too rare, and the
sacred quiet of her own home proved the native atmosphere for her worth and work. …One can only speak
of "Duties beautifully done"- of her gentle tillage of her
rare flowers filling her conservatory, into which, like the
heavenly Paradise entered nothing that could
defile, and which was ever abloom in frost or sunshine
Emily
Recalled
• This was a Poet—It is
That
• Distills amazing sense
• From ordinary Meanings
• And Attar so immense
• From the familiar species
• That perished by the
Door• We wonder it was not
Ourselves
• Arrested it—before--