A Gendered Approach To Synaesthesia Using the Poetry of
John Keats and Emily Dickinson
by
Lindsay Lucky-Medford
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of
The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL
August 2010
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my chair, Professor Steven Blakemore, who guided and
encouraged me throughout this project. His dedication to his profession, and his mastery
of it, will always be a source of inspiration to me.
iii
Abstract
Author:
Lindsay Lucky-Medford
Title:
A Gendered Approach to Synaesthesia Using the Poetry
of John Keats and Emily Dickinson
Institution:
Florida Atlantic University
Thesis Advisor:
Dr. Steven Blakemore
Degree:
Master of Arts
Year:
2010
The Greek term synaesthesia, which literally translates into ‘perceiving
together,’ is known among most literary critics as the mixing of sensations. The term is
applied in literature to the description of one kind of sensation in terms of another. For
instance: ‘hearing’ a color or ‘seeing’ a ‘smell.’ That is, the description of sounds in
terms of colors such as a “blue note;” of colors in terms of sound such as “loud shirt;”
of sound in terms of taste such as “how sweet the sound;” and of colors in terms of
temperature such as a “cool green.” Although synaesthesia has been used by a variety of
poets throughout the centuries, my focus will be on its use in the poetry of John Keats
and Emily Dickinson. While critics and scholars have considered this subject before,
normally it is approached in terms of its specific meaning within a particular poem. In
contrast, I argue that Keats and Dickinson employ synaesthesia to crystallize a poetic
perspective, a literary world view, and that this perspective significantly pertains to a
variety of gender issues in the nineteenth century. Consequently, I contend that both
iv
poets were dealing with the large theme of an imaginative poetic world in which
synaesthesia transmutes and synthesizes gender so that a “blue note,” male and female,
are radically the same and yet “other.” After reviewing the scholarship of synaesthesia
in Keats’s and Dickinson’s poetry, I will analyze a series of poems that illustrate my
thesis, fleshing out the implications of a gender synthesis that makes us see both poets
challenging and subverting the gendered commonplaces of the 19th century.
v
Dedication
This manuscript is dedicated first and foremost to Jennifer Herrington, whose
love, strength, and wisdom are both unconditional and unsurpassable. I also would like
to thank my parents, Kenneth and Ingrid Medford, who supported and encouraged me
throughout this project. I also dedicate this work to my patient and loving fiancé, Paul
Fazio, who knew that this work would reach fruition before I did.
A Gendered Approach To Synaesthesia Using the Poetry of
John Keats and Emily Dickinson
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1
John Keats and Masculine Synaesthesia .................................................................. 11
Chapter 2
Synaesthesia and Gender in Emily Dickinson.......................................................... 26
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 47
Works Cited ....................................................................................................................... 51
vi
Introduction
“On you, wet is my favorite color”
-Elvis Presley “Blue Hawaii”
The word “synaesthesia,” which is Greek in origin, literally translates into
perceiving together. The word was created out of the Ancient Greek σύν (syn),
‘together,’ and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), ‘sensation’ (Chambers 1105). It is assumed that
French physician and neurologist Alfred Vulpian invented the word (Massey 4). This is
significant because the earliest recordings of synaesthesia were in fact scientific and not
literary. Clinical synaesthesia, therefore, was a neurological condition. The emergence
of synaesthesia onto the literary stage is highly debatable, as are its earliest semblances
of emergence. Pythagoras for example, is known to have referred to the “music of
spheres” (Cytowic 53). However, it remains unclear whether he intended to attach
synaesthetic underpinnings to this phrase. It even may be assumed that he may simply
have been infusing a type of metaphorical mysticism into his Mathematical theories.
Similarly John Locke, in his 1689 essay entitled An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, stated that:
A studious blind man, who had mightily beat his head about visible objects, and
made use of the explication of his books and friends, to understand those names
of light and colours which often came in his way, bragged one day, that he now
understood what scarlet signified. Upon which, his friend demanding what
1
scarlet was? The blind man answered, it was like the sound of a trumpet. (Book
3, Chapter 4, section 11)
Locke’s observation particularly is pertinent because it illustrates that the concept of
synaesthesia had been in existence for quite some time, regardless of whether it was
recognized as such. More importantly, Locke’s description provides a very interesting
historical context in terms of gender and synaesthesia, which is, of course, the focal
point of this paper because the color “scarlet” is perceived in terms of sound,
represented by “the trumpet,” by a man, albeit blind. Locke’s observation serves to
emphasize that men, even if they were blind, were accredited with this ability far more
than women.
Although it is impossible to decipher whether these early sensory descriptions
can be perceived in terms of synaesthesia, it is indisputable that when deliberate
attempts at synaesthesia were proclaimed as such, literary critics initially perceived
them as a mockery of the very fabric of the literary world. Irving Babbitt, in his New
Laocoon (1910), attacked literary synaesthesia by saying, “We have gone mad….”
(quoted in Ruddick 59) As the phenomenon emerged onto the poetic scene, several
critics continued to view it as nothing more than “a symptom of confusion of the arts.”
(quoted in Fogle 102) These assertions are, to an extent, justifiable because the
emergence of synaesthesia ‘proper’ was perceived as nothing more than a very
conscious, forced, and eccentric attempt by certain authors to infuse their works with a
degree of lofty artificiality. Among the most notable of these attempts is Joris-Karl
Huysman’s 1884 novel À rebours, which translates into English as Against the Grain or
Against Nature. This title seems quite apt because early literary critics perceived
2
synaesthesia as something rather forced and unnatural. These critical opinions were not
altogether inaccurate in that Huysman did, in fact, impose these synaesthetic effects into
his work.
The early opinions of the critics with respect to synaesthesia is important
because they spilled over into critical appraisals of genuine and natural uses of
synaesthetic effects, as the critical reception of Emily Dickinson clearly will
demonstrate. It is interesting to note that this was not the case in the criticisms of John
Keats’s poems, which can be linked almost indisputably to the gender issue. Further
illustrations of forced synaesthetic effects can be seen even in the subtitle of Huysman’s
novel, which is “A book without a plot.” The subtitle indicates that the focal point of the
novel is the world of the senses and nothing more. Similarly, the listless protagonist of
the novel Des Esscintes is devoted solely to tastes. This seems comparable to Albert
Camus’s novel L’Etranger (1942), where the protagonist practically is a slave to his
senses. The two-fold implication of the word ‘tastes’ with respect to the demise of Des
Esscintes is far too tangible to ignore. Although Huysman was referring to aesthetics,
“since this book marked his departure from the naturalistic mode of writing into the
aesthetic” (Massey 6), it is remarkable that this highly sensual word ‘tastes’ was used to
describe the work that marked one of the first instances of synaesthesia. Massey asserts
that:
It is widely believed that À rebours is the “poisonous French novel” that leads
to the downfall of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The book’s plot is said to have dominated the action of Dorian, causing him to
live an amoral life of sin and hedonism. Although his reputation remains
3
relatively untarnished (perhaps due to his charm and looks), the reputations of
his ‘friends’ seem to turn to dust as soon as he touches them. (7)
These illustrations serve to reinforce the fact that synaesthesia was perceived as a vile
and corrupting force when it made its way into literature. Apart from Huysman,
Baudelaire also attempted to introduce synaesthetic effects into his poems:
“Synaesthetic effects are frequent in Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), especially
in those poems addressed to Jeanne Duval” (Massey 7). Massey goes on to state that
“Homer, Aeschylus, Horace, Donne, Crashaw, Shelley and dozens of other poets had
used synaesthetic effects” (8). Although the device had been recognized, it was not
accredited necessarily with any degree of skill or credibility.
Synaesthesia began to gain credibility as a literary device after the discovery of
Peter Castel’s famous clavecin oculaire, a light-organ, a new musical instrument that
simultaneously would produce both sound and the “correct” associated color for each
note (Ruddick 60). His acknowledgement of the technique inspired famous writers and
poets such as Poe, Gautier, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Tieck, and Hoffman to admit to
synaesthetic experiences of varying degrees (Ruddick 60). It seems as though the high
reputation of these writers added respectability to the literary device. This is noteworthy
because it explains why critics would assume that Emily Dickinson’s work did not fall
into the realm of these great men: the gendered presupposition was that synaesthesia
was a male way of conceiving the world.
With the acceptance of synaesthesia as a literary device, a new dilemma arose.
As previously mentioned, the term emerged largely in the scientific domain. As such,
literary critics were faced with the arduous task of differentiating between the clinical
4
condition and the literary technique. There is critical conjecture that many of the great
writers and poets who had synaesthetic experiences may have induced these chemically
through the use of drugs and alcohol. It would seem, therefore, that clinical synaesthesia
functions solely from the writer’s memory, whereas literary synaesthesia emerges from
a chain of association in the writer’s mind. This associative chain is described best by
Erika Siebold who states that:
By the term Synaesthesia we mean the curious faculty of harmony between the
senses, whereby a given strong impulse not only causes the sense actually
stimulated to respond, but compels the other senses to vibrate simultaneously.
We do not in literature take synaesthesia in the strict sense of psychology; that
is to say, not with every sound does the poet really see a distinct color; but the
impression evocated by the sound or sounds reminds the poet of a similar
impression called forth by color. He does not see but thinks color. (quoted in
Ruddick 60)
Simply put, the term is applied in literature to the description of one kind of sensation in
terms of another. For instance: “hearing” a color, or “seeing” a “smell.” That is, the
description of sounds in terms of colors such as a “blue note;” of colors in terms of
sound such as “loud shirt;” of sound in terms of taste such as “how sweet the sound;”
and of colors in terms of temperature such as a “cool green.” In literature, the term is
used to refer to the mixing of the senses, the concurrent appeal to more than one sense,
the response through several senses to the stimulation of one. For instance “hearing” a
“color” or “seeing” a “smell.”
5
Although a variety of poets have used synaesthesia throughout the centuries, my
focus will be on its use in the poetry of John Keats and Emily Dickinson. While critics
and scholars have considered this subject before, normally it is approached in terms of
its specific meaning within a particular poem. In contrast, I argue that Keats and
Dickinson employ synaesthesia to crystallize a poetic perspective, a literary world view,
and that this perspective significantly pertains to a variety of gender issues in the
nineteenth century. Consequently, I contend that both poets were dealing with the large
theme of an imaginative poetic world in which synaesthesia transmutes and synthesizes
gender so that a “blue note,” male and female, are radically the same and yet “other.”
After reviewing the scholarship of synaesthesia in Keats’s and Dickinson's poetry, I will
analyze a series of poems that illustrate my thesis, fleshing out the implications of a
gender synthesis that makes us see both poets challenging and subverting the gendered
commonplaces of the nineteenth century.
In the case of John Keats, the critical affirmation of his use of synaesthesia is
overwhelming. This can perhaps be attributed to the ease and naturalness with which
the technique is woven into the fabric of his poetry. The critic Richard H. Fogle has
attributed this skill to Keats’s “unrivaled ability to absorb, sympathize with, and
humanize natural objects” (Fogle 107). Furthermore, Stephen de Ullman asserted in his
article, “Romanticism and Synaesthesia: A Comparative Study of Sense Transfer in
Keats and Byron,” that Keats, unlike Byron, was “…endowed with the gift of
hyperaesthesia which is the most distinctive trait of Keats’s imagination, and from
which it is only one sense to the mingling of sensations” (de Ullman 817). Keats also
was aware of his affinity towards the senses as he wrote on the 22nd November, 1817 in
6
a letter to his friend Benjamin Bailey, “O for a life of Sensation rather than of
Thoughts!” (quoted in Gittings 36)
The inefficacy with which pre-Keatsian poets employed synaesthesia perhaps
led to the tremendous reception that he subsequently received. Whereas these poets
were deliberate and eccentric, Keats was able to use this technique in a less startling
way, allowing the synaesthetic images to melt gently into the background or context of
his poems. In this way, his use of synaesthesia acts as a vehicle, facilitating and
crystallizing his exploration of some of the thematic concerns that characterize his
work. This effortless quality to which the aforementioned critics refer is demonstrated
easily through an examination of specific lines from almost any of Keats’s poems. In
John Keats’s poetry, the emphasis on sensory imagery is undeniably prominent. His use
of imagery has been described as, “evenly developed…rich not only in line, color, light,
shade, and sound, but it is also rich in images of the intimately physical sensations of
taste, touch, smell, temperature, and pressure, and in images of the organic sensations,
such as hunger and thirst. His imagery, accordingly, is both comprehensive and
sensuous” (Fogle 31). In addition to this impressive array of sensations, it would be
remiss not to include the powerful sensations of sexuality and movement. It is clear that
Keats’s imagery engages all of his reader’s physical senses. Although the angles from
which an analysis of Keatsian imagery are endless, one of the most compelling aspects
of his work lies in his use of synaesthetic imagery. Keats had the remarkable ability to
combine different senses into one image; that is, he was able to transfer the traits of one
sense to another. Thus, Keats’s synaesthetic style perhaps can be described as
possessing some sense of decorum. He manages to incorporate these images smoothly
7
into his works without upsetting the balance of his poetry, making him an illustrative
candidate for this study. Furthermore, it is possible to illustrate, however subtle it may
be, that Keats employed synaesthesia from a masculine perspective.
Emily Dickinson’s poetry, if taken in the context of its early critical reception,
may seem quite unworthy of synaesthetic exploration; but nothing could be farther from
the truth. Not only are several of her poems replete with concrete synaesthetic images,
but more interestingly, many of these images possess very clear feminine
underpinnings. The critic Nicholas Ruddick asserts that “the range and variety of her
synaesthetic images and the sophistication with which she manipulates them have no
parallel in poetry in English. She should be allowed to claim her rightful place as one of
the most skillful practitioners of the technique that has been called ‘the hallmark of
modern literary sensibility’” (59). Although Ruddick praises Dickinson for her mastery
of this poetic skill, he seems to have fallen prey to the harsh wave of criticism
surrounding Dickinson’s use of this technique, in that he strips her of her glory almost
immediately after bestowing it onto her as he says, “certain problems concerning
semantic and stylistic evaluation of literary synaesthesia in general arise in the course of
a close examination of Dickinson’s use of the technique” (59). Given the
misunderstanding of Dickinson's use of synaesthesia engendered from male critical
perspectives, it is important and necessary to provide a counterbalance in order to
appreciate her contribution in context of female sensibility and to understand
synaesthetic approaches generally.
In terms of gender and synaesthesia, it seems as though the effects achieved by
synaesthesia coincide with Dickinson’s personality. Indeed, it seems almost impossible
8
to separate Dickinson’s “personality” from her gender. This fact finds further
supplementation in Karl Kellers’s statement, “Her being a woman is an issue to us
precisely because it is an issue to her.” (quoted in Juhasz 12) It can be argued that
perhaps the critics were not inspired to examine her poetry in this light because the very
criterion that they utilized to determine whether a poetic vision truly was synaesthetic
was anti-feminist. In fact, the creator of the standardized evaluative method, Stephen de
Ullman, took only two poets into consideration, both of them male: Keats and Shelley.
Thus, according to de Ullman, “Synaesthesia if soberly and skillfully handled, affords
excellent opportunities for the poet, both because it has the charm and glamor of
novelty and surprise and because it enables him [emphasis mine] to describe his object
from more than one angle.” (quoted in Ruddick 60) Ullman’s comments corroborate his
masculine bias; consequently, Dickinson would not have been given a fair trial. Thus,
critics such as de Ullman have their own biased interpretation of what it means to
execute a literary technique skillfully, and Dickinson does not fit into their narrow,
preconceived mould. Indeed, it is clear from de Ullman’s repeated use of the word
“man” throughout his work that Dickinson's poetry would have been discredited on
gender lines. These ignorant forms of categorization can be disproved easily, however,
through the observations of critics such as Glenn O’Malley, who asserts that out of “the
twenty possible catagories of binary transfer, Dickinson uses fourteen” (76). This is
impressive by any standard, in that she is on par with her male counterparts. In fact, de
Ullman unwittingly testifies to her abilities as he methodically catagorized the abilities
of John Keats and Byron. He says “Keats’s transfers cover fifteen categories, while
Byron covered fourteen and Gautier, twelve.” (quoted in Ruddick 61) This suggests that
9
Dickinson’s range was broad and, hence, is worthy of exploration. Although O’Malley
was able to detect the breadth and scope of Dickinson’s synaesthetic ability, he
neglected to flesh these out. Indeed, because there has been scant critical attention to
Dickinson's treatment of synaesthesia, it is necessary to address this critical imbalance
by a close analysis of her poetic technique.
10
Chapter 1
John Keats and Masculine Synaesthesia
A large part of what makes Keats’s synaesthetic approach to poetry gender
specific lies in his personal obsession with the senses of taste and touch. The critic D.W.
Rannie asserts that “He cannot be said to be rich in epithets expressing either sound or
scent…It is to touch and taste that he makes his chief sensuous appeals.” (quoted in de
Ullman 817) It is possible to locate examples of John Keats’s use of synaesthesia
throughout his works but, as his pre-occupation with taste and touch would suggest, his
most successful gender specific synaesthetic images are located in the poems that deal
with sensuality, eroticism, and love. In this respect, “To Mary Frogley,” “Isabella,”
“The Eve of St. Agnes,” “Lamia,” and Endymion are of particular significance in that
they are concerned with the intertwining nature of eroticism and the physicality of love.
Synaesthesia seems to be an appropriate device in that the fusion of the senses can be
linked to the strong sexual suggestiveness of his poems and the physical contact and
intimacy between lovers in others.
In order to comprehend fully the profundity of Keats’s use of synaesthetic
imagery, it is necessary to establish Keats’s obsession with becoming a successful poet.
Keats died at the age of twenty-five, and, even more importantly, his training as a
surgeon, coupled with having witnessed the death of his brother Tom from tuberculosis,
11
made him increasingly aware of his own mortality. This awareness of his imminent
death created a sense of urgency within Keats, which seemed to filter into his poetry
through his use of synaesthesia. The first two lines of his poem, “When I have fears that
I may cease to be,” can be analyzed in this context: “When I have fears that I may cease
to be / Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain” (1-2). These lines capture the fear
that Keats felt over being unable to fulfill his potential as a poet. The word “gleaned” is
of particular significance here in that it literally means to collect the seeds that were left
behind. The point that Keats is trying to make is that he wishes to extract every shred of
poetry from his brain and mind. This idea brings his acute awareness of his death into
focus in that not only is he concerned with producing a masterpiece, but also with
getting every scrap of poetry out of his system. Keats wanted to capture every minute
detail of life through his work: “Nothing seemed to escape him, the song of a bird and
the undernote of response from covert or hedge, the rustle of some animal, the changing
of the green and brown lights and furtive shadows, the motions of the wind…and the
wayfaring of clouds….” (quoted in Fogle 37) This pre-occupation with expressing as
much as he could in the limited time he had is manifested through his use of
synaesthetic imagery; the concept itself allowed Keats to incorporate or to fuse several
sensual words into one poetic creation.
In addition, note that he combines the masculine phallic “pen” which extracts
internal feminine “seeds” from his “teeming brain” — a brain that metaphorically is a
fertile womb: “Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain” (2). The potential fertility
of the feminine womb is juxtaposed with the metaphoric penis that must penetrate and
extract the feminine seeds before the reality of death makes such creativity impossible.
12
Whereas the pen/penis usually emits a seminal fluid, here the process of extraction
marks a usurpation in that the act of poetry is gendered as a masculine activity of
penetration that simultaneously withdraws the seeds from the male womb: in sudden
retrospect, the female role and imagery has been appropriated into the masculine
imaginary.
In his poem “To Mary Frogley” (1816), Keats uses synaesthesia to compliment
the theme of subversive sexuality. This poem expresses Keats’s longing for a woman he
cannot have. On the surface, the poem appears to be little more than a Valentine’s gift
that is written for a friend. However, just as synaesthesia contains multiple levels of
sensory appeal, the poem contains innumerable sexual innuendos. The reader becomes
aware of the unconventional nature of the poem through the line “And thy humid eyes
that dance” (4). In this instance Keats has combined the sense of temperature through
the word “humid” to vision through the word “eyes” and finally to movement through
the word “dance.” It should be noted that in this particular synaesthetic image, the
source of the sense transfer lies with the word “humid,” while the destination falls into
the visual and kinesthetic spheres. The fact that Keats has positioned the word “humid”
strategically serves to reinforce the theme of sexuality, not only through the implicit
sexual connotations that exist within the word itself, but also through the fact that this
word conjures several risqué literary allusions. In Act 3 Scene 4 of Shakespeare’s
Othello, Othello interprets Desdemona’s “moist palm” (33) as a sign of infidelity, since
the moist palm suggested, in the seventeenth century, uncontrollable sexuality. In this
respect, infidelity points to the duality that Keats highlights within his female
characters. This image also is used erotically in Dryden’s adaptation of Cleopatra (All
13
for Love, 1678) and in Spencer’s Faery Queen (1590, 1596). Thus, the use of “humid
eyes” in “To Mary Frogley” is appropriate in terms of its ability to appeal to sensuality
and in its interconnectedness to a long literary tradition of seductive or “fallen” women.
It is noteworthy that the “humid eyes” are dancing, which, in adding a spirit of
liveliness and exuberance to the image, captures the air of flirtation and romance that
Keats has sought to create in this poem. Keats’s use of synaesthesia in this poem
undoubtedly is masculine because the word “humid” captures the eroticism of a woman
and not a man. The word has a raunchy, almost deprecating, quality that in this poem
most certainly would be used in relation to a woman. Keats, as a man writing in the
nineteenth century, was entitled to certain liberties that Dickinson could not have taken
upon herself. Again, his use of the word “dance” is significant because it possesses
female connotations. Although Dickinson uses synaesthesia profusely, the word
“humid” never appears in her poetry. Additionally, any and all references to “dancing”
are used in relation to a female speaker. Keats’s use of synaesthesia again is seen in this
poem through the lines “Full, and round like globes that rise/ From the censer to the
skies” (21-22). This image, although peculiar in its ability to combine two dissimilar
subjects, the “globes” and the “censer,” is directly sexual in that, on a literal level, Keats
is referring to a woman’s breasts, while on a more abstract level, he seems to be
highlighting the underlying unity of all forms of life. The word “globe” appeals to the
sense of sight and, to a lesser extent, the sense of touch. The word “rise” is used here in
conjunction with “censer” to represent smoke, which falls into both the visual and
kinesthetic realms of imagery. His use of synaesthesia is, again, overwhelmingly
masculine. The explicit reference to “globe” speaks for itself and the use of “censer,”
14
creating an air of mysticism through its ability to conjure images of smoke, seems to
suggest that to Keats, a woman’s breasts still are somewhat of a mystery. It should be
pointed out that Keats was an extremely young man, and there is no evidence that points
to his active engagement in sexual intimacy, although he was later engaged to Fanny
Brawne. This use of synaesthesia is appropriate because it points to the fact that the
innocent premise of the poem is nothing more than a smoke screen for a highly sexually
charged piece. This definitely was a privilege that only a male nineteenth-century poet
could enjoy.
In his poem “Isabella” (1820), the theme of obsessive and unconsummated
erotic love is introduced. Once again, Keats’s use of synaesthesia appropriately fits into
the theme of the work through its ability to capture the intensity of tension and
repression through the compact nature of the technique itself. Synaesthesia is used to
describe Isabella’s emotional state as she unearths the dead body of her love, Lorenzo:
“Soon she turn’d up a soiled glove, whereupon /Her silk had played in purple
phantasies” (369-370). In this image, Keats appeals to the sense of touch through the
word “silk” and to the sense of sight through the use of “purple.” Although it can
readily be assumed that the color of the silk is purple, Keats’s imagery seems to be
functioning on a more complex level. The color purple itself is significant because it
runs like a thread throughout his romantic poems, symbolizing the color of love and
passion. In these lines from “Isabella,” purple with all of its Keatsian connotations
perhaps is being used to represent the actual emotional intensity that Isabella remembers
experiencing as her gloved hand had come into contact with Lorenzo. The idea of
touching that it suggested moves the image into the domain of tactile imagery, which is
15
representative of Isabella’s obsession with Lorenzo’s sexuality. In terms of gender,
Keats once again takes a bold stride. He is able to capture with the utmost ease and
confidence the passion that Isabella is feeling. This is seen through his direct references
to touch. The idea that the silk is playing adds an air of frivolity, which a male poet
readily would impose onto a female subject. It also is interesting that Keats used the
color purple because it stands as the intermediary point between red and blue. This
perhaps suggests that Keats is unwilling to describe his female subject purely in female
terms. His existence as a man, which could not be separated from his existence as a
poet, therefore is manifested in his inability to ascribe a purely feminine color to the
glove.
Keats also seems to privilege gustatory synaesthesia in this poem. This is seen
through his repeated appeals to the sense of taste in the lines, “Though I forget the taste
of earthly bliss” (315) and “taste the music of that vision pale” (392). In these lines, the
sense of taste is the source of the sense transfer, which ties into the sensuous theme of
the poem. In the first line, Keats transfers the sense of taste to the emotional state of
“bliss.” He adds a tangible feel to this state through his use of “earthly.” This can be
seen in terms of gender again because, although the word “earthly” has feminine
connotations, as in the Greek myths, Keats may be commenting on the delight that men
take in women. Consequently, the idea of “earthly pleasures” comes to mind, primarily
because he has combined the word with the sense of taste. Earthly pleasures
undoubtedly possess sexual connotations and therefore belong to the masculine world.
In the second line, Keats invites the reader to taste the sound and sight of the unhappy
lovers. Keats was unique and unrivalled in his use of the sense of taste as the focal point
16
of his synaesthesias. D.W. Rannie emphasizes this point in his study on Keats’s
epithets, where he says “It is to touch and taste that he makes his chief sensuous
appeals.” (quoted in de Ullman 817) The use of the sense of taste heightens the passion
of the young lovers in this poem by capturing the almost devouring nature of their
obsessive love.
The theme of young love again is introduced through the use of the color purple
in “The Eve of St. Agnes” (1820), in the lines “Sudden a thought came like a full blown
rose / Flushing his cheek, and in his pained heart / Made purple riot” (136-138). In these
lines, purple is associated with the passionate nature of young love. The word “riot”
conveys the impression of noise and, along with purple, suggests the turbulent nature of
physical emotions; the combination of which invokes a sense of movement. Thus,
synaesthesia functions on multiple levels in order to create one erotic, poetic image. It
should be noted that the person to whom these emotions are ascribed is, of course,
masculine. Keats uses color as his synaesthetic source yet again in this poem through
the line, “The silver, snarling trumpets gan to chide” (31). In this image the color silver
introduces the sense of sight as it literally refers to the trumpets. Silver is suggestive of
love because of the romantic connotations that it possesses. The all encompassing
nature of synaesthesia works on another, more complex level in that the color “silver”
also refers to the sound of the music coming out of the trumpets. The fact that the
trumpets are snarling again seems to point towards a masculine agenda. This image
captures the spirit of drunken revelry that is used in this context to offer a stark contrast
to the Beadsman who is saying his rosary. Keats uses color in relation to the Beadsman
again in the lines “And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue / Flattered to tears
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this aged man and poor” (20-21). Sound once again is described in terms of color. The
impact of this image differs from the former in that “golden” is not as visible as
“silver.” The emphasis in this image is on the emotional state that the music produces
on the Beadsman. In this sense, the use of these highly effective synaesthetic images
prepares the reader for a poem that is, in essence, one of binaries. Although in this
particular image Keats has tried to create two opposite images, the first rowdy and
impassioned and the second sedate and sentimental, it would be remiss not to refer to
the fact that he still has managed to incorporate the word tongue into his emotional
image. Perhaps his masculine sensory perceptions unconsciously spilled themselves
onto the page.
Keats’s thematically complex poem “Lamia” (1819) provides the perfect setting
for the use of synaesthesia. In fact, the use of synaesthetic images complement and
crystallize the triangulation of love. The lovers cannot go directly to love but must
experience possessiveness, jealousy, and even violence first. In the same way,
synaesthesia requires the reader to experience one sense through the transference of
another. The image of Lamia is in itself synaesthetic because she combines beauty with
the grotesque. She is described as having the physical characteristics both of a woman
and a serpent. Her female attributes appeal primarily to the sphere of vision, while her
serpent qualities appeal to the visual, tactile, and auditory domains. This intriguing
combination of physical characteristics sets the stage for some of Keats’s most
successful synaesthetic images.
The emphasis that Keats places on color in this poem is unparalleled. As he
describes the torturous process of her transformation into a full woman, he employs
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synaesthesia to capture the intensity of the experience: “The colors all inflamed
throughout her train / She writhed about, convulsed with scarlet pain” (153-154). The
focal point lies with the words “scarlet pain.” The word “scarlet” primarily functions to
invoke the visual, but it also works on a thematic level, bringing with it conventional
romantic and passionate connotations. On one level, the color is traditionally pejorative,
gendered in context of the fallen “scarlet” woman or, in the Bible, the scarlet whore of
Babylon (Revelation, 17.4).
The color is transferred onto the word “pain,” which denotes a tactile sensation.
These words particularly are effective because they serve to highlight the larger
meaning of the poem, which deals with the pain that Lamia and Lycius endure as a
result of their passionate and forbidden entanglement. This idea of the forbidden is
picked up through Keats’s fusion of forbidding natural phenomena with the very natural
sensations of the body, in the line “While, like held breath, the stars drew in their
panting fires” (300). In this image, Keats fuses the visual through the word “stars” with
the tactile, through the implication of heat and temperature through the word “fires,”
with the kinesthetic through the words “breath” and “panting.” This joining together of
mortal and celestial traits is made possible through Keats’s use of personification. The
“stars” in this case are so entranced by Lamia’s bewitching song that they stop
twinkling the way human beings hold their breath. This synaesthetic reversal of the
natural order of things, that is, endowing ethereal bodies such as stars with human
characteristics, is seen elsewhere in the poem through Keats’s description of Porphyro
as “Ethereal, flushed and like a throbbing star” (318). This image combines color,
through “flushed,” with movement, through “throbbing,” adding life and vitality to the
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star to which he is being defined.
With regard to gender, this poem functions on many levels. The most obvious of
these are the phallic symbols that appear in the form of Lamia’s “snake tail” and the
“throbbing” of the star. It is interesting that the star is “throbbing” because it seems that
Lycius is indeed the metaphorical star of the poem. Lamia, on the other hand, is
demonized to an extent. The fact that she has to endure ‘scarlet pain’ to become a
woman again can be seen as a reference to menstruation and even to childbirth. The
words ‘panting’ and ‘fires’ that follow the description of Lamia’s transformation also
are sexually charged and suggest the pejorative gendering of the sexual “Other.”
In his treatment of sound, Keats has managed to transfer a very solid, weighty
and tactile quality to music, through the lines “A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone
/ Supportress thy faery roof” (122-123). In this image, he ascribes a material, tangible
quality to sound by suggesting that music is the foundation of the house. In terms of the
larger meaning of the poem, the words “haunting” and “faery” add a feeling of
otherworldliness while “roof” adds a feeling of concreteness. This image can be seen as
a representation of the relationship between Lamia and Lycius because it effectively
combines supernatural and mortal elements. Additionally, the woman usually is seen as
the keeper of the household and has, in essence, created a house steeped in mysticism
and the unreal. Perhaps Keats is making a comment on the deceptive nature of women.
In his epic poem Endymion (1818), Keats seems to experiment with the patterns of
synaesthesia that brought out the romantic themes in the other poems. In Book two, the
ideas of color, sound, and movement are introduced through the lines “For as the sunset
peeps into a wood / So saw he a panting light” (382-383). In this image, light is
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endowed with the human quality of breathing. The fact that the word “panting” is used
attests to the very sexual nature of the reference. It can be suggested that “panting”
appeals to the auditory realm of sensation, which makes this image successful on many
levels. In terms of gender, it should be noted that the subject who is witnessing the
“panting” is male. This seems to pick up on the themes that were presented in previous
poems because it suggests that the male is innocent; in this case, he is an innocent bystander, witnessing an erotic event.
The color purple appears once again in Book two of Endymion, in Keats’s
reference to wine: “Here is wine /Alive with sparkles / So cool a purple” (441-444). In
these lines Keats is combining tactile or, more specifically, the sense of temperature
with the visual. The interesting thing about this particular synaesthetic image is the ease
with which it is achieved. Purple works on two distinct levels. It refers both to the color
and the temperature of wine. Purple once again can be linked to ideas of romanticism
and love, which allows the image to function on a thematic level. Apart from using the
word cool to describe color, Keats also uses this adjective to describe light. It was
acceptable in the nineteenth century for men to partake in the consumption of spirits and
as a consequence, this image is painted gleefully and sinlessly. In book two, Keats
writes “He turned-there was a whelming sound-he slept / There was a cooler light”
(1018-1019). Keats has aligned tactile imagery with visual imagery to describe the
actual quality of the light that falls onto Endymion. The image can be seen in a sensual
capacity since the reader can almost envision the “cooler light” embracing Endymion’s
skin as the ocean rises above his head. In this image, man once again is innocent.
Endymion is sleeping, which is the most vulnerable state in which a human being can
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be. It almost seems as though he is being seduced in his sleep by “the cooler light.” This
phrase, in fact, possesses some resemblance to the phrase, “the fairer sex,” in that the
words “cooler” and “fairer” infuse their respective lines with a gentle feel and therefore
can be seen in a gendered capacity.
The theme of romance and love takes on a more physical quality in some of
Keats’s more poignant images. In Book four, Keats presents a highly erotic picture
through the lines “lost in pleasure at her feet he sinks / Touching with dazzled lips her
starlit hand” (418-419). The use of the words “lips” and “hands” creates a feeling of
eroticism through their tactile capacity. His “lips” are described as “dazzled,” which
invokes the visual. The interconnectedness of touch and sight is crystallized through the
“starlit hand.” Keats has produced two complimentary synaesthetic images that produce
a feeling of unity. This sense of oneness is supported through the fact that physical
contact has been established, and the starlight from her hand is transferred to his lips. In
terms of gender, the man is seen as bewitched by this female creature, so much so that
he has fallen to her feet. It should be noted that he not simply has fallen: he has “sunk,”
a word that possesses debilitating connotations. The action of the man falling could
possibly be a biblical allusion to the fall of Adam at the hand of Eve. If this were the
case, Keats’s references to her “starlit hand” are highly appropriate. Thus, in this poem,
the woman is responsible for creating feelings of pleasure and sexuality within the man,
feelings that are not portrayed in a positive light due to the fact that he has sunk down
before her. In fact, the image seems ironically Petrarchian.
In the third book of Endymion, Keats provides three synaesthetic lines that
capture several senses at once: “Delicious symphonies, like airy flowers / Budded and
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well’d, and, full blown, shed full showers / Of light, soft, unseen leaves of sounds
divine” (798-800). This image appeals to the sense of taste through the word
“delicious;” the sense of hearing through “symphonies” and “sounds divine;” the sense
of movement through “blown,” “shed,” and “airy;” as well as the sense of touch through
“full” and “soft.” These lines represent one of his most comprehensive uses of the
technique. Thematically, the images aroused fit into the sphere of love and romance
through the gentle, natural atmosphere that is created. In terms of gender, the image can
be perceived as sexual due to the idea of feminine voluptuousness that is created
through the words “well’d,” “budded,” and “full,” which are, in fact, repeated. The
underlying suggestion might be that amidst the façade of “delicious symphonies” lurks
the potential for erotic seduction. In Book three, Keats provides an image that can be
viewed as a summation of his use of synaesthetic imagery: “To interknit One’s senses
with so dense a breathing stuff might seem a work of pain....” (380-382). Although this
image captures the very essence of Keats’s synaesthetic endeavors, it should be noted
that the feature that differentiates Keats from other poets who tried their hand at
incorporating synaesthesia into their works is the ease with which he is able to reshape
and weave his sensory material into a unified whole. In this line, Keats refers to the very
nature of the synaesthetic process itself, through the words “To interknit One’s senses,”
he goes on to describe breathing as ‘dense’ which combines the olfactory with the
tactile. This combination of the senses adds a palpable dimension to the act of
breathing. This image is, in fact, sexless but captures Keats’s remarkable ability to
master the art of literary synaesthesia.
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Similar examples of his effective use of genderless synaesthesia exist in The
Fall of Hyperion: A Dream (1818, 1819), where he says:
I heard, I look’d: two senses both at once,
So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny
Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed (118-120)
This synaesthetic approach can only be described as visionary. Keats is not trying to
transfer one particular sense onto another in this particular line. He simply is alluding to
the process of synaesthesia as a whole. The line of significance is, of course, “I heard, I
look’d: two senses both at once.” In this image, Keats is referring overtly to the sense of
hearing and to the sense of sight. He very craftily plays upon his skill at interweaving
the senses by tying the two together after the insertion of a colon. This grammatical
break also is significant because he seems to be signaling the reader’s attention to the
ability of the subject of his poem to experience these sensations simultaneously. He
employs a similar device later on the poem, where he says:
…nor could my eyes
And ears act with that unison of sense
Which marries sweet sound with the grace
Of form
And dolorous accent from a tragic harp
With large limb’d visions (441-445)
Again in this image, Keats’s emphasis is on inter-sensory connectedness. This portion
of the poem, like the first, possesses a visionary capacity. He starts off by describing
what a synaesthetic experience is not: “Nor could my eyes/And Ears act with that
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unison of sense,” which only serves to fortify the image that does in fact possess the
synaesthetic qualities, “Which marries sweet sound with grace / Of form.” In this
image, Keats has combined the gustatory, through the word “sweet,” with the auditory,
through the word “sound,” with “form,” which conjures both visual and tactile images.
Though this image, like the one before it, is devoid of sexual connotations or
implications, nevertheless, the verb “marries” evokes the metaphorically heterosexual
union that is longed for.
Thus, it can be said that through the use of synaesthetic imagery in his
romantically themed poems, John Keats was able to fulfill his desire to reproduce the
rich harvest of his imagination onto the page. The unsurpassed success with which he
was able to achieve this stroke of genius can be attributed to his astute ability to blend
his images into the context and background of his poetry. Through his imaginative and
unobtrusive sense transferences, Keats was able to mould the trappings of his
imagination into comprehensive, sensual and, above all, unified poetic creations. His
exploration of synaesthesia exploits gender conventions in new and startling ways that
seem gracefully natural because he takes his privileged gendered position for granted,
an advantage that Emily Dickinson did not have.
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Chapter 2
Synaesthesia and Gender in Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson’s ascension to the upper echelons of the poetic world
necessitated a radical conversion of the mind, which was rare in the 19th century
because women were not expected to be literary masters during this period. The
frustration and hurt that she felt as a female writer was expressed in a letter to her
brother Austin, who criticized her as harshly as her contemporaries, accusing her of
using an exalted style that was not befitting of a woman. She writes, “you say you do
not comprehend me, you want a simpler style. Gratitude indeed for all my fine
philosophy! I strove to be exalted thinking I might reach you and while I pant and
struggle and climb the nearest cloud, you walk out…and request me to get down.”
(quoted in Bennett 151-152) These lines capture Dickinson’s position as a female writer
during the 19th century in that they demonstrate that it was expected that women neither
should nor could write like men. Dickinson goes on to say “I’ll be a little ninny — a
little pussy catty-a little Red Riding Hood, I’ll wear a Bee in my Bonnet, and a rose bud
in my hair.” (quoted in Johnson 178) Austin Dickinson’s criticism of his sister, once
again, works in her favor, particularly in terms of her synaesthetic genius. Deeply
embedded within the words of her response, the astute reader is able to garner her
gendered approach to synaesthesia, for it necessitated an “exalted” style. But more
importantly, Dickinson illustrates, though facetiously, that she intended to continue
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using this lofty style, distinctly through a feminine lens. Her references to “little pussy
catty,” “little Red Riding Hood,” “Bee in my Bonnet,” and “rose bud” all are explicitly
gendered and sarcastically charged. Indeed, her choice of diction indicates that she is
self-conscious of the gender conventions to which her brother and other males expect
her to conform. But her tone is implacably subversive. She, in effect, resists falling into
her brother's clichés by sarcastically highlighting his patriarchal expectations.
Nevertheless, Dickinson’s mastery of the art of poetry could not be denied eternally.
In keeping with the pertinent gender issue it must be stated that several of Emily
Dickinson’s poems can be described as distinctly feminine. Perhaps one of her most
severe critics, Charles D. Meigs, inadvertently attested to her poetic prowess. In
Meigs’s opinion, “no woman could be a strong poet.” (quoted in Bennett 150) However,
in his commentary on Dickinson, he goes on to state that “[The clitoris] is endowed
with the most intense erotic sensibility, and is probably the prime seat of that peculiar
life power, although not the sole one.” (quoted in Bennett 151) Although Paula Bennett
has inserted the word clitoris into Meigs’s comment, it should be noted that Meigs
probably was clueless about the clitoris, since it was not known in the 19th century.
What is certain, however, is that Meigs as a medical doctor believed that biology
determined a woman’s literary skill as well as her reproductive and moral footing in the
world. It is peculiar, therefore, that he denies the existence of any skill in her art, yet
credits her with “life power.” This contradiction suggests that even Meigs was unable to
condemn her completely, which bears testimony to her literary ability. Meigs made this
statement in 1851 and in that same decade the very poet to whom the statement was
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directed made an equally powerful statement, albeit shrouded in the conventionalism
that was the nineteenth century. Dickinson’s poem #1377 is as follows:
Forbidden Fruit a flavor has
That lawful Orchards mocks—
How luscious lies within the Pod
The Pea that Duty locks— (1-4)
In these lines, Dickinson seems to be alluding to the “hidden’ nature of female
sexuality through her reference to the ‘pea’ in the ‘pod.’ The fact that it is hidden can
suggest that the identification between sexual power and personal power was much
more difficult for women than for men. She supplements this concept through her
particular choice of diction. The words “lawful” and “Duty” seem to refer to the fact
that poetry in the 19th century was a masculine preserve. The “Forbidden Fruit” she
mentions could refer to her love for writing poetry and her awareness of how she and
other women in the 19th century were received critically. For the purposes of this thesis,
twenty-nine of Dickinson’s poems will be examined. These poems will illustrate that
she approached synaesthesia in a manner that deems her worthy of any critic’s analysis
of the phenomenon, while demonstrating her very feminine approach to this intriguing
literary device.
In poem # 430, Emily Dickinson demonstrates this very feminine approach to
synaesthesia. Line 25 of the poem reads “I clutched at sounds.” (quoted in Johnson 206)
The synaesthetic effects of the line clearly are present, as the word “clutch,” which is
normally associated with touch, has been transferred to the realm of sound. In this way,
an auditory experience is metaphorically made tactile. The line itself can be considered
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feminine in essence because the word “clutch” seems to be a representation of the
female condition in the nineteenth century. The word itself seems to be a commentary
of the submissive and disempowered position of women in the nineteenth century,
compelled, like Dickinson, to desperately “clutch” seemingly unsubstantial noise; and
yet Dickinson simultaneously is registering her unfaltering persistence to write poetry.
Dickinson is, in fact, holding onto her belief in her ability to write poetry in the face of
great adversity. The line also should be seen in context of the stanza from which it came
because this stanza, in its entirety, serves as a running commentary on the feeling of
female desperation and hopelessness that characterized the women of this time:
I clutched at sounds —
I groped at shapes
I touched the tops of Films —
I felt the Wilderness roll back
Along my Golden lines — (25-29)
The word “clutch” is picked up by the word “groped,” which together create the idea of
yearning and searching and struggling. In the third line, the word “touched,” which
suggests something concrete, immediately is disqualified by the word “Films,” which
once again underscores the difficulty of writing poetry in a patriarchal world. Through
its slippery connotations, the words fortify the feeling of something unattainable. The
overall context of the poem serves to emphasize her position as a woman and, in so
doing, justifies her use of female synaesthesia in that, Dickinson, like Keats, was
concerned with becoming famous. The final stanza of the poem reads:
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My Holiday, shall be
That They —remember me —
My Paradise —the fame
That they —pronounce my name — (40-43)
Despite the obstacles with which she was confronted, she has an unwavering faith that
her poetry and name will be vindicated.
Dickinson’s use of synaesthesia once again is seen in poem #1498, through the
line “Shot the lithe Sleds like shod vibrations” (5). In this instance, Dickinson’s use of
synaesthesia is facilitated by a simile. The word “Sleds,” which is both tactile and
visual, is being compared to “vibrations,” which are both auditory and kinesthetic. That
this is distinctly feminine is apparent through the word “lithe,” which literally translates
into something that is bent easily or flexible. The word also is associated with grace and
gentleness. The fact that she has described the sled in terms of pliability is perhaps her
attempt to convey the idea of the malleability of women, regardless of their strength of
character or, specifically in her case, voracity of intellect. This fact is supplemented by
the rest of the poem, where the speaker is decisively male. The last two stanzas of the
poem reveal that Dickinson feels as though she almost must contort herself into the
figure of a man in order to gain recognition in the poetic realm.
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How firm Eternity must look
To crumbling men like me
The only adamant Estate
In all Identity
How mighty to the insecure
Thy Physiognomy
To whom not any Face cohere —
Unless concealed in thee (9-16)
The final stanza reveals the “insecurity” of the female poet who feels that the only way
in which she can gain recognition is to almost ‘conceal’ herself in the guise of a man.
In poem # 1561, the line “His Larder —Terse and Militant” (19) conveys an
almost maternal approach to synaesthesia. This image is synaesthetic because the word
“larder” conveys visual and well as gustatory sensations and these are defined by
“terse,” which conveys the sense of touch. It can be described as feminine because the
“larder” is, of course, a place where food is stored. It can be suggested that because
Dickinson was chastised throughout her lifetime for not being “womanly” enough, she
sought to fulfill these maternal instincts through her poetry. Furthermore, the larder is
“terse,” which, of course, means that it was neat, clean, and perhaps even elegantly
smooth. These are all female characteristics. The word “militant” cannot be ignored
since it certainly is not female; however, it can be suggested that it is in fact picking up
on the word “terse,” which also means devoid of superfluity. Dickinson had been
criticized often for her elevated style of writing and perhaps this is her attempt to
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suggest that she is unable to relegate her “pantry” of wealth. This can be seen as female
again because, Keats, her male counterpart, never expressed a concern over altering his
style. Living in a patriarchal world, he therefore was not self-conscious about his
gender, a luxury Dickinson did not have. However, also she was self-consciously
resistant.
For instance, consider the entire context of the point itself, especially the
illustrative last lines:
His Larder — terse and Militant
Unknown — refreshing things —
His Character — A Tonic —
His Future — a Dispute
That leaves this Neighbour out — (19-23)
These lines make it clear that Dickinson, like Keats, was very uncertain about her
ability to become famous. The overriding consideration, however, is that she feels
(unlike Keats) like an outsider, and justifiably so since she is a woman trying to
establish herself in a man’s world. The critic Elizabeth Petrino contends that “Like
strong ideas, high style was a masculine preserve (a male cloud, a gendered
‘Empyrean’), and men intended to keep it that way no matter how talented or even
gifted a particular woman writer might be” (Petrino 152).
In keeping with this notion, Dickinson’s self-consciousness about her gender
yet again is seen in poem #1587, in the very first line: “He ate and drank the precious
Words.” The subject of her poem is male, although the poem is in essence about her.
She ascribing the consumption of literature to a man seems to suggest that she feels that
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it is not a woman’s place to feel the delights of literature in the same way that men did.
Whether she actually felt this way or simply expressed this view in her poetry is
debatable. The image is synaesthetic because it involves a sensory transfer from the
gustatory domain, through the words “ate” and “drank,” to the auditory or even visual
sphere, through “Words.”
In poem #511, Dickinson gives a glimpse of the forlorn lover. She says “It goads
me, like the Goblin Bee —That will not state its sting” (19-20). The image is
synaesthetic because it involves the sensory transfer from auditory to tactile. It is
interesting that the villain in this poem is male, that it a “Goblin.” She clearly is in the
position of the hurt woman who has been abandoned by her lover. This is perhaps
related to the fact that for most of her adult life she was in love with a married man.
Richard B. Sewall comments on the nature of this relationship by saying “At the
romantic extreme is the notion of love at first sight, mutually recognized but renounced
in deference to Wardworth’s married state. This version has Emily returning to Amherst
in despair, writing her poems of passion and frustration, and, soon after, retiring in
white from the world” (Sewall 477).
In poem #291, the poet’s gendered approach to synaesthesia can be illustrated
because her use of the literary device seems to defy categorization: “How the Old
Mountains, drip with Sunset” (1) is significant because, although the synaesthetic
elements are there, the word “drip” does not fit neatly into a specific category. It can
refer to the visual, auditory, or even tactile realms. In this way, Dickinson’s complexity
as a female poet clearly is exemplified. It is very tempting at this point to acknowledge
Dickinson in terms Keats’s complexity, particularly with respect to his amalgam of
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sense transfers in poems such as “Isabella,” where he moves from gustatory to auditory
and then from auditory to visual in the line “Taste the music of that vision pale” (392).
It equally is tempting to assume that Dickinson may even have been influenced by
Keats but as Nicholas Ruddick points out, “Her intersensory images are different in
kind from those of any other poet…and her ability to manipulate them for a variety of
effects almost incomparable” (Ruddick 72). Ruddick contradicts himself later on by
stating that her inability to fall into certain catagories discredits her from the realm of
synaesthesia. But the critic Christina Rosetti asserts that “great poetry defeats
periphrasis and therefore eludes quantification….” (Rosetti 17). Furthermore, Glenn
O’Malley states that “[…] students of literary synaesthesia must feel that linguistic
classification of synaesthetic transfers has limited value and that they […] must assess
each apparent intersense metaphor in its particular context and against a background of
literary fashions and related concepts” (O’Malley 397). O’Malley’s statement runs even
deeper in that Dickinson’s gendered approach to synaesthesia also should be viewed in
this light: within the contextual background of literary traditions and concepts.
In poem #258, Dickinson’s complexity runs even deeper; this time, however,
there is no level of ambiguity involved. Instead, Dickinson is utilizing more than one
sense transfer. The first stanza is as follows:
There’s a certain slant of light
Winter afternoons Taste —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes — (1-4)
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The synaesthetic transfer here takes place from “Heft,” which, conveying the implicit
meaning of weighty, is transferred onto “Tunes.” In this image, Dickinson has moved
from the tactile to the auditory. This image can be seen in terms of gender because as
the critic Suzanne Juhasz notes, “A woman’s relationship to any masculine tradition
begins by being that of an outsider, not insider…this dislocation leads to complexities
and confusion” (5). Although the lines are not specifically about the concept of woman
as outsider, the manner in which Dickinson has employed synaesthesia definitely places
her in that category. This image is so complex that it has, in fact, been deemed as
marginal by several Dickinson critics. But a more fair assessment should take into
account that one’s perception of what truly is considered synaesthetic is purely
subjective. In fact, Nicholas Riddick states that “the concept of literary synaesthesia is
semantically too vague to serve as a basis upon which to make more objective
judgments” (Ruddick 70).
One of the most striking areas for synaesthetic exploration with respect to Emily
Dickinson lies in her visual capacity, and, in this regard, her gender plays an
exceedingly prominent role. The critic Caroline Spurgeon made an extremely relevant
quote in relation to vision and the works of Shakespeare, which is useful for the
purposes of this discourse. Spurgeon asserts that
In any analysis arrived at through his poetry of the quality and characteristics of
a writer’s senses, it is possible in some degree to separate and estimate his
senses of touch, smell, hearing and taste; but his visual sense is so all embracing,
for it is indeed the gateway by which so large a proportion of life reaches the
poet, and the registration, description and interpretation of things seen depend so
35
completely on faculties of mind and imagination — that to deal with this sense
at all adequately almost amounts to the same thing as to deal with the man as a
whole and the work in its entirety. (quoted in Ruddick 57)
One of the most distinctive features of Spurgeon’s assertion appears in the very
last line. She specifically refers to Shakespeare as a man. This is significant because as
this thesis has demonstrated thus far, men and women have very different sensory
perceptions. Dickinson as a woman undoubtedly perceived the world differently. It
would be remiss not to mention at this point that there certainly is a tremendous amount
of criticism that seeks to disprove this theory. Critics such as John Cody state that
“Perhaps as a poet, she found what she was missing as a woman” (55). He goes on to
say that without a strong maternal figure, “she may at least be driven to pattern herself
after a masculine model…blocking her completion as a woman, stimulated her to use
her mind” (Cody 55). Nothing about Dickinson could be further from the truth; in fact,
it can be assumed that Cody belonged to that specific brand of critics who associated
creativity and accomplishments with the masculine, while the woman was seen solely
as wife and mother. Dickinson, being neither a wife nor a mother, seems to have been
lumped unjustly into a masculine role. Modern critics, such as Suzanne Juhasz, state
that, “even in modern criticism, the traditional categories and assumptions prevail—
they show the ‘sin of omission’ because gender is disregarded” (5-6).
In poem #1593, Dickinson describes “A Green Chill upon the heart” (3). It is
possible to see Dickinson’s use of synaesthesia in this poem because she has imposed
the visual, that is, the color “green,” onto “chill,” which of course refers to temperature.
This image is particularly effective because it is used to describe the heart which is
36
associated with warmth, vitality, and, moreover, with the color red. Her use of the color
green attests to her uniqueness as a poet, in that the word ‘chill’ would usually be
associated with the color ‘blue.’ Juhasz asserts that, “Dickinson uses her understanding
of otherness or of femaleness to question traditional language structures and to attempt
reversals of them that will allow her to create her poetic identity” (16).
This sense of uniqueness rests firmly in her astute sense of vision and attests to
her ability to stand on her own as a female poet. This is seen is poem # 1059 where she
says,
Sang from the Heart, Sire,
Dipped my Beak in it,
If the Tune drip too much
Have a tint too Red
Pardon the Cochineal—
Suffer the Vermilion— (1-6)
Her synaesthetic technique is vividly seen in the lines “If the Tune drip too much / Have
a tint too Red,” where the auditory sphere established through the word “Tune” moves
into the tactile realm through the word “drip” and then finally to the visual, through the
words “tint” and “Red.” It should be noted at this point that Dickinson’s synaesthetic
endeavors must be taken in the context of the poem to which they belong if one is to
fully grasp the femininity that is deeply engrained into her imagery. The theme of this
poem deals specifically with death. This is captured through the word “Cochineal,”
which refers to “a red dye consisting of the bodies of the dried bodies of female
cochineal insects” (Merriam Webster). It can be assumed that Dickinson’s gender
37
influenced her choice of imagery, which in turn are woven together synaesthetically to
produce a feminine feel.
In poem #1576, Dickinson transfers touch to sound to make a comment on the
female condition:
The Music in the Violin
Does not emerge alone
But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch
Alone—is not a Tune. (5-8)
In this poem, Dickinson masterfully combines the sensations of touch and sound,
showing in fact their interdependence in the formation of the “Tune.” Her use of
synaesthesia is effective in terms of gender because it seems as though she is making a
comment on her own female condition. This poem seems to illustrate her predicament
as an unmarried woman, yearning for the love of a married man, for she says that
“Touch Alone— is not a tune.” This seems to suggest that seeing the man was not
enough to fulfill her. It should be noted that there is no real evidence that points to
Dickinson having an intimate relationship with Charles Wadsworth. In fact Richard
Sewall says, “For it is clear that such a friendship existed, that other people knew about
it (though they disagreed widely as to its nature) until Wadsworth’s death in 1882”
(440). Yet, the relationship made enough of an impact on her to lead to the emergence
of poems such as these, which show that without a husband, someone with whom to be
“Arm in Arm” with, a woman’s existence was tuneless indeed. It should be noted that
Dickinson, although rebellious and independent vis-à-vis patriarchy, still possessed the
primal female urge for companionship.
38
Her concern with marriage, or rather the lack thereof, is illustrated again in
poem # 1072, as she says “My Husband” — women say— / Stroking the Melody” (1314). In this image, Dickinson has used the sense of touch through the word “Stroking”
with the sense of hearing, through the word “Melody. ” The image is loaded with
female subtleties because the word ‘stroking’ possesses sexual connotations, although
of a more subdued nature. The destination of this tactile image is, of course, the
auditory realm through the word “Melody,” which is itself a more mellow musical
word, complementing the gentleness of the first. It can be suggested that Dickinson is in
fact mocking the condition of married life, a statement that finds supplementation in the
last line of the poem, “Is this— the way?” (15). The word ‘this’ is italicized, which
suggests that she seems to be questioning the institution of marriage on the whole. It is,
nonetheless, overwhelmingly female in nature.
Dickinson clearly used musical terminology quite regularly to accomplish her
synaesthetic endeavors. In poem #505, the word “melody” returns, as she fleshes out the
difficulties she experiences as a female poet. The last lines of this poem read, “Had I the
Art to stun myself /With Bolts of Melody!” (23-24). Synaesthesia is achieved here
through the juxtaposition of “Bolts,” which is visual, conjuring images of lightning
bolts, as well as kinesthetic since the word bolt is associated with rapid movement.
These are transferred into the auditory realm through the word “Melody.” To gain a
clear gendered appreciation for her synaesthetic deftness, it is necessary to examine the
last stanza of the poem in its entirety:
39
Nor would I be a Poet
It’s finer—own the Ear
Enamored—impotent—content—
To License to revere
A privilege so awful
What would the Dower be,
Had I the Art to stun myself
With Bolts of Melody! (17-24)
It is clear that this poem is written from a sarcastic point of view, although as a poet she
manages to shed light on the struggle that being a poet entails. This is apparent in line
twenty-one where she refers to the profession as “A privilege so awful.” In this sense
Dickinson is not unique, for many poets struggled with the poetic demons that haunted
their profession. The significance of her particular choice of synaesthetic diction is what
needs to be identified. Her specific choice of the word “Bolt” is significant because it is
obviously phallic. As previously established, her choice of the word “Melody” almost
always is intentionally female. Once again, Dickinson seems to be making a social
commentary in order to show the overpowering effect of men on women, as the “Bolts”
seems to be qualifying the “Melody.” But another way of entering the poem is to see the
bolts and the Melody as one inextricable unit — “bolts of Melody.” This suggests that
Dickinson sees that poetry is not exclusively a masculine endeavor or enterprise but as a
combination of strength and beauty, or the sublime and beautiful — to use aesthetic
categories that were pertinent in the nineteenth century.
40
In several of her poems, Dickinson manages to employ synaesthesia in a
startling manner. Perhaps the most famous of these is poem # 280, the first line of
which is “I felt a funeral in my brain.” This image is so ghastly that it seems almost to
overwhelm the senses. In this case, Dickinson has used the verb “felt” in the place of
the verb “saw” to create an image of pure terror. In terms of femininity, the poem
reflects the very introspective nature of Dickinson herself, while illustrating that women
in the nineteenth century were considered to be more feeling, emotional creatures than
thinking beings, and as such, were more susceptible to invasion.
The element of surprise runs like a thread throughout many of her synaesthetic
poems. Another grim description, and again an image for which she is well renowned,
appears in poem #465, which also deals with death. The line “With Blue— uncertain
stumbling Buzz” clearly is synaesthetic. In this image, Dickinson is describing the
coming of the fly between the light and the dying speaker. In this instance, Dickinson is
transferring the color “Blue” onto the noise that the fly makes. This is one poem for
which some criticism, in terms of her intersensory capabilities, does in fact exist. The
critic Judy Jo Small asserts that, “It is a technical tour de force in which the speaker’s
last perception before her senses fail is dominated in both the visual and the auditory
realm by the insignificant insect; harbinger of the universal fate of the flesh” (29). In
terms of a strictly sensory analysis, Small’s critique is sound to a large extent; however,
the word “insignificant” seems largely out of place. It seems as though in both of these
poems, Dickinson has allowed the element of surprise to soar to strata strophic new
heights to emphasize the idea of invasion and even ravishment. To this end, these
poems could be read from a female perspective because they deal with the ultimate act
41
of male spontaneous intrusion, which can be viewed in terms of rape. The fly, in poem
#465, can be seen in terms of a pseudo-erotic villain: “Dickinson introduces a gothic
villain, sometimes in the guise of death, sometimes as the goblin or other creatures, who
threatens the speaker with violation” (Wardrop 70). This rape to which Dickinson refers
can be seen in a literary context as it seems to capture the attempted rape of a masculine
sea. The ‘fly,’ if perceived through a feminine lens, can be representative of men and in
the poem, it is quite aptly ‘interposed.’ In the poem, the fly is intruding on the woman
since it stands between her and her journey towards the “light” or the afterlife.
In addition to the fly, the bee plays an integral role in many of Dickinson’s
erotic poems. Although the bee fulfills several roles in these works, at times the bee is
like the fly; it seems to be a symbol of something that plunders and intrudes. It can be
suggested, therefore, that Dickinson uses insects as some kind of erotic rapists. Like the
fly, Daneen Wardrop states that the bee, “a complicated insect character, does not
behave simply as rapist, for he fulfills many other roles, given the specific poem.
Clearly the bee acts as a kind of Emerson humble-bee in search of transcendent
moments. However, his transcendent ecstasy at other times degenerated into the
unconscious pleasure of a village drunk, a crass version of “one of the roughs” of
Whitman, a vagabond irresponsible to the exigencies of home life…. He is also the one
who ravishes and destroys” (78). Her ability to infuse a female perspective into the
synaesthetic process is demonstrated in poem # 1154, where Dickinson once again uses
synaesthesia to flesh out the intricacies of the position of the violated female:
42
A full fed Rose on meals of Tint
A Dinner for a Bee
In process of the Noon became—
Each bright Mortality
The Forfeit is of Creature fair
Itself, adored before
Submitting for our unknown sake
To be esteemed no more— (1-8)
The synaesthetic line “A full fed Rose on meals of Tint” (1) achieves its potency
through the effectiveness of the sensory transference from gustatory, through the word
“fed;” to visual, through the word “Rose;” and then again to the sense of taste through
the word “meals;” and to the sense of sight through the word “Tint.” The inter-sensory
transference in this poem jumps back and forth, adding an air of fluctuation to the
poem, which characterizes the helplessness and struggle of the female in the poem. The
image of the ‘full fed Rose’ is overflowing with sexual innuendos; it seems as though
the woman is at her sexual peak. The bee takes the rose for his dinner, making it very
clear that he is consuming her. Wardrop states, “for a woman, the wages of sexual
encounter may be mortality on a literal level or, at least, her reputation within a
community that equates virginity with a woman’s worth” (77).
It is undeniable that there are instances where Dickinson uses synaesthetic
imagery that seem to lack a specific gender distinction; however, these images only
serve to emphasize how great of a poet she was and to refute the claims that her poetry
is devoid of synaesthetic elements. In poem #640, the line “Because you saturated
43
sight” (Line 33) is, of course, synaesthetic, moving from the tactile sphere with the
word ‘saturated’ into the visual through the word ‘sight.’ If taken in the context of the
poem itself, it becomes clear that her ability to create these exquisite synaesthetic
images serves to crystallize the intensity of the impact of her (?) love upon her. The
ninth stanza of the poem reads:
Because You saturated sight—
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise. (33-36)
The poem essentially is about the effect that her unattainable love interest, Charles
Wadsworth, had upon her. To an extent, Wadsworth blinded Dickinson to the realities
of the conventional society to which she belonged. His marriage to another, coupled
with his profession as a minister, also could be seen as the reason behind her
disillusionment with the institution of marriage as a whole and her disenchantment with
religion and the church. Later on in the poem, she says:
They’d judge us—How—
For You — served Heaven—You know,
Or sought to—
I could not — (29-32)
Dickinson seems to employ this synaesthetic approach in the poems that deal
specifically with nature. To this end, one of the most poignant examples appears in
poem # 1463, where she refers to “A Resonance of Emerald” (1). This image is striking
because the word “Resonance” belongs of course to the auditory sphere, whereas
44
“Emerald” possesses an interconnected sensory appeal, conjuring both the visual if the
word is perceived in terms of color, as well as the tactile if the word is perceived in
terms of the precious stone. Whatever the reader’s interpretation may be, the overall
effect is that of hearing a color or hearing a solid object. (3). Similarly, in poem #1130,
the line “Twas such an evening bright and stiff” (3) indisputably is synaesthetic. In this
poem the evening is described both in terms of the visual, through the word “bright,”
and well as well as the tactile, through the word “stiff.” This juxtaposition of sensory
images is particularly striking because both words are used to describe the “evening,”
which is not traditionally associated with either of these.
Dickinson's ability to infuse her naturalistic images with synaesthetic touches
again is seen in poem #829, through the lines “Let no Sunrise yellow noise / Interrupt
this Ground” (7-8). In this image, the destination is the sunrise and the sources for the
transfer lie in the words “yellow,” which is clearly visual, and in the word “noise,”
which is auditory. The impact of this image truly is remarkable in that Dickinson is
allowing the reader to perceive sound in terms of color. Once again, her synaesthetic
combination is applied to a specific time of day, almost with the intention of going
against the grain in that sunrises usually are associated with peace and perhaps a roseate
hue.
Her ability to hold her own amidst her male contemporaries is seen in the
synaesthetic imagery she uses to describe pain. In poem #806, she refers to “A Plated
Life—Diversified / With Gold and Silver Pain” (1-2). This is a classic example of
synaesthesia, where the poet has described the sensation of pain in terms of the colors
“Silver” and “Gold.” Dickinson almost seems to glorify pain through the beauty and
45
regality that she has attached to it. Similarly, in poem #639 “And Piles of solid Moan”
(9), Dickinson has attached a word that can be perceived as both tactile and visual; that
is, the word “solid” is attached to an auditory sensation of moaning. This seems to be a
conventional use of synaesthesia in that the words are matched suitably. In poem #79,
Dickinson moves from the visual domain through the word “dim,” to the auditory
dimension through the word “sound” in the line, “Going to Heaven! / How dim it
sounds” (6-7). In this case, she has described sound by using a gradation of light.
Although these images do not necessarily possess gender implications, they illustrate
that Dickinson indisputably utilized synaesthetic effects in her poetry.
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Conclusion
Thus, in conclusion, it can be said that synaesthesia has endured a series of
significant modifications that led to its recognition as an accepted and highly respected
literary technique. The difficulty surrounding its emergence onto the literary stage
stemmed primarily from its scientific beginnings. The “clinical” version of synaesthesia
preceded the “literary” brand and, as a consequence, critics strove for a number of years
to distinguish between those authors and poets who utilized synaesthesia in its clinical
form and those who used it for literary purposes. This statement finds supplementation
in Nicholas Ruddick’s assertion that:
Synaesthesia even when qualified by “literary” has come to be tactically divided
into two kinds: true synaesthesia which most closely reflects the clinical
condition and which therefore only very sensitive writers experience; and false
or pseudo synaesthesia, which is a kind of cheating by minor poets who wish to
pass off mere association as something profound. (77)
Additionally, many of the earliest recordings of synaesthetic images seemed to be rather
artificial and imposed on the work. The critics objected to this superficial construction of
sensory images extensively enough to keep synaesthesia out of the literary tradition for
many years after it had started its literary life. These early critical opinions are invaluable
because they paved the way for the acceptance of the natural form of synaesthesia. Both
John Keats and Emily Dickinson fall into this category.
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I have argued that Emily Dickinson is a valid candidate for an in-depth
synaesthetic exploration. She uses synaesthesia with more facility than many other
poets. These instances are more than just marginal cases, as critics such as Nicholas
Ruddick attempt to prove. They are concise patterns of sensory images arranged to
produce a particular effect. The poet’s deep love and appreciation for sensory images is
seen in one of her letters, where she says, “Friday, I tasted life. It was a vast morsel. A
circus passed the house — still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out”
(Johnson 193).
Apart from her synaesthetic skill, even more remarkable is the fact that
Dickinson is able to infuse these synaesthetic images with a discernable degree of
femininity. This clearly is exemplified in her poems that deal with death, love, and
marriage. It is ludicrous to assume that because she was an unmarried woman who lived
a life of solitude that she somehow became stripped of her womanhood. Her
synaesthetic amalgamations epitomize naturalness and possess a degree of delicacy that
helps to cement her female perspective. The poems that deal with startling or grotesque
topics still are softened to an extent by her distinctly feminine choice of diction. Thus, it
seems clear that not only does her poetry contain distinctive synaesthetic elements, but
these elements have been tempered by the hand of a woman—a woman who combined
the experiences of other women with her own. Her own experiences enabled her to use
this technique because of the peculiarities of her life. Her Puritan heritage encourages
individual salvation and turning inward to create a private life. She used her privacy
therefore as her power station. This fact ought to be held over any assumption that she
may have fashioned herself after a man. At certain times, Dickinson produces images
48
that seem asexual. This should not, however, serve to discredit her either as a poet or a
woman, but rather, it ought to highlight her greatness as a female poet.
Unlike Dickinson, Keats was not faced with negative criticism in terms of his
synaesthetic genius. He seemed to have possessed a rare gift — a gift unlike any poet of
his time. Apart from his natural poetic ability, Keats, like Dickinson, possessed a slew
of personal idiosyncrasies that may have allowed him to transcend the boundaries of his
contemporaries. The most poignant of these was, of course, the fact that he was facing a
premature death. This stark reality seemed to have impelled him to reflect on the
sensory interplay of his mind as effectively as he could in the most economic manner
possible. Synaesthesia offered this window of opportunity to him. In contrast, the highly
exalted Byronic usage of sense transfer has been described as “characteristic of general
human tendencies, and of the background peculiar to his age, without any substantial
contribution of his own” (de Ullman 817). Keats, on the other hand, in his race against
time and in his preoccupation with becoming famous, surpassed Byron by gargantuan
proportions.
In the same way that Dickinson cannot be viewed as a poet without being
viewed as a woman, readers always must be mindful that Keats is both a man and a
poet. It is therefore unquestionable that his gender factors into his use of synaesthesia.
This is especially clear in the poems that deal with love and sexuality because, as a
young man on the verge of death, it seems only natural that sex, passion, and eroticism
would be foremost in his mind. Keats as a man in the nineteenth century enjoyed certain
liberties that allowed him to pursue more taboo avenues of synaesthetic expression. It
should be noted that Keats produced a number of synaesthetic images, which like a few
49
of Dickinson’s images, appear asexual.
In terms of the Keats and Dickinson, it is possible to say that they both used
synaesthesia extraordinarily. Due to the fact that a poet still is a person and as such will
form an inextricable link between his or her work and their respective gender, both
poets manage to infuse their poetic endeavors either with the graces or the curses of
their particular natures. Thus, as we have seen, Keats’s impending death and
Dickinson's specific gender provided both a boundary and an impetus in the creation of
some of the most astonishing poetry produced in the nineteenth century.
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