Emily Dickinson


episode. The literary genre of Gothic horror was popular in Dickinson’s day, and there is certainly a sense of horror and fear here. In many Gothic novels, such as The Mysteries of Udolpho, there is an uneasy relationship between romance and horror. Women are abducted and imprisoned, and a lot of the tension for the reader lies in the fear that the female character may be violated. Dickinson would have been very familiar with Gothic literature, and uses some of its conventions here, such as imprisonment and an atmosphere of menace and peril.


A goblin is an ugly, malevolent creature from folklore, and Dickinson describes this repulsive creature sipping from the same cup that the lover hovered over: ‘Sip, Goblin, from the very lips/ The Lover – hovered – o’er –’. It is interesting that the Goblin ‘sips’ while the lover ‘hovers’. The choice of verbs suggests an imbalance, that there are more bad times than good times. The next lines show what a pity it is that a person so capable of happiness is accosted by the ‘Goblin’ of fear and anxiety: ‘Unworthy, that a thought so mean/ Accost a Theme – so – fair –’. This comparison has just as big an impact on a contemporary audience as it would have had in Dickinson’s day, because goblins, wizards, witches and elves are enjoying a resurgence in popularity in recent years.


In the next stanza there is an abrupt change in tone, as the speaker describes their sudden and dramatic release from the prison of mental illness: ‘The soul has moments of Escape –/ When bursting all the doors –/ She dances like a Bomb, abroad,/ And swings upon the Hours’. The alliteration of the rather violent verb ‘bursting’ with ‘Bomb’ gives the impression that this happiness is dangerous. It seems hyperactive and out of control. Perhaps this is only because of the contrast with how Dickinson felt before, but it is such a polar opposite that it has caused some critics to conclude that Dickinson may have been bipolar. In any case, a bomb is a volatile entity. It might explode at any moment, whereas to swing upon the hours means to lose track of time, something we normally do when we are really enjoying ourselves.


Dickinson compares the extremity of this happiness to what a bee might feel when, having been deprived of the rose from which he drinks his nectar, he is reunited with his food source once again: ‘As do the Bee – delirious borne –/ Long Dungeoned from his Rose –/ Touch Liberty – then know no more –/ But Noon, and Paradise –’. In such a scenario, the bee would be in heaven, and the speaker in the poem is similarly euphoric.


This joy does not last. Depression returns to claim its victim once again. The soul has ‘plumed’ or winged feet, like Hermes, the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology, and this represents the spirit’s ability to fly. However, the repulsive Goblin of fear and depression has shackled the spirit’s feet and imprisoned it: ‘The Soul’s retaken moments –/ When, Felon led along,/ With shackles on the plumed feet’. It has even driven ‘staples’ or metal bars into the song of the soul – perhaps the ‘tune without the words’ Dickinson writes about in ‘“Hope” is the thing with feathers’: ‘And staples, in the Song’.


The last two lines in the poem are chilling. Things that are unsaid or unseen are always more frightening to us than fears we can confront. The speaker tells us that this awful experience can never be spoken about or expressed in words, it is too awful for that: ‘The Horror welcomes her, again,/ These, are not brayed of Tongue –’


LEAVING CERTIFICATE HIGHER LEVEL 97


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