Wednesday, January 31, 2007
There's a certain slant of light...
There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
- Emily Dickinson
In Dickinson’s original manuscript version the last two lines of the stanza read “That oppresses, like the heft/Of cathedral tunes”, which seems better to me, as having a more Anglo-Saxon sense of violence and doom. *
However, there is also a certain slant of light, winter afternoons, that inflates, rather than oppresses. Perhaps it’s easier to see this light on the Riviera than in Amherst,
Massachusetts. But still, this is sunset light that suggests that maybe, just maybe, spring is possible. After all, the days now are about the length of days in late November, and that never seems so completely doomstruck.
However, there is also a certain slant of light, winter afternoons, that inflates, rather than oppresses. Perhaps it’s easier to see this light on the Riviera than in Amherst,
Massachusetts. But still, this is sunset light that suggests that maybe, just maybe, spring is possible. After all, the days now are about the length of days in late November, and that never seems so completely doomstruck. ---------------------
* This poem is an exception to the occasionally made observation that Dickinson's poems can be successfully sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." You can make it work, but it's a stretch with this one.
Said observation having been made once, that I know of, on the criminally cancelled "Joan of Arcadia" which was the only thing that redeemed Friday night TV since the even more criminally cancelled "Homicide." "Ghost Whisperer" tries to fill the gap, in its Jennifer Love Hewitt-esque way, but it's a pale imitation, pun intended.
