Emily Dickinson and poetic strategy

Abstract

”I dwell in Possibility - /A fairer House than Prose - ,” Emily Dickinson begins a poem that describes how, simply by “spreading wide” her “narrow hands,” she gathers “Paradise” (Fr 466, J 657). However, this “house” of possibility is not a dwelling providing shelter in the usual sense but is instead composed of trees and sky. The house of possibility is “More numerous of windows” and “Superior of doors” than “Prose,” which is not only enclosed by humanly constructed dimensions but is also, the poet suggests, more constraining than protecting, more imprisoning than liberating. Prose: the genre, what is not poetry; prosy: what is matter-of-fact and dry; prosaic: what is lacking in imagination or spirit, what is dull. In “I held a Jewel in my fingers – ” the poet explains that, confident her jewel would “keep,” she allows herself to fall asleep in the warm day with its “prosy” winds, until, as she laments, I woke – and chid my honest fingers, The Gem was gone – And now, an Amethyst remembrance Is all I own- (Fr 261, J 245)