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ELSEVIER Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~566

Metaphor making meaning:

Dickinson's conceptual universe
M a r g a r e t H. F r e e m a n
Department of English, Los Angeles Valley College, 5800 Fulton Avenue, Van Nuys,
CA 91401-4096, USA

Abstract

If meaning, understanding, and reasoning in human language are achieved through bod-
ily experience and figurative processes, as recent work in cognitive linguistics has argued,
then the traditional notion of a separation in kind between ordinary discourse and poetic lan-
guage no longer holds. Metaphor making, under this view, is not peripheral but central to
our reasoning processes, not unique to poetical thinking but that which is shared by both
ordinary discourse and the language of poetry. Poets, then, in their metaphor making, serve
as arbiters of and commentators on the way humans understand and interpret their world.
Much of Dickinson's poetry is structured by the extent to which she rejected the dominant
metaphor of her religious environment, that of LIFE IS A JOURNEY THROUGHTIME, and
replaced it with a metaphor more in accordance with the latest scientific discoveries of her
day, that of LIFEIS A VOYAGEIN SPACE. Examples from her poems show how the schemas of
PATH and CYCLEand the AIR IS SEA image metaphor contribute to a coherent and consistent
patterning that at the same time reflects a physically embodied world and creates Dickin-
son's conceptual universe.

I. Introduction

Does meaning make metaphor? Or does metaphor make meaning? The ortho-
dox view, dominant in the tradition that comes down to us from Plato and Aristo-
tle, sees metaphor as merely imitative of an objective reality, a reality that can be
known independently of human participation. With the rise of m o d e m science,
however, and particularly in the philosophy of Kant, such presuppositions about
the relation of human cognition to our understanding of physical reality and the
'truths' of this world have been called into question. Kant advanced the debate
between the empirical and rational approaches to these questions by acknowledg-
ing that human perception of physical reality was structured by a pre-existing cog-
nitive ' f r a m e w o r k ' ; Einstein furthered the debate in the twentieth century by
showing that reality is partially constituted by human participation in the physical

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644 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 6 4 3 ~ 6 6

world. 1 R e c e n t w o r k in c o g n i t i v e science, e s p e c i a l l y in the area o f m e t a p h o r , has

d e v e l o p e d a m u c h m o r e s o p h i s t i c a t e d v i e w o f the relations b e t w e e n h u m a n
thought and perception. R e s e a r c h e r s like G e o r g e Lakoff, M a r k Johnson, and M a r k
T u r n e r have shown h o w the m e t a p h o r i c a l structures o f our e v e r y d a y l a n g u a g e are
e m b o d i e d in our p h y s i c a l e x p e r i e n c e o f the w o r l d and have e n a b l e d us to identify
and r e c o g n i z e the i d e a l i z e d c o g n i t i v e m o d e l s that underlie our c o m m o n e v e r y d a y
u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f the w o r l d in w h i c h we live.
W h e n we turn to literary criticism, recognition o f those cognitive m o d e l s is par-
ticularly important, both those that critics hold and those held b y writers. In dis-
cussing the stages o f translating a p o e m into another language, for e x a m p l e , Robert
B ly (1983: 18-19) warns us o f the dangers o f not recognizing the existence o f such
culturally e m b e d d e d presuppositions: " W h e n a poet from another culture contradicts
our assumptions, we tend to fudge his point; therefore to struggle with each eccen-
tricity we see is e x t r e m e l y important . . . . If we d o n ' t , we should let the p o e m alone
and not translate it; w e ' l l only ruin it if we go a h e a d " . W h a t Bly says about trans-
lating poetry is just as true when we are reading p o e m s in our o w n language, espe-
cially when the poet c o m e s from a different milieu or c e n t u r y ? I f we are to under-
stand how a poet like E m i l y D i c k i n s o n structures her experience o f the world, we
need to look at the w a y she structures her metaphors o f that world. A l t h o u g h recent
critical w o r k on D i c k i n s o n takes some account o f cultural m o d e l s (this is e s p e c i a l l y
true o f feminist studies), all the critics I have read p r e s u p p o s e a taken-for-granted
world o f objective reality, onto which D i c k i n s o n ' s i m a g e s are m a p p e d . Such read-
ings assume that the goal o f criticism is to d i s c o v e r the nature o f that m a p p i n g and
how it fits with the truth conditions i m p o s e d by that reality. It is from this perspec-
tive that a m a j o r w o r k on D i c k i n s o n ' s poetry has found much o f it without direction,
coherency, or meaning, and has c o n c l u d e d as a result that D i c k i n s o n had a "finless
m i n d " (Porter, 1981 : passim).
W h a t I should like to argue is that it is the philosophical assumptions underlying
such readings that cause these difficulties. A n Objectivist view o f reality sees
m e t a p h o r as incidental to the propositional basis o f truth. Recent w o r k in cognitive
science, however, has shown, to the contrary, that we organize our k n o w l e d g e
according to prototypes, and that we assign m e m b e r s h i p to categories, not on the

It is interesting that although both Kant and Einstein paved the way for a more complex view of the
nature of reality as it relates to human cognition, neither gave up the traditional belief in objective real-
ity. As Freeman J. Dyson (1980: 7) has noted, "The old vision which Einstein maintained until the end
of his life, of an objective world of space and time and matter independent of human thought and obser-
vation, is no longer ours. Einstein hoped to find a universe possessing what he called 'objective reality',
a universe of mountaintops, which he could comprehend by means of a finite set of equations. Nature, it
turns out, lives not on the mountaintops but in the valleys".
2 R.P. Blackmur (1980: 35) makes this point even more cogently in his discussion of Dickinson. He
argues that the greatness of Dickinson (one can infer "any poet") lies not in "anybody's idea of great-
ness" (or "cultural models" in our terms) but in the "poetic relations of the words - that is to say, by
what they make of each other. This rule, or this prejudice applies ... exactly as strongly to our method
of determining the influence of a culture or a church or a philosophy, alive, dead, or dying, upon the
body of Emily Dickinson's poetry. We will see what the influence did to the words, and more important,
what the words did to the influence" [my emphasis].
 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643q566 645

basis of inherent similarity in concepts or objects, but according to how tightly or

loosely they conform to the prototypes. Metaphorical thinking, according to this
view, is an imaginative mechanism that, together with bodily experience, is "central
to how we construct categories to make sense of experience" (Lakoff, 1987: xii). In
this paper I present a reading of Dickinson's poetry that shows how such metaphor-
ical structure creates what I call "Dickinson's conceptual universe".
Emily Dickinson lived during a time and in a place which both experienced radi-
cal upheavals in beliefs. Puritan New England, as both Allen Tate and R.P. Black-
mur have noted in making this point, was breaking up around her, despite the final
dying gasp of one more Calvinist revival. The times were changing: the early part of
the century saw the rise of what T.H. Huxley was to call "Victorian Agnosticism"
(Lightmann, 1987), and the rise of evolutionary theories during the same period cul-
minated in the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859, when Dickinson
was 29 years old. The challenges presented to traditional, orthodox belief were enor-
mous. And it is in these contexts - of time and place - that, in Blackmur's terminol-
ogy, the "poetic relations" of Dickinson's words exist. How she creates her concep-
tual universe and what its nature is can only be found in examining "what is said in
the saying", to quote Heidegger (1975: 19).

2. The PATH schema and the language of time

Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have shown convincingly that we structure much of
our experience of the world through the metaphor of LIFE IS A JOURNEY, where life is
the target and journey the source domain of the metaphorical construct. Johnson
(1987:113) has further elaborated on this metaphor by showing how PATHS, which
schematically underlie the source domain, journey, have "always the same parts:
(1) a source or starting point; (2) a goal, or end-point; and (3) a sequence of con-
tiguous locations connecting the source with the goal". What, then, for this
metaphor, is the goal of life's journey? For Calvinist religion, the answer is simple:
heaven. And man's purpose in life is therefore just as simple: to get there. The
Calvinist view necessarily devalues life and the things of this world in favor of an
afterlife (the desired goal and purpose of life's journey), as any cursory reading of
Calvinist writings will show. And death, the physical termination of life's journey, is
seen merely as a gate to the afterlife (Fig. 1). 3
But this is exactly where Dickinson balks. As one who once wrote, "I find ecstasy
in living - the mere sense of living is joy enough" (L342a), 4 she could not accept the
way the LIFE IS A JOURNEY metaphor was defined by the religious outlook of her day.

3 I am grateful to Jorge Mata for providing the graphics for this paper.
4 References to Dickinson's works in this paper are drawn from the following sources: T.H. Johnson,
ed., 1958. The letters of Emily Dickinson. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard Uni-
versity Press; T.H. Johnson, ed., 1955. The poems of Emily Dickinson. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Letter numbers in the text are preceded by the letter L; poem
numbers by the letter P.
646 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643--666

source gate goal

birth death heaven

Fig. 1.

She knew it all right, p e r v a s i v e as it was in her readings and her culture. But it is the
w a y she deals with that m e t a p h o r as it is e m b o d i e d in the cultural m o d e l o f Calvin-
ist theology that shows her rejection o f it. Note, for instance, how, in the following
poem, the speaker subverts the j o u r n e y by first m a k i n g it incomplete, with the phrase
" a l m o s t c o m e " , then slowing it d o w n b e c a u s e o f d e a t h ' s barrier, "the Forest o f the
D e a d " , finally to stop altogether with a s y m b o l o f surrender in "the white f l a g "
b e t w e e n retreat and G o d ' s gates (P615):

O u r j o u r n e y had a d v a n c e d -
Our feet were almost c o m e
To that odd F o r k in B e i n g ' s R o a d -
Eternity - by T e r m -

O u r pace took sudden a w e -

O u r feet - reluctant - led
Before - were Cities - but B e t w e e n -
The Forest o f the D e a d -

Retreat - was out o f H o p e -

Behind - a S e a l e d Route -
E t e r n i t y ' s W h i t e F l a g - Before -
A n d G o d - at every Gate -

The s p e a k e r ' s d i s c o m f o r t with continuing the j o u r n e y in this p o e m is a consistent

m o t i f in D i c k i n s o n ' s p o e m s and letters. Her roads are " f u n e r e a l " (P735); " a scarlet
w a y " associated with pain, renunciation, and crucifixion (P527); the speaker on
such a road "felt ill - and o d d - " (P579); the paths d o n ' t so much achieve, or lead
to, or even end at, so much as c o m e to a " s t o p " at their destination (P344):

' T w a s the old - road - through pain -

That unfrequented - one -
W i t h m a n y a turn - and thorn -
That stops - at H e a v e n -

In an early p o e m , she m o c k s the biblical m e t a p h o r (P234):

 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643-666 647

You're right - "the way is narrow" -

And "difficult the Gate" -
And "few there b e " - Correct again -
That "enter in - thereat" -

'Tis Costly - So are p u r p l e s !

'Tis just the price of B r e a t h -
With but the "Discount" of the G r a v e -
Termed by the B r o k e r s - " D e a t h " !

And after t h a t - there's Heaven -

The G o o d M a n ' s - " D i v i d e n d " -
And B a d Men - " g o to Jail" -
I guess -

Dickinson explicitly rejects the idea that life is a path that has a specific, predeter-
mined destination. In contemplating the importance of "experience" in our under-
standing of the world in the following poem, rather than docilely accepting the con-
vention that experience can "lead" us to our destinations, she turns it inward into the
operations of the mind (P910):

Experience is the Angled Road

Preferred against the Mind
By - Paradox - the Mind i t s e l f -

In a late poem, the perennial question of where we " g o " after death is subtly sub-
verted by the underlying negative connotation of its rephrasing (P1417):

Of subjects that resist

Redoubtablest is this
Where go we -
Go we anywhere
Creation after this?

One significant aspect of the PATH schema is its linear characteristic. The
metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY is ostensibly grounded in notions of space and spatial
orientation, embedded in the notion of " p a s s a g e " . However, since " p a s s a g e "
reflects in the aging processes of life the notion of time, the metaphor is actually
temporally determined by the target domain, life. The word j o u r n e y itself, in its
original meaning, meant the distance one could travel in a day (from the French
j o u r ) . More accurately, then, the full metaphoric construct is that of LIFE IS A
JOURNEY THROUGHTIME. This point is crucial in understanding Dickinson's rejec-
tion of the metaphor, because it was not simply the Calvinist view of life's jour-
ney toward heaven that she could not accept; she could not accept traditional
648 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~566

n o t i o n s of time, either. 5 S o m e t i m e s she denies clich6d attitudes, as in " T h e y say

that time a s s u a g e s / T i m e n e v e r did a s s u a g e " (P686), or " D e a t h ' s w a y l a y i n g ' s not
the s h a r p e s t / O f the thefts of T i m e - " (P1296); s o m e t i m e s she c o n d e s c e n d s to
time: " H e doubtless did his best - " (P1478); but it is in her t r e a t m e n t of time in
its relation to eternity on the one hand and the world on the other that we see the
c o m p l e x i t y of her attitudes toward it.
Although this is not the place to explore the whole question of time in D i c k i n s o n ' s
poetry, one poem in particular characterizes the way Dickinson uses time in the con-
text of the metaphor I am discussing here. Dickinson found it difficult, if not impos-
sible, to accept the notion that " d e a t h " was at the " e n d " of a linear progression of a
" l i f e t i m e " and that " e t e r n i t y " somehow came after. For Dickinson, eternity was " i n
time" (P800). In " F o r e v e r - is composed of Nows - " (P624), time and eternity seem
to collapse into one: " ' T i s not a different time - " , and the markers of time "dis-
solve" and " e x h a l e " to obscure the elements of "Infiniteness - / A n d Latitude of
Home - " that distinguish " F o r e v e r " from " n o w " :

Forever - is composed of Nows -

'Tis not a different time -
Except for Infiniteness -
A n d Latitude of Home -

From this - experienced Here -

R e m o v e the Dates - to These -
Let Months dissolve in further Months -
A n d Years - exhale in Years -

Without Debate - or Pause -

Or Celebrated Days -
No different Our Years would be
From A n n o D o m i n i e s -

If Dickinson rejected the metaphor of LIFE IS A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME in its

Calvinist interpretation, what did she replace it with? The answer, perhaps, was lit-
erally all around her. From the details of nature in its annual cycles, the circumfer-
ence of hills that surround the valley in which the town of Amherst lies, and, ulti-
mately, from the discoveries of the new science, D i c k i n s o n transformed the
metaphor of LIFE IS A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME into that of LIFE IS A VOYAGE IN SPACE.

5 What is significant in the following story Dickinson told about herself, as noted by T.W. Higginson
after his meeting with her, is perhaps not so much the facts she relates (though it is unusual, it is true,
for a bright and intelligent child not to be able to grasp the 'telling' of time before the age of fifteen), but
that she thought it noteworthy to tell Higginson about it years later. "I never knew how to tell time by
the clock till I was 15. My father thought he had taught me but I did not understand & I was afraid to
say I did not & afraid to ask any one else lest he should know". (Quoted by Higginson in a letter to his
wife on the 17 August 1870. L342b.)
 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643-666 649

It is perhaps difficult for us, with space ship U l y s s e s on its f o u r - y e a r v o y a g e to the

sun, to i m a g i n e the c o n c e p t o f previous centuries that the solar system, though large,
was not very distant, that earth was j u d g e d to be some 4.8 m i l l i o n m i l e s from the
nearest star. N o t until Bressel s u c c e e d e d in the first precise m e a s u r e m e n t , b y m e a n s
o f parallax, o f the distance from earth to a star in 1838, only eight years after Dick-
i n s o n ' s birth, d i d scientists establish just h o w vast the universe is. N e w discoveries
were h a p p e n i n g all the time: through the w o r k o f T h o m a s Wright, Kant, and L a m -
bert, d i s k - s h a p e d g a l a x i e s were discovered, with the sun no longer centered but at
the e d g e o f the disk that f o r m e d the M i l k y W a y . 6 The stars and planets were seen to
be afloat in a great expanse, and scientific m e t a p h o r s d e v e l o p e d which saw space as
a vast sea, with the planets as boats, circling in s w e e p s around the sun (Ferris, 1989:
passim). 7
Such h e a d y stuff p r o v i d e d D i c k i n s o n with the i m a g e r y she needed. F r o m her early
c h i l d h o o d d a y s at A m h e r s t A c a d e m y , D i c k i n s o n took a keen interest in d e v e l o p -
m e n t s in all the p h y s i c a l sciences, from b o t a n y to astronomy. In his b i o g r a p h y o f
D i c k i n s o n , R i c h a r d Sewall (1974: 343) describes h o w E d w a r d Hitchcock, President
o f A m h e r s t C o l l e g e from 1845-1854, was k n o w n for his m e t i c u l o u s scientific obser-
vations and m a d e A m h e r s t a leading center for scientific study. In his writings Hitch-
cock d e v e l o p e d a Natural T h e o l o g y in which he attempted to reconcile a devout
b e l i e f in r e v e a l e d religion with the new scientific d i s c o v e r i e s o f his day. D i c k i n s o n ' s
l a n g u a g e is full o f t e r m i n o l o g y related to the a s t r o n o m i c a l a c h i e v e m e n t s o f the pre-
vious century and to the c o n t e m p o r a r y events and d i s c o v e r i e s h a p p e n i n g in her life-
time. 8 This l a n g u a g e is not incidental. D i c k i n s o n links it i m a g i n a t i v e l y into a coher-
ent c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n that is r e a l i z e d by the m e t a p h o r LIFE IS A VOYAGE IN SPACE.

3. The AIR IS SEA image metaphor

The m e t a p h o r o f the JOURNEY, as we have seen, was p r o b l e m a t i c because, unlike

the VOYAGE m e t a p h o r , it p r e s u m e d a specific destination. 9 A n d " t h e v o y a g e o f life"
was a c o m m o n p l a c e c o n c e p t i o n in her culture. Dickinson, however, t r a n s f o r m e d it

0 Kant's scientific work was conducted when he was a young man. One wonders whether his explo-
rations into the 'new' science provided at least the groundwork for his later philosophy, just as Dickin-
son's readings in the 'new science' led to those aspects of her poetry discussed in this paper.
7 Interesting evidence for the theory of cognitive metaphor is provided in the history of science. In
1728, Bradley solved the problem of aberrant starlight when idly contemplating the movement of a wind
vane in the shape of a boat. As Ferris (1989: 138) explains, "It occurred to Bradley that the earth is
adrift in winds of starlight". Similarly, Herschel's Book of Sweeps was named after the physical move-
ments he made with his telescope to 'sweep' the night sky. Just think what would have happened to the
history of science if Bradley's wind vane had been a rooster!
s See the chapter "Dry Wine", in Emily Dickinson's Imagery (1979), in which Rebecca Patterson dis-
cusses some of these terms and their possible associations with contemporary events.
9 One can see the difference I am alluding to here by considering our commonplace assumptions in our
use of the two words, journey and voyage. When we say we are 'going' on a journey, it is assumed we
have a particular destination in mind; when we 'take' a voyage, however, it is the travelling itself that
seems more important than any possible destination we might have in mind.
650 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643-666

into a m e t a p h o r that created a coherent m o d e l for her conceptual universe, that is,
LIFE IS A VOYAGE IN SPACE. This she achieved through the creation o f the i m a g e
m e t a p h o r AIR IS SEA.1° I call this an i m a g e m e t a p h o r after M a r k T u r n e r ' s usage in
Reading Minds (1991: 171), since the source image, sea, is m a p p e d onto the target
image, air. Each o f these i m a g e s contain i m a g e - s c h e m a t a in t h e m s e l v e s and there-
fore, f o l l o w i n g T u r n e r ' s (1991 : 173) account o f the invariance hypothesis, when we
m a p the i m a g e s c h e m a contained in the source i m a g e sea onto the target i m a g e air,
the target i m a g e acquires only that part o f the i m a g e - s c h e m a t i c structure o f the
source that is not inconsistent with its o w n i m a g e - s c h e m a . F o r e x a m p l e , the sea is
salty, and " s a l t y " therefore is part o f the i m a g e - s c h e m a t i c structure o f sea; " s a l t y " ,
however, is not part o f the i m a g e - s c h e m a o f air, and therefore that part o f the s e a ' s
i m a g e - s c h e m a t i c structure is not m a p p e d onto the target d o m a i n o f air. As we shall
see, D i c k i n s o n does not violate this constraint in her m e t a p h o r i c a l m a p p i n g o f the
sea/air i m a g e - s c h e m a t a .
T h r o u g h o u t the poetry, sea substitutes for air (P 1198):

A soft Sea w a s h e d around the H o u s e

A Sea o f S u m m e r A i r

In one p o e m , the c o m p a r i s o n is m a d e clear (P484):

M y G a r d e n - like the B e a c h -
Denotes there be - a Sea -
That's Summer-

The m e a n i n g o f the first two lines o f what has been considered a puzzling little p o e m
is m a d e clear by recognizing the AIR IS SEA i m a g e m e t a p h o r (P1337):

U p o n a Lilac Sea
To toss incessantly

G i v e n the AIR IS SEA i m a g e metaphor, other c o m p o n e n t s o f the source d o m a i n sea are

m a p p e d onto the target d o m a i n air. Thus EVERYTHING THAT FLIES IS A SAILOR:

Straits o f B l u e / N a v i e s o f Butterflies - sailed thro' - (P247)

Bags o f D o u b l o o n s - adventurous B e e s / B r o u g h t m e - from f i r m a m e n t a l seas -
(P247)

~'~ Judith Fan (1992) has also noted the relationship of Dickinson's imagery to the sea. In a rich
description, she shows how Dickinson's language may be associated with the landscape painters of her
time, specifically Thomas Cole's series of paintings called "the Voyage of Life". Although she com-
ments on the soul's journey, she does not connect the metaphor to the whole of nature, nor does she
identify the principles underlying such metaphorical structuring. Dickinson's images certainly reflect the
Hudson River School of painters to a degree, but 1 would argue that they, like her, are sharing in the
common and well established metaphors that were current in the language of the time.
 M. Freeman /Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643466 651

F o r Captain was the B u t t e r f l y / F o r H e l m s m a n was the Bee (P1198)

A s B i r d ' s far N a v i g a t i o n / . . . / A plash o f Oars, a G a i e t y - (P243)
The most t r i u m p h a n t B i r d I e v e r k n e w or m e t / E m b a r k e d u p o n a twig today
(P1265)
A n d he unrolled his f e a t h e r s / A n d r o w e d him softer h o m e - (P328)

E v e n an insect like the " S u m m e r G n a t " is " U n c o n s c i o u s that his single F l e e t / D o not
c o m p r i s e the skies - " (P796).
In like manner, action verbs associated with EVERYTHING THAT FLIES are also asso-
ciated with the sea:

A S p a r r o w . . . / I n v i g o r a t e d , w a d e d / I n all the d e e p e s t S k y (P1211)

O r Butterflies, o f f B a n k s o f N o o n / L e a p , plashless as they swim. (P328)

S o m e t i m e s , EVERYTHING THAT FLIES IS A BOAT, as in the p o e m in which a bird leaves

its nest for the first time (P798):

A n d now, a m o n g C i r c u m f e r e n c e -
Her steady Boat be seen -
A t h o m e - a m o n g the B i l l o w s - A s
T h e B o u g h where she was born -

Sunsets, too, are d r a w n into the m e t a p h o r , as air, n o w u n d e r s t o o d as sea, is p r o j e c t e d

onto the sky and u l t i m a t e l y onto space. Thus SUN IS A BOAT:

A S l o o p o f A m b e r slips a w a y / U p o n an Ether Sea, (P1622)

I have a N a v y in the W e s t (P1642)

W h e r e Ships o f Purple - gently toss -

O n Seas o f D a f f o d i l -
Fantastic Sailors - m i n g l e -
A n d t h e n - the W h a r f is still! (P265)

In one p o e m , the sunset b e c o m e s the sea itself, and the i m a g e s associated with the
sea - traffic, landing, bales, m e r c h a n t m e n - the traces left in the sky b y the sun in its
setting (P266):

This - is the land - the Sunset washes -

These - are the B a n k s o f the Y e l l o w Sea -
W h e r e it rose - or whither it rushes -
T h e s e - are the W e s t e r n M y s t e r y !

Night after Night

H e r p u r p l e traffic
Strews the landing with O p a l Bales -
652 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643-666

M e r c h a n t m e n - poise upon Horizons -

Dip - and vanish like Orioles!

The SEA IS AIR image metaphor also encompasses the h u m a n being to give the
metaphor THE HUMAN BEING IS A SAILOR (P1656):

D o w n T i m e ' s quaint stream

Without an oar
W e are enforced to sail
Our Port a Secret
Our Perchance a Gale
What Skipper would
Incur the Risk
What Buccaneer would ride
Without a surety from the W i n d
Or schedule of the Tide -

Like EVERYTHINGTHAT FLIES, THE HUMAN BEING IS A BOAT:11

O n e p o r t - suffices - for a Brig - like m i n e - (P368)

If my Bark s i n k / ' T i s to another sea - (1234)
M y s e l f endued Balloon/By but a lip of Metal - / T h e pier to m y P o n t o o n - (P505)
One little boat gave up it's strife/And gurgled d o w n and down. (P30)
My little craft was lost! (P107)

As with EVERYTHINGTHAT FLIES, THE HUMAN BEING is also associated with sea-related
action verbs:

I can wade G r i e f - (P252)

Sweet Pirate of the heart,/Not Pirate of the Sea,/What wrecketh thee? (P1546)

A hint of piracy (from childhood scenes of " w a l k i n g the p l a n k " ) hovers around the
following poem that describes the voyage of life (P875):

I stepped from Plank to Plank

A slow and cautious way
The Stars about my Head I felt
A b o u t my Feet the Sea.

~1 It is possible to claim that the imagery here reflects the body-soul split of Platonic philosophy, and
that it is the body, not the soul, that is the boat. However, I think that this is an example and monition of
Bly's warning that we not read into a poet's conceptual schema our own preconceptions. The erotic sug-
gestion of "Wild Nights - Wild Nights!" (P249) depends on seeing the whole human being as a boat,
not just the body. Dickinson's depth of agony in confronting the idea of death also takes its force from
this metaphor.
 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~66 653

I knew not but the next

Would be my final inch -
This gave me the precarious Gait
Some call Experience.

As this poem suggests, the AIR IS SEA image metaphor transforms the "voyage" of
life, common to conventional views, from one that is earth-bound to one that takes
place within the context of outer space, as the speaker is poised between star and sea.
Dickinson completes this transformation by the additional schema of the CYCLE.

4. The CYCLE schema and the language of SPACE

As Mark Johnson (1987:119) describes this schema, the cycle is part of our phys-
iological make-up: "We experience our world and everything in it as embedded
within cyclic processes: day and night, the seasons, the course of life (birth through
death), the stages of developments in plants and animals, the revolutions of the heav-
enly bodies". The schema is also something imposed by conventional cycles, such as
the time constructs we have created in Western tradition: the hour, the week, the
year. Based on earlier studies Johnson (1987: 120-121) cites, he comes up with four
features shared by conventional cycles:

(1) Cycles constitute temporal boundaries for our activities.

(2) Cycles are multiple, overlapping, and sequential.
(3) Cycles can be quantitatively measured according to mathematics of time, but
they will also have qualitative differentiation.
(4) There is a difference between "natural" and "conventional" cycles.

As Johnson (1987:119) says: "Most fundamentally, a cycle is a temporal circle" in

which "backtracking is not permitted".
Dickinson was enormously sensitive to the natural cycles of the seasons, the
recurrent change from day to night, the daily routines of the household. However,
one way in which her imagination reached beyond the boundaries of the cultural
model of "cycle" she inherited was to spatialize the temporal construct of the cycle.
Thus she often changes the linear trajectory of things that move, EVERYTHINGTHAT
FLIES; SUN, STARS, AND PLANETS; and HUMAN BEINGS,into a circular one:

Butterflies from St Domingo/Cruising round the purple line - (P137)

Some little Wren goes seeking round - (P143)
Within my Garden, rides a Bird/upon a single Wheel - (P500)
See the Bird .../Curve by Curve - Sweep by Sweep - / R o u n d the Steep Air -
(P703)

And all the Earth strove common round - (P965)

Meanwhile - Her wheeling King - [referring to the sun] (P232)
654 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643-666

Convulsion - playing round - / H a r m l e s s - as streaks of Meteor - (P792)

Swifter than the hoofs of Horsemen/Round a Ledge of dream! (P65)

The Feet, mechanical, go round - / O f Ground, or Air, or Ought - (P341)
I worried Nature with m y Wheels/When H e r ' s had ceased to run - (P786)
My wheel is in the dark !/. . ./Yet know it's dripping feet/Go round and round.
(PIO)

To these components we can add the SEASONS, the WEATHER, LIFE itself:

[Autumn] eddies like a Rose - away - / U p o n Vermillion Wheels - (P656)

The Seasons played around his knees (P975)
As Floods - on Whites o f Wheels - (P788)
O f Life's penurious Round - (P313)

To take just one of the many metaphors in the poetry that deal with space and that
are generated from the CYCLE schema, I choose the obvious one of the cycle itself,
which Dickinson invariably associates with the word wheel. (Lest readers presume
this is no metaphor, remember that bicycles were not invented until later in the cen-
tury; 12 the word cycle comes from the Greek kuklos, which also means wheel, a
point Dickinson would have recognized and appreciated from her beloved lexicon.)
The word cycle in Dickinson's poems refers to the cyclical m o v e m e n t of the planets
and is, as expected, associated with time. But the addition of wheel creates the
metaphorical extension of m o v e m e n t through space. In an early poem in which
Dickinson asks God to find a place for the mouse that has been killed by a cat, she
imagines it " S n u g in seraphic Cupboards" while "unsuspecting Cycles/Wheel
solemnly a w a y ! " (P61). In a somewhat more serious poem, again on the subject o f
death, in which eternity is associated with sea imagery, the speaker imagines time as
a m o v e m e n t through space (P 160):

Next time, to tarry,

While the Ages steal -
Slow tramp the Centuries,
And the Cycles wheel!

Dickinson found the schema o f CYCLE more productive than the schema o f PATH
because it accorded more closely with her conception of the physical world.
Although Johnson identifies the CYCLE schema with time, it is also closely associ-
ated, as Dickinson saw, with the movement of the earth in space. The notion o f an

~2 The first definition for cycle in the OED (Second Edition) is the astronomical: "a circle or orbit in
the heavens", and the earliest literary reference for this meaning is cited as 1631. The first reference for
the abbreviated version of bicycle or tricycle is 1870. The second definition, "a recurrent period of a def-
inite number of years adopted for the purposes of chronology" is closely associated in its earliest cita-
tions (the first 1387) with time calculations based on the (spatial) movement of the planets and stars.
 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~66 655

infinite universe, encouraged by the discoveries of the new science, enabled Dickin-
son to relate both the temporal and spatial elements of her geography and the AIR IS
SEA metaphor in a mapping of the details of the particular world around her into the
vaster world of space. Thus the particulars of a flower are projected onto a sunset in
a poem whose final lines show Dickinson's awareness of and wry reaction to the sci-
entist who paradoxically must have faith in order to explore faith (P1241):

The Lilac is an ancient shrub

But ancienter than that
The Firmamental Lilac
Upon the Hill tonight -
The Sun subsiding on his Course
Bequeathes this final Plant
To Contemplation - not to Touch -
The Flower of Occident.
Of one Corolla is the West -
The Calyx is the Earth -
The Capsules burnished Seeds the Stars -
The Scientist of Faith
His research has but just begun -
Above his synthesis
The Flora unimpeachable
To T i m e ' s Analysis -
"Eye hath not seen" may possibly
Be current with the Blind
But let not Revelation
By theses be detained -

It is interesting, and perhaps significant, that just as the etymology of the word
journey includes the element of time, as we have seen, so the etymology of the word
voyage includes the element of space, since the morpheme [voy] comes from the
Latin via, meaning path or way. By revealing the metaphorical TIME relation to the
processes of life in the SPACE schema that underlies the schema of PATH in the JOUR-
NEY metaphor and by revealing the metaphorical SPACE relation to the physical uni-
verse in the schema of TIME that underlies the schema of CYCLE in the VOYAGE
metaphor, Dickinson created a world view in which physical location and temporal
constructs come together (see Fig. 2). 13
The points on the compass where the lines bisect the circle represent the climaxes
of the CYCLE schema that, as Johnson (1987: 120) observes, we impose, such as the
life cycle we experience "as moving from birth to the fulness of maturation fol-
lowed by a decline toward death". By overlapping the temporal constructs of the

~3 See the chapters on "Emily Dickinson's Geography" and "The Cardinal Points" in Emily Dickin-
son's Imagery (1979) for Rebecca Patterson's more detailed discussions of the terms used in Fig. 2.
656 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643--666

North
Winter
Mldntght

I1"1

UOON
Je~u.Jns
q.Lnos

Fig. 2

daily and annual climaxes with the geographically determined points of the com-
pass, Dickinson has transformed the into spatial schemata. Thus, temporal cli-
maxes on the circle are mapped onto the source domain of space, so that TIME IS
LOCATION :

A Music numerous as space - / B u t neighboring as Noon - (P783)

Past Midnight! Past the Morning S t a r ! / . . . / A h , What leagues there were (P174)
Whose galleries - are Sunrise - (P161)
Though sunset lie between - (P1074)

To continents of summer - / T o firmaments of sun - (P180)

Winter under cultivation/Is as arable as Spring (P1707)
Who fleeing from the Spring (P1337)
Besides the Autumn poets sing (P131)

In the following poem, the cyclical components of "circumference" and "diame-

ter" structure the relationship of time and eternity (P802):

Time feels so vast that were it not

For an Eternity -
I fear me this Circumference
Engross my Finity -

To His exclusion, who prepare

By Processes of Size
 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~66 657

For the Stupendous Vision

O f His Diameters -

Here, the spatial concept of size marked by Dickinson's version of the CYCLE
schema, rather than temporal linearity marked by her PATH schema, describes the
notion of time.
It could, perhaps, be argued that Dickinson was simply using the image schemata
of both PATH and CYCLE, which Lakoff and Johnson have shown are basic to con-
ventional interpretations of experience. With respect to her understanding of life,
death, and immortality, however, one can see from her very earliest poems that this
is not the case; that what she did, in fact, was to replace the PATH schema of con-
ventional attitudes toward immortality (her "Flood subject") with the CYCLE schema
projected onto her understanding of space, time, and the universe. The tensions
between the two schemata can be seen to be developing, for example, in the follow-
ing poem in which the "strait pass" is placed, fight at the center of the poem, within
a planetary scene, as "Convulsion" (itself a turning, a convolution) plays "round"
the straight path, and the martyrs' "Expectation" is turned into an image of a com-
pass needle wading through "polar air" (P792):

Through the strait pass of suffering -

The Martyrs - even - trod.
Their feet - upon Temptation -
Their faces - upon God -

A stately - shriven - Company -

Convulsion - playing round -
Harmless - as streaks of Meteor -
Upon a Planet's Bond -

Their faith - the everlasting troth -

Their Expectation - fair -
The Needle - to the North Degree
Wades - so - thro' polar Air!

Even though the martyrs believe they are proceeding on a linear path that will lead
them to their final destination, in the planetary scene of Dickinson's world, paths are
in fact orbits, with the result that what seems straight to the martyrs is in fact circu-
lar and cyclical. Their faith and their expectation, the "everlasting" covenant they
have made with God, is ironically compared with the needle of the compass pointing
to magnetic north, just as the poles, which mark the diameter of the earth's sphere,
appear fixed but are actually moving in space, kept in their orbit by the sun's
"Bond".
In what is perhaps her most famous "journey" poem, "Because I could not stop
for Death - " (P712), the same pattern of change at the very center of the poem
occurs as the journey is abruptly terminated with a cyclical image of movement in
658 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~566

space: " W e passed the Setting Sun - / O r rather - He passed Us - " , and the tone
changes from a pleasant afternoon's ride to the "quivering and chill" of the grave.
This stanza (interestingly omitted from the poem on its first publication) transforms
the poem from an otherwise fairly orthodox account of life's journey to one that is
more problematic and foreshadows the incompletion at the end, as time and the jour-
ney stand still:

Since then - 'tis Centuries - and yet

Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses Heads
Were toward Eternity -

In " N o Man can compass a Despair - " (P477), the poet compares the man to a
traveler going round "a Goalless Road" who is "Unconscious of the Width -
/Unconscious that the Sun/Be setting on His progress - " . With such a metaphorical
restructuring of the linear, temporal characteristic of the journey into a circular, spa-
tial orientation, Dickinson formulated a vision of a world in which the dead have no
place. Unlike religious interpretations of the LIFE IS A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME
metaphor, in which the afterlife is its destination and death merely a gate on the way
(as was shown in Fig. 1), Dickinson's new metaphor had no place for either in her
conceptual universe (see Fig. 3).

.... i~::..::::::.:::~.~
I

." ,,'

:~'~" . ~ i ~. •

Death ?
Fig. 3

In a cyclical universe, the geographical metaphors of goal, location as up or end

have no physical, bodily grounding, with the consequence that it no longer makes
sense to speak of "destination" after death. The problematic "location" of the dead
is raised in the following poem which confronts the conflict between the two
metaphors directly as astronomy replaces revealed religion in establishing G o d ' s
existence (P1528):
 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643466 659

The M o o n u p o n her fluent Route

Defiant of a Road -
The Star's Etruscan A r g u m e n t
Substantiate a G o d -
If A i m s impel these Astral Ones
The ones allowed to k n o w
K n o w that which makes them as forgot
As D a w n forgets them - n o w -

If there is p u r p o s e in the universe, only the dead can k n o w - but they are b e y o n d
m e m o r y and time. A variant to the last four lines of this p o e m makes even clearer
the loss of H e a v e n as an anticipated goal at the end of life's j o u r n e y with the shift to
a cosmological perspective and the disruption of linear time:

How archly spared the H e a v e n "to c o m e " -

If such prospective be -
By superseding Destiny
A n d dwelling there Today -

With the LIFE IS A VOYAGE IN SPACE metaphor, D i c k i n s o n conceives a n e w place

for life on earth. It is almost as though D i c k i n s o n has anticipated the concept of
m o d e r n physics that not just the world but the universe itself can be finite but
u n b o u n d e d . 14
No longer are we travelers on l i f e ' s road, but we are identified with the earth
itself in its daily rotation, as the first and last stanzas of the following p o e m show
(P721):

B e h i n d Me - dips Eternity -
Before Me - Immortality -
M y s e l f - the T e r m b e t w e e n -
Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray,
Dissolving into D a w n away,
Before the West b e g i n -
. o .

'Tis Miracle before Me - then -

'Tis Miracle b e h i n d - b e t w e e n -
A Crescent in the Sea -
With M i d n i g h t to the North of Her -

14 See graphic in Timothy Fen-is' Coming of Age in the Milky Way (New York: Doubleday, 1988:
202), where he describes the fact that "two-dimensional inhabitants of a finite universe must confront
the paradox of an 'edge' to their cosmos. But if we add a dimension, curving the plane on which they
live into a sphere, their world, though still finite, becomes unbounded. General relativity reveals a simi-
lar prospect for the four-dimensional geometry of the universe we three-dimensional creatures inhabit:
hence Einstein's 'closed, unbounded' universe".
660 M. Freeman ! Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643-666

A n d M i d n i g h t to the South o f Her -

A n d M a e l s t r o m - in the Sky -

D i c k i n s o n contemplates the s e e m i n g l y infinite reaches b e y o n d the solar system as

she defines eternity in terms o f space (P695):

As if the Sea should part

A n d show a further Sea -
A n d that - a further - and the Three
But a p r e s u m p t i o n be -

O f Periods o f Seas -
Unvisited o f Shores -
T h e m s e l v e s the Verge o f Seas to be -
Eternity - is Those -

Infinity itself is seen as a giant e x t e n d i n g across the diameters o f the earth, as one
p o e m begins with infinity and ends with eternity (P350):

T h e y leave us with the Infinite.

But He - is not a m a n -
His fingers are the size o f fists -
His fists, the size o f m e n -

A n d w h o m he foundeth, with his A r m

As H i m m a l e h , shall stand -
G i b r a l t a r ' s Everlasting Shoe
Poised lightly on his Hand,

So trust him, C o m r a d e -
You for you, and I, for you and m e
Eternity is ample,
A n d quick enough, if true.

" H o w infinite - to b e / A l i v e - " D i c k i n s o n e x c l a i m e d (P470). It might be (P847):

Finite - to fail, but infinite to Venture -

F o r the one ship that struts the shore
M a n y ' s the gallant - o v e r w h e l m e d Creature
N o d d i n g in N a v i e s n e v e r m o r e -

Perhaps one o f the m o s t revealing p o e m s that suggests " T h e Finite - fur-

n i s h e d / W i t h the Infinite - " (P906) is the following, which unites the m e t a p h o r s o f
air/sea with those o f space, ending with an explicit reference to the scientific estab-
lishment in the final stanza (P797):
 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~166 661

By m y W i n d o w have I for Scenery

Just a Sea - with a Stem -
If the Bird and the F a r m e r - deem it a " P i n e " -
The O p i n i o n will do - for them -

It has no Port, nor a " L i n e " - but the Jays -

That split their route to the Sky -
Or a Squirrel, whose giddy P e n i n s u l a
May be easier reached - this way -

For Inlands - the Earth is the u n d e r side -

A n d the upper side - is the Sun -
A n d it's C o m m e r c e - if C o m m e r c e it have -
O f Spice - I infer from the Odors borne -

O f it's Voice - to affirm - w h e n the W i n d is within -

Can the D u m b define the D i v i n e ?
The Definition of Melody - is -
That Definition is none -

It - suggests to our F a i t h -
They - suggest to our Sight -
W h e n the latter - is put away
I shall meet with C o n v i c t i o n I somewhere met
That Immortality -

W a s the Pine at m y W i n d o w a " F e l l o w

O f the R o y a l " I n f i n i t y ?
A p p r e h e n s i o n s - are G o d ' s introductions -
To be hallowed - accordingly -

The voyage of the soul is an e m b a r k a t i o n on e t e r n i t y ' s sea (P76):

Exultation is the going

O f an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses - past the headlands -
Into deep Eternity -

That D i c k i n s o n personally identified with her metaphor can be seen in her corre-
spondence. Shortly after the death of her nephew Gilbert, she wrote to her sister-in-
law: " Y o u must let m e go first, Sue, because I live in the Sea always and k n o w the
R o a d " (L306). Life lived in D i c k i n s o n ' s metaphorical sea is graphically portrayed in
the following p o e m (P867):

Escaping b a c k w a r d to perceive
662 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~666

The Sea upon our place -

Escaping forward, to confront
His glittering Embrace -

Retreating up, a Billow's hight

Retreating blinded down
Our undermining feet to meet
Instructs to the Divine.

The destination of the dead in a cyclical universe is a concept she struggled with
all her life. The surviving worksheet of a poem she tried to reconstruct approxi-
mately sixteen years after she first recorded it reveals the underlying structural
metaphor of LIFE IS A VOYAGEIN SPACE with its accompanying ambiguity of a loca-
tion for the dead (P533). The early version of this poem, written, so far as we can
tell, when Dickinson was 32 years old, shows again the consistent use of the AIR IS
SEA image metaphor and the LIFE IS A VOYAGEIN SPACE metaphor, as the butterflies
"together bore away/Upon a shining Sea". The focus of this 1862 poem is on Dick-
inson's identification with and knowledge of the "Sea" of nature: the butterflies'
disappearance is marked by no "mention" of their arrival in "any Port - " , no
"notice/Report" made to the speaker either by the speech of the "distant Bird" or by
a "Frigate, or by Merchantman - " . The idea that these butterflies may have
embarked upon the sea of eternity is only suggested, hinted at. When Dickinson
returned to this poem sixteen years later, she made both the sea imagery and the tran-
sition from life to death more explicit, even though the poem remains in a worksheet
draft (see Fig. 4).
Now the "shining Sea" is replaced with "eddies/fathoms/rapids of the Sun - " , a
more concrete image of the cosmological concept of space as a vast sea; the "Port"
has become a "Peninsula", reflecting a venturing forth rather than a coming home;
the butterflies are "wrecked/drowned/quenched in Noon - " , a time which marks for
Dickinson a transitional point, as does midnight; and the final stanza makes explicit
the actual death of the butterflies, shifting the emphasis from what the speaker might
have heard to the more generalized "Example - and monition". The images of cir-
cumference, sun, and gravitation, of wreckage and being "hurled from noon" are all
consistent within Dickinson's new conceptual universe. Just as the two butterflies
"stepped straight through the Firmament", the dead no longer " g o " to a "place"
called Heaven; they drop out of the cycle of existence (P149):

She dropt as softly as a star

From out my summer's Eve -

In "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" (P280), the speaker "dropped down, and down
- / A n d hit a World, at every plunge". The dead, in the depths of the earth, are at the
same time "beyond space", space in the newly discovered dimensions of discs and
galaxies. In the following poem, the relentless rhythm of the galloping horse that
underlies the metrical structure is disrupted in the second stanza by the double
 M. Freeman /Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~66 663

[stanza 1]

Two Butterflies went out at Noon

And waltzed upon a Farm
And then espied Circumference
Then overtook---
And caught a ride with him---
and took a Bout with h i m - -

[stanza 2]

Then lost themselves and found themselves

staked lost
chased caught
In eddies of the sun--
Fathoms in
Rapids of
Gambols with
of
For Frenzy zies of
antics in
with
Till Rapture missed them
missed her footing--
Peninsula
Gravitation chased
humbled--
ejected
foundered
grumbled
Until a Zephyr pushed them
chased--
flung--
spumed
scourged
And Both were wrecked in Noon--
drowned--
quenched--
whelmed--
And they were hurled from noon--

[stanza 3]

To all surviving Butterflies

Be this Fatuity
Biography--
Example and monition
To entomology--

The Poems of Emily Dickinson. ed. T. H. Johnson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 1955. II.410-411.

Fig. 4.
664 M. Freeman /Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~66

i m a g e s o f space ( " G i a n t l o n g " ) and time ( " Y e a r l o n g " ) to end with the passionate
cry for a " d i s c " to bridge the distance b e t w e e n the living and the dead (P949):

Under the Light, yet under,

Under the Grass and the Dirt,
Under the B e e t l e ' s Cellar
Under the C l o v e r ' s Root,

Further than A r m could stretch

W e r e it Giant long,
Further than Sunshine could
W e r e the D a y Year long,

Over the Light, yet over,

Over the A r c o f the Bird -
Over the Comet's chimney -
Over the C u b i t ' s Head,

Further than Guess can g a l l o p

Further than R i d d l e ride -
Oh for a Disc to the Distance
B e t w e e n Ourselves and the D e a d !

D i c k i n s o n ' s language o f arcs and disks, 15 crescents and circumferences, is drawn

directly from the n e w l y acquired k n o w l e d g e o f the universe around her. The discov-
ery o f d i s k - s h a p e d galaxies not only vastly increased the reaches o f space, it p l a c e d
our own solar system within such a d i s k - s h a p e d g a l a x y (P1550):

The pattern o f the sun

Can fit but him alone
F o r sheen must have a D i s k
To be a sun -

In her c o n t e m p l a t i o n s o f immortality, D i c k i n s o n found her m e t a p h o r s for time and

space more fitting than the C a l v i n i s t s ' narrow road (P1454):

Those not live yet

W h o doubt to live again -

~5 The word is spelled disc or disk apparently arbitrarily, though the OED says disk is the preferred
spelling in America. Dickinson at first spelled it disc, but then changed to disk, perhaps because of the
influence of its usage in scientific terminology. She certainly was using it in its scientific sense, i.e. as
"the (apparently fiat) surface or 'face' of the sun, the moon, or a planet, as it appears to the eye" (OED).
It was Kant who realized that at a certain angle, the disk-shaped galaxy of the sun appears to be linear
(Ferris, 1989: 148).
 M. Freeman /Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~566 665

" A g a i n " is o f a twice

But this - is one -
T h e Ship beneath the D r a w
A g r o u n d - is he?
D e a t h - so - the H y p h e n o f the Sea -
D e e p is the S c h e d u l e
O f the D i s k to be -
Costumeless Consciousness -
That is he -

D i c k i n s o n ' s LIFE IS A VOYAGE IN SPACE m e t a p h o r enables us to understand that her

s o - c a l l e d " a b s t r a c t i m a g e s " are g r o u n d e d in her e x p e r i e n c e o f the w o d d and the uni-
verse a r o u n d her. The p r o b l e m she faced in accepting the religious i m p o r t o f the LIFE
IS A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME m e t a p h o r and the w a y she r e p l a c e d it with LIFE IS A VOY-
AGE IN SPACE is g r a p h i c a l l y d i s p l a y e d in the f o l l o w i n g p o e m , with its contrast
b e t w e e n the static i m a g e o f the d e a d in a location in space " u n t o u c h e d " by time, in
the first stanza, and the m o v e m e n t o f time through space, with the associated i m a g e s
o f circle and sea, in the s e c o n d (P216):

Safe in their A l a b a s t e r C h a m b e r s -
Untouched by Morning -
A n d untouched b y N o o n -
Lie the m e e k m e m b e r s o f the Resurrection -
Rafter o f Satin - and R o o f o f Stone!

G r a n d go the Years - in the Crescent - a b o v e t h e m -

W o r l d s scoop their A r c s -
A n d F i r m a m e n t s - row -
D i a d e m s - drop - and D o g e s - surrender -
S o u n d l e s s as dots - on a Disc o f S n o w -

Infinity in time, eternity in space. H a d D i c k i n s o n k n o w n about b l a c k holes, in

which time and space e x c h a n g e places, she might have found the m e t a p h o r she was
searching for that w o u l d enable her to unite life and death. 16 A s it was, she was left
suspended at the point in which the old order had been discredited b y the new sci-
ence, but m o r e questions had been raised as a result. She would, however, have
understood D y s o n ' s lectures in Infinite in All Directions (1980: 14), and perhaps seen
her o w n attempt to link the things o f this world to the universe in the images he uses:

16 The classical theory of black holes, according to Dyson (1980: 21), says "that black holes are
absolutely permanent", a concept that would surely have apealed to Dickinson's desire for confidence in
immortality. But, as Dyson continues, Stephen Hawking's work has shown that "a black hole is not just
a bottomless pit but a physical object". In Hawking's achievement in bringing "black holes back out of
the domain of mathematical abstraction into the domain of things that we can see and measure", we see
the same principles of physical embodiment that are applied in the cognitive theory of metaphor.
666 M. Freeman / Journal of Pragmatics 24 (1995) 643~66

"Butterflies are at the extreme of concreteness, superstrings at the extreme of abstraction. They mark the
extreme limits of the territory over which science claims jurisdiction. Both are, in their different ways,
beautiful. Both are, from a scientific point of view, poorly understood. Scientifically speaking, a butter-
fly is at least as mysterious as a superstring."

That is a concept Dickinson would have understood. Poets have, through the ages,
been credited with the ability to speak truths, to capture, somehow, the "truths" of
the universe through a different path from the ones scientists take. " T e l l all the Truth
but tell it slant - / S u c c e s s in Circuit lies" (P1129) was D i c k i n s o n ' s way of putting
it. In attempting to describe what poets do, however, we reach the 'fudge factor'
when we try to explain how poets 'tell truths', how their work s o m e h o w illuminates
for us the nature of the world and the nature of h u m a n understanding. W e fail to do
so when we impose the false theoretical construct of 'objective reality' on physical
- and poetic - reality. What I have tried to show in this paper is how the construc-

tive power of metaphor enables a poet like D i c k i n s o n not to describe but to create
her own individual world truth, a truth that is grounded in a physically e m b o d i e d
universe.

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