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To "SeeComparatively": Emily Dickinsons Use of Simile

Shirley Sharon-Zisser

The Emily Dickinson Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 1994, pp.

59-84 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/edj.0.0062

For additional information about this article

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SHIRLEY SHARON-ZISSER

To "See Comparatively": Emily

Dickinsons Use of Simile

\Y/e see Comparatively " (P534)1 says one of Emily Dick-VV inson's speakers; and over one third of her poems contain patterns

that enact this epistemological thesis by featuring what Eco calls the "new

semantic coupling" of disparate signifiers (252) through a formal element thattriggers a cognitive process of likening.2 Other poems do not contain formalsimiles but refer to functions of linguistic comparison and thus may be read asa meta-poetic gloss on Dickinson's conception of the figure of simile. Thesepoems present "Comparative Anatomy" (P 100) as a heuristic mechanism forexploring the invisible order beyond the "Glimmering Frontier" of this world.3They suggest that as a result of the poetic act of establishing a relation of com-

parison between the frame of reference (FR) of this order and that of a knownconcept, attributes of the known concept may be "translated" into parallelattributes of the otherwise obscure frame of reference and eventually acceptedas new information about it. For example, the worldly experience of love is

presented as a "Comparative," emphasizing the feature of "privilege" in thesuperhuman FR of Paradise and thus transcending the limitations of "ourignoble Eyes" (P800). At other times, Dickinson questions this optimistic

view, suggesting that as all the informational "Rates" utilized in processing agiven figure of comparison "lie Here," on the side of the known FR, all that

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the figure can do is impose familiar information on the unknown FR, notreveal new information about it (P382).5

Dickinson's multi-faceted and explicitly articulated awareness of pro-cesses of comparison and the relatively high me of similes in her corpus sug-gest that the use of similes is a crucial aspect of her poetics that has beenoverlooked. This paper explores Emily Dickinson's use of similes from theperspective of her meta-poetic stances and the consciousness of the untran-scendable opacity of epistemological and metaphysical boundaries that sopervades her poetry.7

Dickinson's similes may be grouped into two broad thematic categories:"centripetal" and "centrifugal." Together, these categories document a dialec-tical process by means of which limitation is transformed to an advantage.Centripetal (or metafictional) similes react to the disappointing attempt touse language as an exploratory tool by means of a concentration on languageitself, which takes the form of three strategies: inflected concretization,absence, and riddle. Centrifugal similes are enabled by the sense of linguisticpower ultimately derived from this concentration on language. Severed fromattempts at external reference, language comes to be conceived as forcefulenough to turn outwards again and impose meaning upon an alien world bymeans of two strategies: humanization and induction. But whether theybrood on language itself or use language as a way of constructing a significantreality, both centripetal and centrifugal similes put a "Vision of Language"(L782) at center stage. For all their polarization, all of Emily Dickinson'ssimiles are inherently (though not always explicitly) metalinguistic.

Centripetal Similes

"I always try to think in any disappointment," writes Emily Dickinson,"that had I been gratified, it had been sadder still, and I weave from suchsuppositions, at times, considerable consolation; consolation upside down asI am pleased to call it" (L69). For Dickinson, "any disappointment" paradox-ically becomes "at once power and paralysis" (Cameron, 144). The internal

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powers summoned to cope with disappointments and deprivations are pre-sented as exercised to their full capacity and hence as becoming developed toa point in which they are of intrinsic value. Thus on the emotional level,"Pain" can be an occasion to "learn" the skill of "Transport" (P 167) out ofthe pain situation.8 On the epistemological level, the failure to consummatethe desire to know by means of language what lies beyond the bounds ofhuman perception serves Dickinson as an occasion for perfecting the linguis-tic apparatus as an end in itself.9 As similes are the linguistic tool designated

by Dickinson as the most adequate to sound the unknown, it is in hermanipulation of similes that Dickinson's introverting reaction to the failureof this desire is most apparent.

The concentration upon language in itself indeed characterizes the mostcommon type of simile in Dickinson's corpus the illustrative simile inwhich FRl refers to an abstract concept and FR2 is drawn from the realm ofthe palpable. Similes of this type appear either in the traditional form of the-sis and elucidation (FRl-FR2) or, more frequently, in the inverted form ofexample and thesis (FR2-FR1). The poem "The Soul's distinct connection /

With immortality" (P974), in which the image of "Lightning on a Land-scape" supplies a concrete illustration for the metaphysical thesis concerningthe immortality of the soul, exemplifies the first type; "To pile like Thunderto it's close" (P 1247) exemplifies the second type, as its first stanza, evokingthe natural phenomenon of thunder, serves as elucidation for the poet'sinsight on love and poetry, spelled out in the second stanza and in the lastline of the first.

In Dickinson's vision of language it is specifically similes of the thesis-elucidation type which are pointed to as means for extracting informationfrom the unknown. Ultimately finding this fantasy unfulfillable, Dickinsonfaced the task of subjecting the frustration of her vision to the same processshe utilizes to deal with "any disappointment": remolding it to the pointwhere it becomes a source of power. Illustrative similes, which fail as meansfor achieving an end, are thus converted into an end in themselves. The

result is a linguistic form that subverts not only Dickinson's personal fantasyof comparison as a means of gaining knowledge of the unknown but also the

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collective conception of simile as an instrumental figure of elucidation,which is a hallmark of Western rhetoric.10

Dickinson manipulates the conventional and potentially trite illustra-

tive simile, in which one signifier is functionally subordinate to the other, toproject metalingual assertions about the autonomy of the signifier. All illus-trative, thesis-elucidation similes work by pointing at prominent (or"salient") semantic features in the FR2 and either emphasizing them in theFRl or introducing them to it (Ortony, 200). According to Ortony, in thesimile "encyclopedias are like goldmines," features of the elucidating FR2such as "being a reservoir of a desirable substance" are also involved in the

conventional concept of the FRl, encyclopedias. Consequently, "all that the[reader] does" in the interpretation of such similes," is "to promote thesalience of the relevant predicates for the [FRl]" (200). On the other hand,in the simile "my love is like a red red rose," the reader has no informationon the FRl (the speaker's beloved). Thus features of the FR2 such as sweetsmell, beauty or freshness are not promoted in the FRl but rather intro-duced to it. In Dickinson's illustrative similes, however, the same features

that are prominent in the FR2 and emphasized in or introduced to the FRl(what I shall call the "negotiated features" of the simile) also characterize anaspect of language itself. For example, in the illustrative simile constituting"the Soul's distinct connection / With immortality" (P974), the feature"ability to reveal," that is salient in the FR2 (lightning exhibiting "Sheets ofPlace ") and emphasized in the FRl (situations of "Danger / Or quickCalamity " disclosing the immortality of the soul) is also a salient feature

of the form of illustrative simile itself, in which the FR2 brings to lightunknown or unnoticed aspects of the FRl.

The fact that the negotiated feature of the simile may not merely beemphasized in or introduced to the FR2 but also underscored in an aspect oflanguage could lead a competent and self-conscious reader to actualize notone but two comparative structures: the one involving FR2 and the statedFRl, and the other involving FR2 and a frame of reference drawn from lan-

guage itself (what I shall call a "metalinguistic FR"). In the interpretation ofsuch similes, the second comparative structure, with signification itself at its

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center of attention, looms as a luring alternative to the likening of twosignifiers offered by the first structure.

In the following poem, Dickinson not only deconstructs the illustrativesimile by providing an instance of it that ultimately concentrates on languagemore than on the religious doctrine that language was supposed to elucidatebut also debunks this doctrine itself:

The Props assist the HouseUntil the House is built

And then the Props withdrawAnd adequate, erect,

The House support itselfAnd cease to recollectThe Auger and the Carpenter Just such a retrospectHath the perfected Life A past of Plank and NailAnd slowness then the Scaffolds dropAffirming it a Soul.

(Pl 142)

The detailed concrete FR2 (a house under construction) invites the reader tomatch its features with those of an abstract FRl (a soul in the process of

becoming "perfected"). However, matching is made difficult by the fact thatthe phrase "perfected life" constituting FRl is not only abstract but alsoobscure in its reference. As the poem draws much of its vocabulary from thewell-known Christian notion of the body as the perishable dwelling of theimmortal soul, "perfected life" appears to refer to the edification of the soulafter salvation, so that the poem seems to corroborate theological dogma.Dickinson however, undermines the notion of the body as perishable con-tainer of the soul by inverting the traditional relation between its two com-ponents: in her simile, "house" is not the discardable container but theimperishable contained, the "Soul" itself.

Moreover, the eventual discardability of the formative substance ("scaf-folds") that Dickinson foregrounds in the housebuilding FR is salient notonly in the Christian notion of the perishability of the flesh but also in theprocess of psychic regeneration that she anatomizes in such well-known

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poems as "After great pain, a formal feeling comes " (P341).11 The painexperience, Dickinson implies in such poems, must be "recollected" bothsummoned to memory and remembered or analyzed. However, once vitalityis restored as a result of this analysis, pain can be "let ... go " (P341).Contextualized within Dickinson's thematics the abstract FRl of this poemis revealed not as the Christian narrative of foregoing the flesh in order tobecome pure soul that its vocabulary seems to evoke but as the process ofovercoming pain. Housebuilding becomes one in a series of concrete FRs(along with mountain crossing [P550], or gap filling [P546]) summoned to

promote the salience of the ultimate discardability of pain in the concept ofthe psychic journey which Dickinson recurrently elaborates.

Housebuilding, however, also generates a metalinguistic FR. Eventualdiscardability of the formative substance is also a salient feature of illustrativesimiles, where the concrete FR becomes redundant following the elucidationof the abstract FR. As the negotiated feature (the eventual discardability of aformative substance) is more prominent in illustrative similes (for which it istrue in all cases) than it is for the overcoming of pain as idiosyncraticallyconstructed by Dickinson, it may be emphasized in the latter. In this case,the metalinguistic [FR] of the process of interpreting illustrative simileswould, alongside the FR2 of housebuilding, elucidate the psychic process ofthe conscious reworking of pain that appears to be the poem's main thematicconcern.

However, the two elucidating FRs in this construction the metalin-guistic [FR] of the interpretation of illustrative similes and the FR2 of house-building differ considerably in the degree of their concreteness. The firstis abstract, the second highly palpable. Concrete phrases, explains cognitive

psychologist Paivio, "activate holistic . . . images, in which the componentsare unitized in a single representation" (166). In other words, concretephrases form ordered cognitive structures in which the prominence of vari-ous features is relatively stable. Abstract concepts lack this cognitive unity, sothat the place of their various semantic components is much more fluid (seePaivio, 168). Therefore, the prominence of the discardability of the forma-tive substance is clearer in the concrete concept of housebuilding than it is in

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the abstract linguistic concept of the way illustrative similes are interpreted.In any juxtaposition of these two concepts it is the more concrete concept ofhousebuilding which is likely to serve as what Paivio calls the "conceptualpeg" (169) of their semantic coupling the FR from which the negotiatedfeature is attributed to another FR. Thus, one can actualize the concrete FR2

(the discardability of the scaffolds once the construction of a house has beencompleted) as elucidating not only FRl (the redundancy of the memory of

pain after the psychic recuperation consequent upon its reworking has beenachieved) alongside the metalinguistic [FR] (the discardability of the con-crete part of the simile once it has performed its illustrative function), butalso as elucidating the metalinguistic FR itself. In other words, one can actu-alize two comparison structures for the simile: one in which the metalinguis-tic [FR] is auxiliary and subservient to FRl and the other in which both FRland FR2 are subservient to [FR].

The simile in the poem's surface structure gives rise to two conflictingcomparison structures: one which emphasizes the discardability of a forma-tive substance in the process of overcoming pain and another which empha-sizes the same feature in the process of interpreting illustrative similes. Thefirst comparison structure focuses the reader's attention on what is ostensiblya universal quality of the human soul: its ability to use painful experiences asmaterial for a process of growth and maturation. This comparison structureis centrifugal or outward-referring in that it leads the reader's attention fromthe language of the poem to a putative quality of extra-linguistic "reality."The second comparison structure, however, functions as a counterbalancingcentripetal force, which keeps the reader's attention focused on the process ofinterpreting language rather than on the product of this interpretation. Thereader is thus caught in an oscillation between construing the metapoeticissue of the interpretation of illustrative similes and the abstract psychologicalissue of the formation of "the perfected Life" as the poem's main concern.

Ultimately, however, the concern with the interpretation of languageeclipses the extra-linguistic issue. As Perry and Strenberg have shown, thevery positing of contrary or contradictory interpretive possibilities drives thereader to rummage the text for "clues" which would determine the "correct"

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interpretation and hence focuses attention "on the details of linguistic repre-sentation . . . [and on] . . . the structures of [the] literary work as such"(287). In this case, the attention to language generated by the structure ofambiguity only augments the concern with language required by the contentof one of the interpretive possibilities, outweighing the attention devoted tothe abstract extra-linguistic referent. The rhetorical structure of the poemultimately renders it not a thesis proved but an occasion for the creation of ametalingual game. Paradoxically, the extra-linguistic, psychological FRl the discardability of painful memories at the conclusion of their reworking inthe mind which is so central a concern in Dickinson's thematics

becomes redundant after having made the generation of a metalinguisticfocus possible.

However, the ultimate superfluity to the poem's simile of the psycho-logical FRl is yet another manifestation of the discardability of a formativesubstance, which is this simile's negotiated feature. Thus, the interpretiveprocess generated by the simile itself, in which the abstract extra-linguisticFR that initially seems to be the figure's "tenor" is ultimately overshadowed

by the generated metalinguistic analogues, may be actualized as a secondmetalinguistic FR (FR).

The initial oscillation between a metalinguistic and an extra-linguisticFR as the poem's main concern, made resolvable by the poem's own metalin-gusitic bias, is thus displaced by an irresolvable oscillation between two meta-linguistic FRs: one whose concern is that the concrete FR of illustrativesimiles becomes redundant after having elucidated the abstract thesis andanother projecting the idea that in illustrative similes that generate metalin-guistic analogues, such as those produced by Dickinson, it is the statedabstract thesis itself that becomes redundant to the figure, which ultimatelyconcentrates on language itself. Truly ambiguous in Rimmon-Kenan's senseof the term, this oscillation is between two contrary conceptions of figurativelanguage: one that sees figurative language as a means to elucidate metaphys-ical or psychological "truths" and the other that sees it as an endlesslydeferred game among signifiers. It is on these two opposing conceptions of

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figurative language that the poem ultimately leads the reader to focus, furtheraugmenting the self-referentiality of what initially seems an illustrative simile.

By positing a concretizing FR2 that generates metalinguistic FRs,Dickinson remolds simile as a pawn in a game among signifiers rather thanas an instrument in a doomed quest for the signified. Transfigured into aconstitutive, self-sufficient process, simile ceases to be a tool in a regulativesystem, designed to facilitate orientation in "reality." It becomes part of alanguage which, "trying to replace the signified with the signifier . . . chal-lenges the Western literary tradition's shared assumptions about the verycharacter of figurative language itself" (Feit-Diehl 173). For Dickinson,"The Soul's Superior instants" (P306) are achieved alone, within the circleof the "soul admitted to itself" (P1695).12 Within the analogous enclo-sure of the signifier severed from external reference, she is unburdened ofany cultural obligation to fathom a transcendental signified and can devoteherself to her "loved Philology" (P1651).

Dickinson, however, uses simile as an occasion to revel in her vision of

language not only by featuring instances that generate metalinguistic FRs ulti-mately eclipsing extra-linguistic theses but also by creating similes from whichsuch theses are absent altogether. The absence of a thesis in the rhetoricalstructure of some of Dickinson's similes is inseparable from her thematic con-cern with metaphysical absence. For Dickinson, the primary existential expe-rience is that of the "Missing All" (P985), the absence of the transcendentalsignified. "This World, and it's species," she writes, are "A too concludedshow / For [This Mind's] absorbed Attention's / Remotest scrutiny "(P936). For Dickinson, the world does not present itself to the mind as aunified whole that the mind can comprehend and hence have the "privilegeto scrutinize" (P629) but as an incomplete sequence, whose utmost limit lieswell beyond the remotest reach or "utmost scope" (P 1057) of human percep-tion and is thus "Obliged to be inferred" (P 1279). Some of Dickinson's

poems reproduce this experience in miniature by featuring similes with anempty slot for which the reader is required to deduce the frame of reference.In similes of this group, which are usually local rather than extended over awhole poem, the FRl slot is occupied only by a non-definite anaphora such

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as "it," "they," or "her X," whereas FR2 details a concrete picture, oftenincluding metaphorical modifiers.

Her face was in a bed of hair,Like flowers in a plot Her hand was whiter than the spermThat feeds the sacred light.Her tongue more tender than the tuneThat totters in the leaves

Who hears may be incredulous,Who witnesses, believes.

(P 1722)

In a striking structural similarity to the tales of Henry James, which have attheir center "an absolute and absent cause" (Todorov 74), this poem is struc-tured around a missing referent: "Her," the FRl of its three similes. As theJamesian tales generate a reading process that is "simply the pursuit of thisabsence" (Todorov, 75), this poem triggers a reading that is a quest for"Her" identity. The textual structure described by Todorov is paradoxical:concluding the quest would deprive the text of the absence that is its raisond'etre (Todorov, 75). Or, as Dickinson herself put it, "The moment that aPlot is plumbed / It's meaning is extinct " (Pl417). In the interest of itsown survival, Dickinson realized long before Shklovsky, a text must"impede" the perception of whatever it tempts the reader to search for in it(Shklovsky, 12). In order not to become "extinct," an absence-centered textmust prolong the quest for the absence at its center, if possible indefinitely.

Henry James, says Todorov, nourishes the quest for the absolute and

absent cause of his tales by means of a "double movement": on the one handhe deploys all his strength to reach the hidden essence, to unveil the secretobject; on the other, he constantly moves it further and further away. He

protects it to the end of the story, if not beyond (75). Dickinson defers theremoval of absences by means of a similar strategy. On the one hand, sheenables a movement toward identification of the empty frame of reference

by coupling it with easily organized elucidating frames. On the other hand,she makes full identification difficult by supplementing these clear frames

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with obscure ones, which, moreover, involve the reader in a subordinate

quest for their interpretative organization.In the following poem, a single obscure simile deconstructs an other-

wise unimpeded process of identifying the empty frame of reference:

To see her is a Picture To hear her is a Tune To know her an IntemperanceAs innocent as June To know her not Affliction To own her for a FriendA warmth as near a if the Sun

Were shining in your Hand.(P1568)

As the two semantic couplings at the closure of this poem are more detailedand hence less obscure than those at its beginning, the poem is processed inreverse. Interpretation begins with specified features of the two concludingconcrete FR2s ("warmth," "affliction") transferred to delineated situationsinvolving the mysterious "she" (having her for a friend, and conversely, nothaving her acquaintance), constructing her as an entity generating pleasur-able interaction. This deduced quality of the unspecified referent is then cast

back as the negotiated feature in the two opening semantic couplings, ren-dering them easier to process. As the generating of pleasurable interaction isa highly salient feature in the conventional conception of "Tunefs]," "Pic-ture [s]" and other works of art, it is all the more emphasized in the identityof the obscure "she" with which they are coupled. Thus, the identity of theabsent referent seems to emerge. The intermediate semantic coupling, how-ever, deconstructs this nascent identity by featuring a negotiated feature("Intemperance") which clashes both with the inferred character of theabsent referent and with the negotiated feature ("innocence") of the embed-ded FR with which it is semantically coupled ("June"). Both in the embed-ding metaphor ("To know her [is] an Intemperance") and in the embeddedsimile ([an] Intemperance / As innocent as June) the coupled FRs are seman-tically alien to a degree that places formidable constraints on the transfer ofthe negotiated feature from one to the other. Thus Dickinson ensures that

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the reader resolved to fathom "Her" identity and duped by the facile cluesprovided by the text will be detained by a frustrating crux. Paradoxically,however, the only way to try and unravel the crux and determine once andfor all the identity of the absent "she" is to further concentrate on textualdetail. "Once we recognize absence," writes Helen McNeil in a comment onDickinson's absent referents, "our attention is thrown back even more

sharply at what is present" (25). What is present, in these poems, is only thesigns on the page.

Another type of simile that Dickinson uses to foreground language at theexpense of knowledge, the free play of signifiers at the expense of a transcen-dental signified, is that modeled on the structure of riddle. In this case, too,rhetorical structure is closely intertwined with ideological preoccupation. Inseveral poems, Dickinson uses the term "riddle" to refer to the "inexpound-able" spheres that lie beyond death (P50), the "Conclusion" of this world(P501), or the limit of the "skies" (P89). In other poems, the "Bisecting"(P1411) sense of the simultaneous "vicinity" (P1411) and opacity of thespheres "Beyond earth's trafficking frontier" (P1435) is conveyed not semanti-cally, through its coupling with the signifier "riddle." But formally, throughthe use of similes in which there is an extreme semantic distance between the

FRs, resulting in obscurity, which is an identifying cognitive effect of riddles.13Such formal riddles not only reproduce for Dickinson's readers her sense ofcognitive limitation but also serve her as a means to captivate them intellectu-ally (Dyer-Lucas, 95). Aware that "The Riddle we can guess / We speedilydespise " (P 1222) that, as Bardies and other theorists of "enigma" texts

point out, seductive textual structures that provide fulfillment are self-destruc-tive Barthes SIZ, 75; Grossvogel, 9) Dickinson proceeds to construct similesprovoking the interest of the reader who wishes to attain clarity but disablingthe total satisfaction of this interest.

To prevent her riddle similes from self-destructing, to "maintain theenigma in the initial void of its answer" (Barthes SIZ, 75), Dickinson againemploys a double strategy. On the one hand, she explicitly provides in thesurface structure negotiated features that are readily attributable to the FRl,thus "speedily" disclosing the desired interpretation of its identity. On the

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other hand, she attaches these features to FR2s that are both semanticallyremote from the FRl and enigmatic in themselves. She allows the initialenigma to be solved swiftly and easily, only to supplement it with anotherenigma this time, one for whose interpretation no clues are given. Thereader is provided the satisfaction of a neat interpretation of the FRl,obtained by means of the negotiated feature, but is tantalized once again byan "undeveloped Freight" (P1409) the unprocessable surplus the FR2.

This strategy of supplementing a soluble with an insoluble enigma isdifferent from and more radical than the enigma arresting strategiesadvocated by Barthes {S/Z, 76) and practised by James (Todorov, 75). Dick-inson does not delay or suspend the solution "with an organized set of stop-

pages" (Barthes S/Z, 75), only to supply it at the end. She allows it to bedisclosed at the very beginning, and, having disburdened text of its referen-tial, illustrators task, offers the reader a non-referential structure, a linguisticcombination that is fascinating in its own right.

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

Untouched by Morning And untouched by Noon Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection Rafter of satin,And Roof of Stone.

Grand go the Years in the Crescent above them Worlds scoop their Arcs And Firmaments, row Diadems drop and Doges surrender Soundless as dots on a Disc of Snow

(P216)

The FRl of this simile is the realm of "Alabaster Chambers" home of the

"members of the Resurrection." The FR2 is a fantastic entity ("dots on aDisc of Snow "). The negotiated feature ("soundlessness") may with rea-

son be assumed to be a feature of the imaginary FR2, but it cannot be aparticularly salient one, as it is a feature of all inanimate objects. It may also

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be plausibly construed as a feature of the FRl, as the first stanza suggests thatthe inhabitants of the FRl are untouched by the diurnal cycle of "morn" and"noon." Yet, because the FRl the realm beyond life is unfamiliar, theexact salience of this feature in it is unknown. The poem's last line, therefore,functions as part of a conventional feature-promotion simile, which causes"soundlessness" to be emphasized in the concept of the fantastic FRl (theworld of the "meek members of the Resurrection"). Because the FR2

("dots on a Disk of Snow ") is a novum, a fabulated linguistic entitythat has a "representational discontinuity with life as we know it" (Scholes61-62), its function in the poem is not exhausted by propelling the negoti-ated feature toward the FRl with which it is coupled. The phrase "dots on a Disk of Snow " causes what Suvin calls cognitive estrangement" (4)with realemes associated with the signifiers "snow" and "dots," therebyenticing the reader to find out more about the imaginary world of which it ispart. However, no more information is given, and the reader is left to pondera novum severed from its ontological environment. The FR2 "dots on aDisk of Snow ," much like the FR2 "Panther in the Glove "in P244,

is not a reservoir of potential information about the FRl but mainly a repre-sentative of a paranormal world beckoning to the reader to explore it butultimately offering only its own semantic abnormality. In such similes, thatis, the FR2 is ultimately a component not of a feature-promotion simile butof a blocked synecdoche: it is a detail that grants no access to the whole,offering only its own linguistic peculiarity for speculation.

Dickinson's inflection of referential movement toward self-enclosure in

riddles and other types of centripetal simile underscores the importance ofself-reflexivity in her poetics, her fascination with "This loved Philology"(P 1651). Introversions, however, do not exhaust the range of Dickinson'smanipulations of the simile form. Like almost every aspect of Dickinson's

poetics, they have a dialectical opposite: similes that refer to the outsideworld. These similes, too, underscore the power of language; but they areconcerned less with playing with language for its own sake and more withthe employment of language for finding a positive solution to the perceptualcrisis that had spawned this play.

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Centrifiigal Similes

Language, for Emily Dickinson, is not only an end in itself, a constitu-tive realm severed from external reference. It also means power. "To pile likeThunder to it's close," she writes in one famous poem, "Then crumble grandaway / While Everything created hid / This would be Poetry "(P 1247). Poetry means not only performing virtuoso linguistic exercises inan epistemolgica! void but having a grand-scale effect on nature.15 In hercentrifugal similes, Dickinson exploits the power of language to the utmostin order to provide positive solution to her consciousness of limitation,which is the incentive behind the introverting impulse of the various kindsof centripetal similes.

Dickinson's abandoning of the grand fantasy using language toextract meaning from the world in favor of the more limited but attain-able objective of using language to create meaning within it is manifest inthose similes that humanize nature. In Dickinson's conception, in contrast

to that of romantic poets writing during the same period, the spheres ofnature and of human culture are not unified by an underlying spirit butessentially alien. Dickinson metaphorizes nature as a "Stranger" (P 1202,P1400) or a "Haunted House" seething with "secrets" (Ll 202). Thus theheuristic drive to penetrate into the unknown and attain its "Kernel"(P 1073) is present in her poetry in relation to nature just as much as in rela-tion to the supernatural. So strong, in fact, is Dickinson's sense of the essen-tial estrangement between culture and nature that she images gaining accessinto the "secrets" of nature as a transgressive criminal act, involving "bribe"(P 191) or "robber[ry]" (P41) and accordingly accompanied by feelings ofguilt and dread ("What will the solemn Hemlock / What will the Oaktree say?" [P41]).

In her "humanization" similes, Dickinson provides an active assertivealternative to such guilt-ridden fantasies of transgression as well as to theintroversion triggered by the opacity of nature that is reflected in the cen-tripetal similes. The sense of alienation between culture and nature, implies

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Dickinson in "humanization" similes, may be diminished by seeing nature"comparatively" to the human realm, or in other words, by isolating thosequalities in the human realm that may be "translated" into parallel phenom-ena in nature or plausibly imposed upon it. In the "humanization" similes,all of this may be done without ever departing from the limits of language.

Nevertheless, "humanization" similes vary in the degree of rapproche-ment between culture and nature that they affirm. At times, the simile'smovement toward unification of the two spheres is arrested by built-inqualifications. In P84l, the insertion of the frame of quotation ("I some-times think") into the statement "Nature is fond ... / Of Trinkets, as a Girl"

deflects attention from the human quality imposed on nature to the speakerwho imposes it, emphasizing that the statement does not transform naturebut merely projects a particular and changeable subjectivity onto it. By con-trast, an earlier poem exploiting the same "ornamental" quality of naturefocuses not on the cognitive act of smilizing but on the rapprochementbetween culture and nature that is its effect:

The morns are meeker than they wereThe nuts are getting brown The berry's cheek is plumper The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarfThe field a scarlet gown Lest I sh'd be old fashioned

I'll put a trinket on.(P12)

Up to its concluding two lines, the poem consists of a series of phrasesin the subject-verb-object mold characteristic of empirical statements, whoserepetition creates the impression the poem is a literal description of a naturalscene. Strictly speaking, however, only the second statement ("The nuts aregetting brown ") is empirical, whereas all the others exemplify varyingmeasures of figurativeness. The first and third statements in the first stanza

("the morns art meeker than they were " and "the berry's cheek isplumper ") and the first statement in the second stanza ("The Maple

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wears a gayer scarf ") are cast in the form literal comparisons. The laststatement in the first stanza ("The Rose is out of town") and the second

statement in the second stanza ("the field [wears] a scarlet gown ") arecast in the form of literal assertions of fact. Both types, however, in factinclude, in their deep structure, a new semantic coupling of human qualities("meekness," "plumpness" or "wearing a gayer scarf") with natural phenom-ena. Up to its conclusion, that is, the poem consists of similes and metaphorsthat "masquerade" as literal statements (Mack "Metaphoring as Speech-Act"369), in order to create the sense that human features are permanent charac-teristics or components of the natural world.

The concluding two lines consist of another ostensibly literal gesture ofassimilation. If human and natural phenomena are indeed subsumed underone ontological category (as the opening lines suggest), then differencesbetween them may be reduced to a minimum. If components of the naturalworld behave in a certain way and "adorn" themselves, the speaker can preventthe unpleasantness of being "old fashioned," that is, literally unlike othermembers of her ontological category in her outward appearance, by adoptingthe same behavior and putting "a Trinket on." Obviously, however, this ges-ture of assimilation is practically impossible. The speaker's ostensible adoptionof a quality exemplified by nature is actually an adoption of a quality imposedon nature by that speaker herself. The effort to shrink the semantic distance

between nature and the human realm by means of a double gesrure of assimi-lating nature to human behavior and human behavior to "humanized" natureproves self-defeating. On the poem's surface, however, this inevitable defeat iscamouflaged by the use of empirical sentence molds and of a highly eccentricformal connector ("Lest I sh'd be old fashioned") that distracts the reader'sattention from the fact of there being a simile at the poem's end at all. In otherwords, though the sense of the untraversible distance between humans andnature is ultimately abstractable from the poem, this sense is eclipsed by thestrong impression of literal ontological equality between humans and naturethat the poem's surface manages to communicate.

Ultimately, however, Dickinson is painfully aware that even were itpossible to achieve such literal ontological equality between humans and

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nature, this would be undesirable. Such ontological equation of man andnature would, Dickinson implies, put an end to difference, which is a neces-sary condition for simile. It would thus render this seminal component ofher poetics obsolete and consequently bring her entire poetic enterprise to ahalt. For Dickinson, the end of difference, and consequently of simile couldmark the very end of poetry, as is manifest when her speaker who calls anexplicit halt to comparisons brings her poem to an end:

This being comfort thenThat other kind was pain But why compare?I'm "Wife"! Stop there!

(P 199)

Without "the possibility for the measurement of difference," writes MargaretHomans, "language dwindles into silence" (119). Therefore, the unificationof culture and nature achieved by means of the humanization similes cannever be more than camouflage, temporarily abating the perennial human

sense of estrangement. Even when Dickinson's similes are deflected awayfrom language, the desire to ensure linguistic proliferation remains the mea-sure of their possibilities.

Dickinson's effort to overcome the sense of metaphysical estrangementis manifest also in poems constructed of similes that are members of single-or multi-member induction series in which the general law is sometimesgiven, and sometimes, as in the following example, "Obliged to be inferred"(P1279).

As if I asked a common Alms,And in my wondering handA Stranger pressed a Kingdom,And I, bewildered stand As if asked the OrientHad it for me a Morn

And it should lift it's purple Dikes,And shatter me with Dawn!

(P323)

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Syntactical identity between the two stanzas, both of which follow the termof comparison "As if," suggests to the reader that they are analogous FRs thatillustrate an absent FRl. However, the absence of a specific and constraininganaphora (such as "she") in the FRl slot makes it possible to fill it with twologically different types of propositions: another member in the inductionseries, or its concluding member the general law itself.

First, the FRl may be inferred by abstracting the pattern underlying thetwo given examples, isolating their shared salient feature (or features), andthen retrieving an equally structured occurrence that this feature illuminates.The first stanza posits a clear story. The speaker, apparently poor, asks a"Stranger" for "common" not excessive "Alms" and is bewildered toreceive enormous wealth in return. The protagonist of this story asks a donorfor X but gets X+, an experience whose salient features are "wonder" and"bewilderfment]." This pattern, easily abstracted from the first stanza, facili-tates the decoding of the second, where the same story is cast into morefigurative discourse. Fitted into this pattern, "Orient" is the donor, and the"X+" the surplus value it generously grants the protagonist is "Dawn."However, placing the signifier "Orient" in the function of a donor, as sug-gested by the syntactical parallelism between the two stanzas, requires itshumanization. The final step in processing this double simile is to retrievefrom memory an experienced, witnessed, or imagined sequence of events fea-turing the same narrative syntax. The cognitive relation of the retrievedsequence to the two given ones would be determined by the relative salienceof the negotiated features ("wonder" and "bewilderment") in it. If they areless salient in the retrieved sequence, they will be emphasized in it by thesupplied examples, where they are prominent (Ortony 199). If, on the otherhand, a reader comes up with an analogous sequence in which the negotiatedfeatures are more prominent, this sequence will serve as an illustration of oneor both of Dickinson's FRs. However, Dickinson supplies versions of thestory in which the transformation involved is a radical one: from a state ofexcessive deprivation to one of excessive privilege. Thus she ensures in the

greatest possible measure that the emotions to which the story gives rise,which are the figure's negotiated features, will be felt more intensely than in

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any version given by the reader. Consequently, she also ensures that her FRswill illuminate the reader's version, as required by their syntactical position-ing as predicates to the subject supplied by the reader, and not the other wayaround.

Alternatively, the FRl slot may be filled not with another member of theinduction series, inferred by fleshing one the story grammar abstracted fromthe first stanza, but with this grammar itself, which will then function as theuniversal law that comes at the logical closure of such a series. In this case,Dickinson's two FRs are sure to function as illustrative of the reconstructed

FRl, as required by the poem's syntax, because, being concrete instances ofthe abstract general law placed in the FRl slot, the negotiated features would

by definition be more readily graspable in them (see Paivio, 162).Thus processed, the figure is cognitively akin to concretizing similes,

which provide palpable illustrations for an abstract thesis. However, whereasin normative concretizing similes, FR2s belong to a semantic category dis-tinct from that of the FRl (Mack "Some Happiness Conditions," 370), herethey are instances of the FRl. The figure, in other words, is a synecdocherendered similaic by the presence of a comparative copula in its surface struc-ture and the ensuing feature negotiation that it triggers. Whether processedas a normative feature-introduction simile in which members of an inductive

series illuminate one another or as a similaic synecdoche in which such mem-bers illuminate their general law, the figure serves as a focal point for storiesthat would otherwise have remained disparate.

The underlying logical structure of Dickinson's induction similes is ananalogy between instances given in the poem's surface structure, equallystructured instances supplied by the reader, and the general law governing allthese instances. The general law is sometimes deleted from the surface struc-ture, hence inviting the reader to be more active in the figure's interpretation(Mack "Metaphoring as Speech-Act," 242). However the reader's active roleis assured in any case by the figure's inductive structure, which invites thecontribution of a personal example. In the following poem, reader involve-ment is all the more enhanced by the metalinguistics semantic content of the

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supplied instance, which invites the reader to furnish as self-reflexive FRalongside the personal and the general one:

As subtle as tomorrowThat never came,A warrant, a conviction,Yet but a name.

(P1713)

An obvious candidate for a personal FR for the inductive series in the poem'sdeep structure would be any situation of awaiting with certainty an eventthat fails to materialize. Alternatively, a general FRl may be inferred on the

basis of the supplied FR, making the figure a similaic synecdoche. As thegeneral term for the FR2 ("tomorrow") is taken from the sphere of naturalcycles, whereas the modifiers ("warrant," "conviction," "name") are takenfrom the sphere of language and logic, the abstract FRl may be understoodas dealing with the relations between these two spheres. Laws of nature,according to this inferred general principle, are "subtle" in the sense of elu-sive and difficult to grasp. The "warrant" and "conviction" of science aboutthem is not a result of control or even of adequate knowledge but merely ofthe possibility to give them "namefs]." Science, in other words, can trap nat-ural cycles in linguistic formulations but in fact has no hold over them.

This general principle, however, enables language itself to be actualizedas an additional FRl for this simile. For all its potential "subtlefty]," whichDickinson used so well, language is disappointing, unable to deliver thegoods of knowledge. It seems to put at the poet's disposal tools with whichto gauge opaque spheres such as similes. But these tools, in Dickinson'sexperience, "never c[o]me" with the desired freight of occult information.Language, too, is "but a name," an apparatus that creates arbitrary, illusory"convictionfs]." But if that is all it is, Dickinson seems to be saying here, letit be used subtly for the creation of compact, sophisticated utterances,like this simile itself.

Thus it seems that in the "inductive" figures, Emily Dickinson finallyfinds the way to use simile as a heuristic tool successfully: to employ it as an

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appliance to probe specific occurrences in the human condition or gaugelimited areas of experience in which the human and the non-human con-verge, rather than to "expound the skies" (P89), or attempt to encompass theoccult spheres in their entirety within the "minute Circumference / Of a sin-gle Brain " (P967). These figures represent Dickinson's coming to termswith the awareness of perceptual limitation. Both centripetal similes andhumanizations reflect a need to match the sense of radical limitation with a

commensurately radical move be it a "negative" one of withdrawal or a"positive" one of imposition. Inductive similes, on the other hand, reflectthe understanding that if limitation is accepted rather than grappled with,then the human ability to "see comparatively" and articulate the results ofcomparison in language can be disburdened of its compensatory task and beused fruitfully to illuminate specific instances in experience or to unearthunderlying unities among a limited number of occurrences. The resultingrestricted perception of the outside world, moreover, is ultimately more valu-able than the yearned-for unlimited perception. Or, as Emily Dickinson her-self puts it in one of her letters: "A Saviour in a Nut, is sweeter to the graspthan ponderous Prospectives" (L521).

Notes

All references to Dickinson's poems are by their number in Johnson's Variorum editionof the Complete Poems and to die letters by their number in Johnson's three-volume edi-tion of The Letters of Emily Dickinson.

Thb element: is either a conventional term of comparbon ("like," "as," "as if," "so,""such," "X-er than," "X-Iy," "X-ic") or a more irregular connector such as "were simi-lar"(P320), "in the comparbon"(P637), "equally plausibly"(P1073), "it is the samewith"(P1462).

This order, known to be close yet cognitively inaccessible, leaves humanity in a tantaliz-ing epistemological state of "not precisely Knowing / And not precisely Knowingnot " (P 1331). The yearning to transcend thb state and attain the condition of"Knowledge," metaphorized as "the Tooth / That nibbles at the soul " (P501) or"the Gnat that mangles men " (P1331), forms the heuristic incentive at the heart ofDickinsons poetry, the "investigative push," which, as Helen McNeil has pointed out,"constitutes the deep Dickinson theme" (3).

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4. I borrow the term "frame of reference" (FR) from Hrushovski, who defines it as a

semantic domain larger than the individual words or phrases involved in the semanticcoupling: a "construct based on discontinuous elements in a text, which are linked toeach other by some kind of... 'semantic syntax'" (11). However, to avoid Hrushovski sdbtinction between a "primary" FR and a "secondary" FR (8), which I find unnecessar-ily hierarchical, I shall dbtingubh between the coupled FRs only in terms of their syn-tactic order: "FRl" will be the grammatically precedent frame (roughly equivalent toRichards's "tenor") and "FR2" will be the grammatically consequent frame (in Rich-ards's hierarchical terminology, the "vehicle").

5. This coincides with Cameron's view of the simile as a form which "recognizee] that wefail at direct names because we fail at direct comprehension" (35).

6. Critics like Webbuch, who claims that both Dickinsons similes and her metaphors con-

stitute "an analogical poetics [which] tries to eliminate traditional dichotomies" (- 9), or Wilner, who reads Dickinsons similes as metaphorical equations suggesting that"for her, the mental is the physical" (130), disregard the structural distinction betweenmetaphor and simile and conceive of both as "equating" tropes, consequendy mbread-ing the themaric function of Dickinsons similes and interpreting them as expressing aromantic equation between the mental and the physical, rather than Dickinsons con-sciousness that "The Fence b the only Sanctuary" (L359), that "Separations Swell" is a"Delight" (P 1259). In other words, that the mental and the physical (as all other spheresof existence) are insurmountably, but also blessedly, separated.

7. Dickinsons sense of the impenetrable boundary between ontological spheres is implicitin the imaging of this boundary in P398 as a thin "Vail" with "every Mesh aCitadel / And Dragons in the Crease ."

8. For Dickinson, pain could be converted into power. Thus, "Paralysis" could serve as"our Primer dumb / Unto Vitality!" (P689); the "Retreating" of a yeamed-forobject could prompt towards "learn[ing]" by "Re-treating" the traces ofthat object inthe mind (P1083); and "To miss" a dear person was "power"(L489) or "To lose" a loverwas "sweeter than to gain"(P1754), because in the overcoming of these losses, one

acquired "the Art within die Soul / The Soul to entertain"(P855).9. For a similar view of Dickinson's dialectical response to an external deprivation by

means of language see Feit-Diehl, who, however, locates die deprivation in die meta-physical and die social, radier dian die epbtemological, sphere.

10. The conception of simile as an instrumental figure in which the FR2 serves the functionof conveying informadon about the FRl stems from Aristotle's Rhetoric (in which thesimile is referred to as a "useful" means for the "expression] of ideas" (1406b), waswidely recycled in Renaissance rhetoric, where the funcuon of simile was defined as thatof "explaining]" or "illustrt[ing] ... a doctrine" (Spenser 4), and is still current inmodern theories of figurauve language, such as that of Steven Daran, who asserts that"the simile is an iconic form, [whose] aim is ... die communication of ideas" (57).

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11. Other Dickinson poems anatomizing the process of overcoming pain are "There is apain so utter " (P599), describing the process in which "Memory" "stepfs] /Around across upon" the pain situation, reworking it from various perspectivesand thus enabling one to overcome it; "I cross tll I am weary" (P550), in which dieresult of the effort to overcome pain, metaphorized as "crossing] A Mountain in[the] mind " is a prelude to "Victory?"; and "To fill a Gap" (P546), which impliesthat the "Gap" in consciousness caused by loss can be "fill[ed]" only by processing dieloss experience which had "caused it ."

12. In Emily Dickinsons poetry, seclusion is presented as a positive choice and not as cyro-phobic withdrawal. For Dickinson, fulfillment in love and fulfillment through art are"coeval" (P 1247). Love, however, consists in an extroversion of self towards an other

and is thus dependent on another. The art of poetry, however, is preferred because it

requires introversion and is a self-sufficient activity. For a similar view, see Gelpi 110.Other critics have emphasized the same principle of preferred seclusion in Emily Dick-inson's life, rather than texts. See, for example, Juhasz 10; Martin 80.

13. Comparison statements coupling two semanucally remote signifiers, writes A. M. Paul,are "akin to riddle [s] in which the questioner asks, 'How is____like a____?' and therespondent must rack hb brain, usually without success, to find the obscure similarity"(22-23). Formally, that b, riddles are a special and intellectually taxing case of newsemanuc coupling in which a "resemblance is stated or implied ... but the resemblanceis submerged in deliberate ambiguity or obscurity (Baum ).

14. Riddle similes are thus a striking instance of what Karl Keller has termed the definiuveeffect of Dickinson's art: its becoming "a kind of orgasm withheld, though lusting stillafter the concealed and tantalizing, after the incomprehensible, after fantasy" (72).

15. For Dickinson's association of language with formidable, and potentially dangerouspower, see P754, where the life of the poet is metaphorized as "a Loaded Gun "; P8,where a word is said to "bear a sword / Can pierce an armed man "; and P1261,where the same word "dropped careless on a Page," is said to breed "Infection in the sen-tence" for centuries after its maker lies "folded in perpetual seam" (P 1261).

Works Cited

Aristode. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Trans. Richard McKeon. New York: Random House,1941.

Barthes, Roland. S/Z Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974.Baum, Paul F. The Anglo Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book. Durham, North Carolina: Duke UP,

1963.

Cameron, Sharon. Lyric Time: Dickinson and the Limits of Genre. BaMmore and London:Johns Hopkins UP, 1979.

Daran, Steven G. "Similes and the Creative Process." Language and Style 6.1 (1973): 48-57.

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Dickinson, Emily. The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. 3 vob. Cambridge,Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 1955.

---------. The Letters. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. 3 vob. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Pressof Harvard UP, 1958.

Diehl, Joanne Feit. "'Ransom in a Voice': Language as Defence in Emily Dickinson's Poetry."Ed. Juhasz, 157-175-

Eco, Umberto. "The Semantics of Metaphor." Semiotics: An Introductory Reader. Ed. RobertE. Innis. London: Hutchinson, 1985. 245-271.

Gelpi, Albert. Emily Dickinson: The Mind of the Poet Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1965.Grossvogel, David I. Mystery and its Fictions: From Oedipus to Agatha Christie. Baltimore and

London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1979.Homans, Margaret. "'Oh, Vision of Language!': Dickinsons Poems of Love and Death." Ed.

Juhasz, 114-133.

Hrushovski, Benjmin. "Poetic Metaphor and Frames of Reference." Poetics Today 5.1 (1981):5-42.Juhasz, Suzanne, ed. Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana

UP, 1983.---------. Introduction. Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson. Ed. Juhasz, 1-21.Keller, Karl. "Notes on Sleeping with Emily Dickinson." Ed. Juhasz, 67-79.Lucas, Dolores Dyer. Emily Dickinson and Riddle. DeKaIb, Illinois: Northern Illinois UP,

1969.

Mack-Lambert, Dorothy. "Some Happiness Conditions for Implicit Similes." Poetry (1974):221-256.

Mack, Dorothy. "Metaphoring as Speech Act: Some Happiness Conditions for Implicit Simi-les and Simple Metaphors." Poetics 4 (1975): 221-226.

Martin, Wendy. "Emily Dickinson: Woman White To Be.' " An American Triptych: AnneBradstreet, Emily Dickinson andAdrienne Rich. U of North Carolina P, 1984.

McNeil, Helen, Emily Dickinson. London: Virago Press, 1986.Ortony, Andrew, ed. Metaphor and Thought New York: Cambridge UP, 1979.---------. "The Role of Similarity in Similes and Metaphors." Ed. Ortony, 187-201.Paivio, Allan. "Psychological Processes in the Comprehension of Metaphors." Ed. Ortony,

150-171.

Paul, A.M. Figurative Language. Doctoral Dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1969.Perry, Menachem, and Sternberg, Meir. "Biblical Fable and Theory of Prose." (in Hebrew).Hasifruthli, (1968): 263-292.

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. The Concept of Ambiguity: The Example of James. Chicago andLondon: U of Chicago P, 1977.

Scholes, Robert. Structural Fabulation: An Essay on the Fiction of the Future. Notre Dame andLondon: Notre Dame UP, 1975.

Shklovsky, Viktor. "Art as Technique." Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Eds. Lee T.Lemon and Marion J. Reb. Lincoln, Neb.: U of Nebraska P, 1965. 3-24.

Spenser, John. A Storehouse of Similes. London, 1658.

Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre.New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1979.

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Todorov, Tzvetan. "The Structural Analysis of Literature: The Tales of Henry James." Ed.David Robey, Structuralism: An Introduction. Oxford UP, 1972. 73-103.

Webbuch, Robert. Emily Dickinson's Poetry Chicago and London: U of Chicago P, 1975.Wiber, Eleanor. "The Poetics of EmUy Dickinson." #38.1 (1971): 126-154.

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