A word on a burned page

A word dropped careless on a page (1873)

A word dropped careless on a page
May stimulate an eye
When folded in perpetual seam
The wrinkled maker lie.

Infection in the sentence breeds.
We may inhale despair
At distances of centuries
From the malaria. 

THEME: Reasons for Not Belonging

This poem reveals Dickinson’s philosophy of language: words are powerful and the written word transcends time.

• Written words transcend time because they are capable of being read by multiple audiences, even after the author’s death.
• Words are powerful because they ‘infect’ readers with the composer’s sentiments.

The poem is open to a number of complementary interpretations. On one level, Dickinson urges that authors write with caution. On another level, Dickinson expresses poetic rebellion against ‘the Word’ (gospel and religious dogma). These interpretations are not exclusive because they are layers of meaning. It is possible to understand the poem as both warning and rebellion without needing to understand the poem differently.

The first stanza should be read as a whole. The word that was dropped carelessly on a page was written by a ‘maker’. The language is reminiscent of The Maker, or God but Dickinson also means the writer.  In saying that the ‘maker’ is wrinkled indicates the passage of time. Dickinson juxtaposes the mortality of the body [“lie” (death), “perpetual seam” (death shroud) and “malaria” (illness)] against the immortality of words (“distances of centuries”). The first quatain communicates that words outlive their writers and sometimes words are written carelessly.

Given the immortality of words, some thought should go into their composition and whether or not they are written at all. Deliberately, she uses incorrect syntax in the first line to demonstrate careless writing. (Ironically, a very careful thing to do!) Of particular interest is that the word is “dropped”. The word choice and onomatopoeic indifference illustrates the thoughtlessness of the act. The “page”, having some physical endurance, is a proxy or a metaphor for immortality. But Dickinson does not say that all words are immortal, she says that written words are. In her letter to her cousin, she claims “We must be careful what we say. No bird resumes its egg…”. The context of that discussion was the non-retractable nature of communicated ideas. What is said cannot be unsaid. But the written word has an extra, spiritual power. The words we hear may be forgotten with our deaths, but the written word is being forever ‘said’ or forever ‘read’.

The second quatrain explains that words are a psychic contagion. Words have the ability to transmit feelings and such feelings are not always pleasant, for example, the idea of original sin. This unpleasant feeling is represented symbolically as an illness. Malaria is a tropic disease which we now know to be transmitted by mosquitos, but it was thought to be spread by “evil air” (italian translation).

The effect of discomfort is achieved through both form and content. The poem’s first quatrain is comfortable reading. It has an ABCB rhyme scheme and alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter.  In contrast, the second quatrain is not comfortable reading. “Breeds” and “centuries” are half rhymes, just as “despair” and “malaria” are half rhymes stretched a cross the continued iambic metre that is interrupted by enjambment. Dickinson demonstrates her message by infecting the reader with her discomfort using poetic techniques that have a visceral impact.

Often this poem is read as a poem about ‘belonging to the future’. This is a plausible reading because most of her poems were publish posthumously and she never found literary belonging until after her death. She does belong to the future and her spirit, preserved through her writing, belongs in our world. But this reading is created through our interpretation of her legacy rather than her life.

A more biographical reading considers her isolation, not only from the wider society, but also from  religious community. It is not uncommon for deeply religious people to withdraw from secular life, but typically, they will find a new sense of belonging in a religious community. Dickinson’s isolation was more absolute. Sandra L. McChesney, a PhD student from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania wrote in her dissertation (A View from Eternity: The Spiritual Development of Emily Dickinson. 2007) that as her “intellect unfolded, Dickinson examined and set aside the limiting aspects of Calvinism, Unitarianism and Transcendentalism, kept from herself the methodical analysis of religious thought that enabled her finally to grasp and explain her version of the truth.”

During the 1850s, Dickinson stopped attending church. She struggled to accept the harsh dogmas of innate depravity (original sin) and predestination (there is a predestined number of people destined for heaven), or revere the Bible as true history and the only moral guide for man. In other words, she rejected ideologies that cast mankind as small and impotent before an unforgiving God. In light of her personal, theological evolution, this poem is more than a mere warning to writers in general. When she cautions about “a word” she may mean also the Word of God as revealed through the Bible. When she refers to “a page”, she means a page of scripture.

While it’s not inconceivable to imagine the future as a place for Dickinson’s literary belonging, a more immediate reading of this poem cannot overcome the prevailing tone of negativity. In the first quatrain, it is created through double meanings and ambiguity. Puns on the word “lie” (untruth/ lie dead/ is placed), “perpetual seam” (ongoing untruth/ death shroud/ the seam of a book) and the negative connotations of “careless” do not indicate that Dickinson hopes for belonging to the future. In fact, the first quatrain is a complaint. The second quatrain is less restraining in its criticism: “malaria”, “infection”, “despair”. The poet struggles to accept the religious dogma conveyed through the word of God and Amherst’s insular, close-knit, and Calvinist community. This is the same Dickinson who prefers to be outside the window and withdraw from the feast. She is an outsider by choice.

Through introspection and personal examination of the assumptions that bind the community, the poet has realised that she does not share the same values and so cannot pretend to belong. This does not mean that she is misanthropic. She is not critical of the people in her community, she is critical of the word of God. The irony of all this is that the two quatrain in its simple rhythm and rhyme is in the form of hymn. Disillusion with religious ideology, especially one which she once followed, left a void in Dickinson’s  spiritual world. She filled it with poetry, deep thinking and her own philosophy of language. In the context of your Area of Study, this poem illustrates that ideological isolation can be a reason for not belonging.