Everson
La casa di Emily Dickinsono
ad Amherst, Massachussets /
The Dickinson Homestead
in Amherst, Massachussets
The wilderness of light
in Emily Dickinson
E
ugenio Montale considered the case of Emily
Dickinson (1830/1886) an extreme case of a
life that was written and not lived, because,
from 1866, the poet lived in voluntary isolation
in her father’s big house in Amherst
(Massachusetts), where she buried her solitude
and wrote poetry with eyes pried open in the
blinding light that showed her wilderness:
“Had I not seen the Sun / I could have borne
the shade / But Light a newer Wilderness /
My Wilderness has made.”
Emily Dickinson could have also shared the
words spoken by Ariel, "What a din the light
is bringing!" in the play by Goethe, Faust.
Also because, unlike the classic light-darkness
dialectic, she overturns the moral paradigm
where the light of the Divine Word “shines
in the darkness, and the darkness has not
overcome it” (John 1:5), and wonders:
“What need of Day – / To Those whose Dark
– hath so – surpassing Sun – / It deem it be
– Continually – / At the Meridian?”
Dickinson does not crave for light, revelation
and a meeting with God; she prefers darkness:
“We grow accustomed to the Dark – / When
Light is put away – / […] A Moment – We
uncertain step / For newness of the night – /
Then – fit our Vision to the Dark – / And meet
the Road – erect”
Her voice shows a dissonance with the
religious conceptions; in a letter to T.W.
Higginson she confesses that everyone at home
is religious, except herself. And her voice also
shows a dissonance with the romantic poetry
of her times. A voice that goes beyond
conventions, “where only those who are
defeated have access to knowledge,
” as Barbara Lanati, who translated Emily
Dickinson’s works, pointed out: “The Bravest
– grope a little – / And sometimes hit a Tree /
Directly in the Forehead – / But as they learn
to see – / Either the Darkness alters – /
Or something in the sight / Adjusts itself to
Midnight – / And Life steps almost straight.”
In the original historical story of Emily
Dickinson, the daily rhythm of light and
darkness remains, however night is the
favourite, and the nights seduce the sensual
author. Nights that howl in marvellous verse,
the expression of her pain, the virgin clothed
in white, that turns into rage: “Wild nights –
Wild nights! / Were I with thee / Wild nights
should be / Our luxury! / Futile – the winds –
/ To a Heart in port – / Done with the Compass
– / Done with the Chart! / Rowing in Eden –
/ Ah, the Sea! / Might I but moor – tonight –
/ In thee!”
Of the 1775 poems that Emily Dickinson kept
in her desk over the years, which were only
published aver her death, many are extremely
modern and rouse amazement and
apprehension in the reader, because they
bring to light the secrets of her mysterious
life, spent in silence and in the shade.
12 – To be continued. For
“Epiphanies of light”, to date, the
following short stories by Empio
Malara have been published in
LUCE: “Alessandro Manzoni, a
creator of light” (n.317,
September 2016); “Herman
Melville. Light that invites us on a
journey” (n.321, September 2017);
“Light and dark in the portrait of
James Joyce as a young man”
(n.322, December 2017); “Flashes
and lights in Hemingway’s A
Farewell to Arms” (n.323, March
2018); “The artificial sun in the
novel The magic mountain by
Thomas Mann” (n.324, June
2018); “The irreverent and
irrational light in some texts by
Carlo Emilio Gadda” (n.325,
September 2018). “Philip Roth’s
revealing lights in American
Pastoral” (n.326, December
2018); “Marcel Proust’s lighted
windows in the novel Swann’s
Way” (n.327, March 2019); "In the
Light of Leonardo da Vinci"
(n.328, June 2019); "Fyodor
Dostoevsky's dar undergrouns as
illuminated by Alberto Moravia"
(n.329, September 2019) ;
"Natalia Ginzburg's Voices – and
lights – in the Evening" (n.330,
December 2019)
EPIPHANIES OF LIGHT / LUCE 331
19