“Heaven — is what I cannot reach”: How Emily Dickinson’s Voice was Influenced by Spoken Worship in Amherst and the Book of Revelation

From her bedroom in Puritan Amherst, Emily Dickinson wrote almost 1800 poems. She is accordingly, and largely, understood as a ‘private poet’ in criticism; however, Bennett and Eriksson claim that the political content of her poems mean she is a ‘public poet’ who wanted to be read widely. This essay will argue that she was neither a private nor a public poet. Dickinson was incredibly invested in her family life, and actively criticised her father when he served in congress: in a letter to Austin, she writes "that we may as well all go to the Poor House, for all the American Congress will lift a finger to help us", observing a disjunct between public life and that within her local community (Erkkila 7). Lyman, a correspondent of Dickinson’s, says she existed “inside [her] ring" of trusted people (Lundin 84), and wrote to them frequently. This essay will suggest that Dickinson wrote poems which could be understood and read within this “ring”. To do this, it will examine Dickinson’s Christian voice in two poems, and argue that this voice imitates nineteenth-century spoken worship, as understood within her ring. In particular, it will examine how she uses imagery from the Book of Revelation in her poem 304 (“The Day came slow — till Five o'clock —”). It will also, more sparingly, consider poem 239 (“‘Heaven’ — is what I cannot reach”). After (1) establishing that Revelation was important in Amherst and to Dickinson, it will (2) consider Revelation imagery in these two poems. It will (3) propose that Dickinson's Revelation poems resemble sermons and hymns when read aloud. Since her ring was hyper-familiar with these forms of spoken worship, it will conclude that Dickinson’s Christian voice is recognisable for her local community, and that she was writing for them. As such, it asks us to rethink our binary positioning of Dickinson as a "private" or "public" poet.

Nineteenth Century Amherst was predominantly Congregationalist, and largely influenced by the eighteenth-century theologian Jonathan Edwards. Henry Martyn Dexter calls him “the father of modern congregationalism”, and Williston Walker's Congregationalist writings during and after Dickinson's death indicate his continued influence in New England (Conforti 149). Indeed, Crisp notes that Dickinson’s grandfather founded Amherst college on Edwardsian Theology (50). Edwards loved the book of Revelation and often quotes its “glorious” (160), spectacular images in his sermons. One sermon, for example, thrice speaks of sinners being “drunken with the blood of the saints”, which recalls Revelation 17:6 (598).  Hopkins says that “few speakers have been able to command the Attention of an Audience as he” (Gustafson 62). His powerful oratory meant his sermons, and his Revelation imagery, were well-known in Dickinson’s Congregationalist community. As such, we must give due weighting to the Revelation imagery in Dickinson’s poetry, which her ‘ring’ would have recognised.

Revelation was one of Dickinson's favourite parts of the Bible (Farr 59), and she referenced it frequently and clearly. In 304, for example, Dickinson speaks of a day which "sprang before the hill", mirroring Jesus's appearance to John from behind the clouds (Revelation 1). She also references the colour "Purple," which not only liturgically symbolises the coming of Christ, but shows the glory of Heaven in Revelation (17:4 and 18:12)^. Her references to "hindered Rubies" and "breadths of Topazes" also directly allude to the twenty-five bejewelled thrones in Revelation 4. Like Edwards, Dickinson references highly memorable images which would have stood out in sermons. The decadent images above are particularly powerful in Congregationalist Amherst, since Congregationalism largely rejects Prosperity Theology and sees luxuries as sinful (Maffley-Kipp 19). Since Dickinson "casts literary allusions subtly and anonymously" (Petrino 80), the comparative clarity of these Revelation images is striking. Lundin says that Dickinson did not “speak in a vocabulary and syntax familiar to her audience” (116), but her Revelation images are clearly recognisable for her local community. This suggests that she intended for them to read these poems.

Whilst Dickinson's images are familiar within the contexts of congregationalism, they also relate to Transcendentalism, a new and controversial theology in mid-nineteenth century New England to which Hyatt Waggoner claims Dickinson ascribed. Inspired by the Romantic Movement and spearheaded by her correspondent Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalism runs contrary to Congregationalist teachings on the sovereignty of God. Dickinson's writings controversially ascribe to this since she often criticises Him (Vinciguerra), and focuses on the power of the individual over God, as is core to transcendentalism. In 239, she writes "There—Paradise—is Found!” which gives the speaker agency instead of God, because she is not passively taken to heaven but finds it herself. In 304, she also calls herself "A Guest in this stupendous place”, positioning the speaker as powerful in heaven because she is a capitalised “Guest”. In both cases, her privileging of the individual (the speaker) over God is reminiscent of Transcendentalism. 

Dickinson’s controversial transcendental theology might indicate that she wanted to keep her poems private; however, 304’s addressee indicates this wasn’t the case. 304 was addressed to Susan Dickinson, mother of Dickinson’s beloved niece Martha, and shows that she felt comfortable sharing quasi-blasphemous writings within “her ring”. Bingham similarly notes that Dickinson openly wrote letters to her brother on Sundays, despite the fact that work was prohibited on the Sabbath (124). Dickinson's honest dating suggests that she wasn't afraid to subvert Congregationalist practises with her closest friends and family. Though she didn’t publish these poems, she did share them within “her ring”.

Although Dickinson herself had stopped attending church by the age of thirty, her religious upbringing means she would have been familiar with traditions of spoken/communal worship in Amherst. Her close family and friends attended church and "worked hard for the church", and it was a core part of village life  (Sewall 238).  In a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, with whom Dickinson wrote letters for eight years, she describes her poems as "hymns" (Morgan 3) — and if she did send her poems to friends and family, they would have recognised the parallels to those they sung in church. Both 304 and 239 mirror Watts's Common Hymnic Metre, which was used for most Congregationalist hymns and appears in Dickinson's own copy of Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Dickinson, like Watts, writes in quatrains with alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Poem 304 fits this metre exactly, and 239 also mostly fits. The only deviation is the first word "heaven" (239) which starts the poem with a trochee instead of an iamb. However, this doesn't prevent us from hearing the hymnic metre because it is situated within a poem which otherwise follows it exactly. Dickinson also mirrors Hymnic Common Metre's ABCB rhyme scheme. Though she does not use full rhymes in every stanza, she does in the first stanzas of both poems ("hill/spills" in 304, and "tree/me" in 239). She might subvert this rhyme scheme later in each poem, but the paralleled beginnings situate them within Watts's tradition. She also uses this tactic in other poems referencing Revelation (i.e. "some/come" in 1115), suggesting it serves a practical use — as it does if these poems are read aloud. A regular rhyme scheme in the first stanza situates the poem within hymnic form more clearly for a listener. This is because, when read aloud, a rhyme scheme can separate lines and draw attention to metre. This suggests that she perhaps wanted them to be read aloud.

Although Dickinsinson’s poems resemble Watt’s hymns, Morris argues that her use of enjambment makes it difficult to notice these parallels. Watts's hymns always end with a piece of punctuation because in between each line there would have been instrumental music (32), meaning they sound different to Dickinson’s enjambed lines. Dickinson's poems certainly do not sound exactly like hymns (not least because they're read, instead of sung!). However, Dickinson's orthodox use of Watts's metre, combined with a rhyme scheme which draws attention to this, means that a reader/listener can still recognise these parallels. Indeed, it is important to note that, if these poems were read aloud in the home, the enjambment would not have necessarily been read. Robson shows us that poems were defined "by line length”, not sentences, in 19th Century Schools (61). Children had to learn a set number of lines of poetry for their exams. Since her "ring" was well-educated, Dickinson's readers would likely have read her poems line-by-line instead of sentence-by-sentence — meaning the enjambment isn't an issue for a listener and doesn't interfere with parallels to Watts. 

Aside from being hymnic, Dickinson's writing in 304 mirrors John's narrative in Revelation — drawing further links to church worship. The Book of Revelation lists spectacular images which become progressively dramatic, with "immediacy and pace to the action" (Smalley 144). In a similar way, and in her usual paratactic style, Dickinson’s 304 omits conjunctions and puts Revelation images in close succession:

The Purple could not keep the East –

The Sunrise shook abroad

Like Breadths of Topaz – packed a Night –

The Lady just unrolled –

Not only does this add to the "dramatic and impulsive effect of a spoken voice" (Miller 32), but it also encourages us to focus on these images. Visually, Dickinson's dashes point to her most dramatic images since they directly follow “Topaz” and “Night”. She also uses a dash to emphasise “The Lady” at the end of the stanza who recalls the Woman of the Apocalypse in Revelation 12. Preachers naturally pause after their most dramatic images, and these dashes encourage a reader to do the same. This is especially clear in 304’s original manuscript where the dashes following these most dramatic words are shorter, suggesting she is aware of the additional emphasis they add. Dickinson encourages her reader to emphasise these Revelation images when reading 304 aloud, thereby mirroring a preacher’s sermon. Dickinson's attention to oral form (both hymns and Revelation sermons) not only suggests that she intended for these poems to be read aloud, but that she intended for them to be read aloud by those also situated within her religious contexts, or within her ‘ring’. The oral quality of these poems indicates that they are not wholly private and are supposed to be read in a quasi-social way.

Indeed, Dickinson likely anticipated these poems being read aloud. She sent 304 in a letter to Susan, but she knew the whole family would read it. Letters sent to households were often read aloud, as Dickinson mentions in an 1853 letter to her brother Austin where she jokes that her father “makes me read [your letters] aloud at the supper table [...] no matter to whom addressed” (71). Cristanne Miller’s forthcoming Emily Dickinson’s Letters (2023) will include eighty-three new ‘letter-poems’ not identified in Johnson and Ward’s 1986 letter anthology, and stresses that many of Dickinson’s poems took the form of letters. Poem 304 was also sent in a letter, and seems to recognise that it will be read both aloud and privately by Susan — most significantly through the line "sparkled like a Jew" which reads very differently in both scenarios. Given the context, a listener could easily mishear “Jew” for "Jewel", especially given the references to "rubies" and "topazes" elsewhere in the poem. However, when read in private, we see something more theologically complex. The reference to "Jew" perhaps refers to principles of philosemitism, an ancient Christian idea which treats Jewish people as a "contingent, malleable resource" which will speed up the second coming of Christ (Glaser 130). A sunset sparkling like a "Jew" is thus a subtle reference to Judgement Day—one which requires a more nuanced understanding of theology. Dickinson's education at Amherst College means she was familiar with complex theology. However, this wasn't the same for her nieces and nephews who might have listened to her letters when she sent them to Susan. In the manuscript, the dash which follows the word "Jew" makes it very clear to Susan that this is not supposed to be "jewel", but it is not clear to listeners. Dickinson thus positions this word to mean two different things — but they effectively mean the same: that the poem is set on Judgement Day. One reading relies on private, theological thinking ("Jew"); the other relies on the poem being read aloud and mirroring spoken worship (“jewel"). The fact that it can do both suggests that Dickinson anticipated her poem being read aloud and in private. When we read poem 304 in relation to spoken worship in Amherst, we are forced to reconsider our construction of Dickinson as a "private" poet.

According to Lundin, Dickinson is "the private poet"; however, the oral and religious value of her poetry suggests that she imagined them being read aloud. Dickinson's poetry reflects religious traditions her "ring" is familiar with — sermons she no longer attends, hymns she no longer sings, and verses from Revelation they all know by heart. Her poems seem to engage with a world outside of her bedroom, and are even written for this world, but this world is far from public. Dickinson does not write publicly nor privately, but rather for the people she knows. In her own “personal version of desktop publishing”, Dickinson created forty hand-sewn and well-preserved books of poetry (Cotter). She wanted these poems to be read — just probably not by us.