Emily Dickinson
The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.
Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.
I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.
1. Discuss the following questions.
1) What is the theme of the poem?
2) Do you feel a difference in her presentation of these two actions, selecting a friend(or lover) and rejecting all others? Does she emphasize selecting the friend more than rejecting all others, or is the act of excluding emphasized?
3) In the poet, what sound is repeated? Is she emphasizing key words with this alliteration?
4) Dickinson has the “soul” doing the choosing. What aspects or part of the human being does “soul” represent?
5) Does using “soul” give a high or a low value to the way this individual selects friends?
6) What kind of a gesture is shutting the door? Is it, for example, an action that leaves open the possibility of change, or is it a final action?
7) What are the connotations of the word “obtrude”? Does it suggest a charming interruption, an offensive action, or some other type of behavior on the part of the people who have been excluded?
8) Who has the superior worldly status? Is there a suggestion of status and superiority in some other scale of values?
9) In Line 3, Stanza 2, who is unmoved?
10) In Stanza 3, Dickinson depicts the rigor and the finality of the soul’s choice. Does the soul have choice or control over valves? Do closed valves allow anything in? Would her valves let anyone in? Is the phrase “like stone” relevant here?
2. Pair Work: Read the following Chinese translation of the poem and discuss in what ways it is good. Try to give your own translation and compare it with your partner’s.
选定精神伴侣
（美）艾米丽·狄金森 吕志鲁译
选定精神伴侣，
然后谢客关门；
既作神圣抉择，
必当匿影藏形。
车辇沓至纷来，
姑娘不闻不问；
皇帝跪于席垫，
万难打动芳心。
茫茫人海无限，
唯独选中一人；
从此心如磐石，
封闭情感闸门。
Notes
1.Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862): He was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
2.Walden: WALDEN POND, presumably named by early colonists after Saffron Walden, England, is located in Concord, Massachusetts, about eighteen miles northwest of Boston and a mile-and-a-half southeast of Concord center, near the junction of Routes 2 and 126. Encompassing some sixty-one acres, Walden Pond is approximately a half-mile long with a considerably narrower but varying width. A path following the shoreline runs nearly a mile-and-three-quarters along the base and sides of rising, forested banks.
3.Concord Battle Ground: It is a Park in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. It has an elevation of 41 meters, or 135 feet. The Battles of Lexington and Concord fought on April 19, 1775, were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.
4.Olympus: In Greek mythology Olympus was regarded as the “home” of the Twelve Olympian gods of the ancient Greek world. It formed itself after the gods defeated the Titans in the Titan War, and soon the palace was inhabited by the gods. It is the setting of many Greek mythical stories.
5.Aurora: It is the Latin word for dawn, the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry. Like Greek Eos, Aurora, goddess of the dawn, renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the sun.
6.Tartary: It was a name used by Europeans from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century to designate the Great Steppe, that is the great tract of northern and central Asia stretching from the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean inhabited mostly by Turkic, Mongol peoples and also by some Cossacks of Russian origin, citizens of the Mongol Empire who were generically referred to as “Tartars”, i.e. Tatars. It incorporated the current areas of Siberia, Turkestan, Mongolia, and Manchuria.
7.Damodara: He was an astronomer-mathematician of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics who flourished during the fifteenth century CE.
8.Cassiopeia: It is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. Cassiopeia was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. It is easily recognizable due to its distinctive “W” shape, formed by five bright stars.
9.Pleiades: Also known as Seven Sisters, it is an open star cluster containing middleaged hot B-type stars located in the constellation of Taurus. It is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.
10.Hyades: It is the nearest open cluster to the Solar System and one of the best-studied of all star clusters. The Hipparcos satellite, the Hubble Space Telescope, and infrared color-magnitude diagram fitting have been used to establish a distance of 153 ly (47 pc) to the cluster center.
11.Aldebaran: It is a red giant star located about 65 light years away in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. It is the brightest star in the constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky.
12.Altair: It is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and the twelfth brightest star in the night sky.
13.King Tchingthang: He was a Manipuri monarch of the 18th century CE. The inventor of the Ras Lila dance, he is a legendary figure in Manipur, and much of his actions as King had been mythologized. He is also credited with spreading Vaishnavism in Manipur after his grandfather Pamheiba made Hinduism the official religion and for creating a unified Manipur.
14.The Vedas: They are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. The Vedas are apauru?eya (“not of human agency”). They are supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called ?ruti (“what is heard”), distinguishing them from other religious texts, which are called sm?ti (“what is remembered”).
15.Memnon: In Greek mythology, Memnon was an Ethiopian king and son of Tithonus and Eos. As a warrior he was considered to be almost Achilles’ equal in skill. During the Trojan War, he brought an army to Troy’s defense. The death of Memnon echoes that of Hector, another defender of Troy whom Achilles also killed out of revenge for a fallen comrade, Patroclus. After Memnon’s death, Zeus was moved by Eos’ tears and granted him immortality.
16.Genius: In ancient Roman religion, the genius was the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place, or thing.
17.Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): He was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
18.Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886): She was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family’s house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room.
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