Bob Dylan And Emily Dickinson
by Larry Fyffe
Although surrounded by a culture steeped in the tenets of the Calvinist religion, poet Emily Dickinson distances herself from organized religion. She particularly detests the dogma of ‘original sin’ that church leaders send nipping at the heels of parishioners.
Dickinson sides with the serpent of Eden who gives Adam’s wife Eve a book of Romantic Transcendentalist poetry that he’s written concerning the trees in Eden – with its focus on the tree growing in the midst of the Garden:
And the serpent said unto the woman
"Ye shall not surely die" For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof Then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods Knowing good and evil And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food And that it was pleasant for the eyes And a tree to be desired to make one wise She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat And gave also unto her husband with her And he did eat
(Genesis 3:4,5,6)
The Holy Bible tells a different story, however; God banishes Adam and Eve from Paradise for disobeying Him. From that day on, the sight of a snake makes the senuous poetess nervous:
A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides .... But never met this fellow Attended or alone Without a tighter breathing And zero at the bone
(Emily Dickinson: A Narrow Fellow In The Grass)
On the other hand, a Modernist poet highly praises Dickinson for her daring to be different:
I saw a young snake glide Out of the mottled shade .... It quickened and was gone I felt my slow blood warm I longed to be that thing The purely sensuous form
(Theodore Roethke: Snake)
Given the culture in which he lives, singer/songwriter Bob Dylan alludes to the biblical serpent without feeling the need to mention it:
He saw an animal as smooth as glass Slithering his way through the grass Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake ["Ah, think I'll call it a snake"]
(Bob Dylan: Man Gave Names To All The Animals)
Emily Dickinson’s Romantic Transcendentalist sense of goodness in Nature is tempered by her awareness of the dark Puritan belief that evil lies therein:
There came a wind like a bugle It quivered through the grass And a green chill upon the heart So ominous did pass
(Emily Dickinson: There Came A Wind Like A Bugle)
A sunlit symphony is the pantheistic picture of Nature that’s presented in the lyrics below, but drums and bugles are associated with war:
Struck by the sounds before the sun I knew the night had gone The morning breeze like a bugle blew Against the drums of dawn
(Bob Dylan: Lay Down Your Weary Tune)
It’s not all good. Death, the Eternal Footman, he waits for you – he wants you so bad:
One dignity delays for all One mitered afternoon None can avoid this purple None evade this crown Coach, it insures, and footman Chamber, and state, and throng Bells also in the village As we ride grand along
(Emily Dickinson: One Dignity Delays For All)
Bob Dylan raises his hat to Emily Dickinson:
The guilty undertaker sighs The lonesome organ grinder cries .... And the saviours who are fast asleep, they wait for you And I wait for them to interrupt Me drinkin' from my broken cup And ask me to open up the gate for you
(Bob Dylan: I Want You)
The last hiss, the snake gets:
So many roads, so much at stake Too many dead ends, I'm at the edge of the lake Sometimes I wonder what it's gonna take To find dignity
(Bob Dylan: Dignity)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecRhoySlOwQ