So I’m back to reading Dickinson and reading Sewall’s biography. Maybe because it’s autumn? Or maybe it’s because Dickinson’s poems are all like riddles? I love sorting out what a poem means, so long as it’s not deliberately obscure or obfuscates. Dickinson is great that way. I don’t get the sense that she thought of her poetry as obscure. Rather, the difficulties of her poetry are like that of one who is writing to a confidant with a shared background and assumed knowledge. Truth is, many of her poems found their way into her letters. Even if we aren’t sure of what she’s talking about, there’s no evidence—that I’m aware of—that her correspondents didn’t know. It’s possible that she wrote many of her poems assuming a shared knowledge. And that brings me to the poem below (and by indirection) because what led me to this poem was another Dickinson poem (which I’ll talk about in another post) called Promise This When You Be Dying. The poem begins with these two stanzas:

Promise This — When You be Dying —
Some shall summon Me —
Mine belong Your latest Sighing —
Mine — to Belt Your Eye —

Not with Coins — though they be Minted
From an Emperor’s Hand —
Be my lips — the only Buckle
Your low Eyes — demand —

Once more, Dickinson is describing a viewing of the recently deceased. She describes “belting” the deceased’s eye and of her lips (a kiss?) being “the only Buckle”. To which I say: Wait, what? That sent me on a search through Victorian funeral rituals, belts and buckles, because Victorian burials were—an event—full of ritual, production and display. Was there a funerary ritual surrounding belts and buckles? And that sent me to this poem:

He put the Belt around my life
I heard the Buckle snap—
And turned away, imperial,
My Lifetime folding up—
Deliberate, as a Duke would do
A Kingdom’s Title Deed—
Henceforth, a Dedicated sort—
A Member of the Cloud.

Yet not too far to come at call—
And do the little Toils
That make the Circuit of the Rest—
And deal occasional smiles
To lives that stoop to notice mine—
And kindly ask it in—
Whose invitation, know you not
For Whom I must decline?

[FR-330]

And this poem sent me to my favorite Dickinson website, the prowling bee, where Susan Kornfeld, not unreasonably, interprets Dickinson’s belt and buckle as a corset, writing:

“The poem begins in an almost shocking image: God putting a belt around a woman and then snapping it tight. This is an overt act of domination. We put a collar on a dog and snap it to a leash. But unlike many dog owners who bend down to pat the dog and give it an “atta boy” encouragement, God then turns away, ‘imperial.’”

And that brought about another—Wait, what?—moment. So, does that mean that when Dickinson is describing the viewing of the corpse, she wants to put a corset round the corpse’s eye?—then cinch it up with a kiss?

I’m here to suggest another, and I think much more likely, explanation.

But first, there are problems with interpreting the belt and buckle as a corset, let alone a subjugating corset. The biggest problem is Burnadette Banner. Burnadette Banner (who I love) is to period Victorian clothing what I’d like to be to poetry. And one of her pet peeves is the notion that corsets were an uncomfortably oppressive article of clothing so tightly laced that they caused Disney heroines—see Pirates of the Caribbean—to faint off the sides of cliffs. She will tell that that’s utter nonsense. In fact, corsets were bespoke articles of clothing that were exceedingly comfortable and were not meant, in any way, to unnaturally constrict a woman’s figure. In fact, the corset was meant to support and give structure to her clothes, not her body. Banner argues that our current perception of corsets is a modern myth. For this reason, I think it very unlikely that Dickinson would have used the corset as a metonym or analogy for oppression or subjugation. The evidence argues that this is an anachronistic interpretation. The second problem is that, as far as I know, corsets were not buckled; they were laced. If you see a buckle on a corset, then it’s a modern corset that, typically, is exceedingly uncomfortable (as demonstrated by Banner).

So what was Dickinson referring to by belt and buckle? I’m glad you asked.

Buckle Jewelry. As it happens, buckle jewelry was a thing in Victorian times, and wildly popular. As the International Antique Jewelers Association goes on to explain:

“The buckle rings were made of precious metal that was sometimes embellished with chasing, engraving or other treatments. Sometimes they had a few gemstones adorning the ring. Buckle rings reached the pinnacle of popularity during the mid 1800s, which could have something to do with the other meaning of buckle rings: Mourning jewelry. The link between the buckle and the belt signified strength and connection during the mourning period, which in Victorian England lasted at least one year.”

Voila! Mourning jewelry. There’s your belt and there’s your buckle. They also apparently made buckle bracelets and buckle earrings. They were, in a sense, glorified friendship bracelets. And if you’ve read enough Dickinson, then you know that what at first glance might seem like an erotic love poem to a dear friend, very often turns out to be a corpse or death personified. When in doubt, assume she’s in the graveyard.

Now, knowing that, a bit like having the right key to the lock (which is very often all you need to understand a Dickinson poem), let’s reread “He put a belt”:

He put the Belt around my life
I heard the Buckle snap—
And turned away, imperial,
My Lifetime folding up—
Deliberate, as a Duke would do
A Kingdom’s Title Deed—
Henceforth, a Dedicated sort—
A Member of the Cloud.

Kornfeld interprets this as God, but since Dickinson, to my knowledge, never personified God, only Death, I’m more apt to say that Dickinson is once more personifying Death (especially given Buckle Jewelry’s association—if the IAJA site is to be accepted—with mourning). I also like this because it lends to the poem Dickinson’s typical pixie-ish sense of humor. In fact, I find the poem to be full of laughter. Buckle Jewelry was also given between lovers. So, if you think about it, Death, with a sort of imperious and self-satisfied ego, has “gifted” little Emily Dickinson with, maybe, a lover’s belt and buckle “friendship” ring which, given the giver, also, and ironically, serves as mourning jewelry—folding up her lifetime just like that (thanks a lot, right?). So, to spell it out, the humor is that getting a lover’s friendship bracelet from Death will be a short affair.

What is Emily to do? Death, assuming Emily’s gratitude, ‘turns away’ once he’s buckled his jewelry round her neck, or finger or wrist—as a self-satisfied Duke would do (she is his new Kingdom and the jewelry is effectively his Title to that Kingdom). I tentatively read the last three lines this way: Death fastens his jewelry to her “as a Duke would do A Kingdom’s Title Deed” making Emily “a Dedicated sort”—and here she thought she was going to live forever!—who will become yet another “Member of the Cloud”. (ED is not “dedicated”, in the sense of being committed to an action, but is dedicated, by Death’s “Title”, in a legal sense.) One could interpret “Member of the Cloud” as a reference to Death, but I read ED as describing the friendship/mourning jewelry as the Title Deed that claims her as another “Member” in Death’s Kingdom (the Cloud).

So. That’s just great. Emily continues:

Yet not too far to come at call—
And do the little Toils
That make the Circuit of the Rest—
And deal occasional smiles
To lives that stoop to notice mine—
And kindly ask it in—
Whose invitation, know you not
For Whom I must decline?

Susan Kornfeld, at the prowling bee, interprets this passage as Emily’s description of her own behavior, which is possible, but I’m inclined to read it as a continuation of the first stanza and her description of Death’s obliviously egotistical behavior. Death has turned away, says Emily, but “not too far to come at call”. How nice of him. How decent of him. And while doing so, like an entitled lothario, Death sees to his little “Toils” and makes a “Circuit of the Rest”. Read, More dead Victorians. Death graciously smiles at those, “To lives” Emily writes, who stoop to notice his new—what would you call it?—possession?—to which he’s buckled his ring, bracelet, necklace or what have you. The others, knowing no better, kindly ask “it” in. The idiots. Know you not? Emily asks. When Emily is also invited, she politely declines, disgusted with the whole affair, understanding that this new-found “royal interest”, this so-called friendship bracelet (let’s say) is not something to be celebrated. It’s quite possible to read this as Emily’s very pointed critique of the Victorian Era’s “death cult” (as it is sometimes called). You would almost think these people are looking forward to the next death, says Emily, the way they all but invite “the Duke” into their houses with their excessive rituals and displays of grief. They treat him—”it“—like royalty.

And that’s my reading of that. A good poem for Halloween.

And if Death offers you any candy, come Friday, I suggest you politely decline.