SAVING APPEARANCES A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Jeffrey Allan Hanson March 2007 This dissertation entitled SAVING APPEARANCES by JEFFREY ALLAN HANSON has been approved for the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences by ______________________________________________________ Mark Halliday Professor of English _______________________________________________________ Benjamin M. Ogles Dean, College of Arts and Sciences HANSON, JEFFREY ALLAN, Ph.D., March 2007, Creative Writing SAVING APPEARANCES (95 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Mark Halliday This dissertation is divided into two parts: a discussion of the life and work of Emily Dickinson as being relevant to a conventional definition of wisdom writing as well as the idea of Dickinson’s poetry as a demonstration of the poetic qualities of scriptural writing, and a collection of poems. The following essay outlines some of the seminal points of comparison between Dickinson and the historical tradition of Wisdom writing. The term wisdom writing here refers to writing usually considered outside of the bounds of poetry alone, although the utterance of divinely inspired rhetoric is often poetic in essence. Poetry can be proverbial and instructional. Dickinson’s poetry evinces these purposes but also demonstrate the dimension of dialogue and obsession with questions about the relationship between the individual and God. The other section of this document is a collection of original poetry, wherein I have tried to address themes that continue to interest me, including: male-cruelty, the relationship between God and supplicant, and the individual’s conscious isolation. Approved: _____________________________________________________________ Mark Halliday Professor of English The whole world of all important things, I find in you, precious Marilyn. Thank you for all of it, my love. Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge Mark Halliday for directing my writing efforts carefully and energetically to ensure for clarity and substance. I owe him much for his earnest and warm mentorship over a period of years. Also, without the depth of experience and scholarship provided by Marsha Dutton, Sharmila Voorokara, and Vladimir Marchenkov, this dissertation would not be the satisfactory document I feel it is. My friends, I thank you. 6 Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................... 3 Dedication........................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements............................................................................................................. 5 Poetry as Scripture and Wisdom Literature in the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson..... 9 Wisdom Writing................................................................................................................ 12 Poetry ................................................................................................................................ 13 Emily Dickinson ............................................................................................................... 17 Dickinson as an Ascetic.................................................................................................... 18 Dickinson and Christianity ............................................................................................... 23 Dickinson and Modes of Wisdom Writing ....................................................................... 31 The Mystical Dickinson.................................................................................................... 37 Dickinson and Job............................................................................................................. 42 Part Two: Saving Appearances......................................................................................... 49 San Diego A. A................................................................................................................. 50 Tools ................................................................................................................................. 51 The Sell ............................................................................................................................. 52 Saving Appearances.......................................................................................................... 53 Still Life ............................................................................................................................ 55 What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?........................................................................ 56 The Church Where I Go Has No Idols.............................................................................. 57 Snow Blind........................................................................................................................ 58 Moon Talk......................................................................................................................... 59 7 The Magnificent Ninety.................................................................................................... 61 Penal Drift......................................................................................................................... 63 Slow Dissolve ................................................................................................................... 65 Someday, Thunder ............................................................................................................ 66 Volunteers......................................................................................................................... 67 Enough North.................................................................................................................... 68 Valentine's......................................................................................................................... 69 Out There .......................................................................................................................... 70 Gifts................................................................................................................................... 72 Night Light........................................................................................................................ 73 The Very Very Goodness of Acting ................................................................................. 74 Naming a Place of Need ................................................................................................... 75 Transworld ........................................................................................................................ 77 Believing the Difference Matters...................................................................................... 79 Autumn Out ...................................................................................................................... 81 In the East ......................................................................................................................... 82 The Picture of Frank ......................................................................................................... 85 Sleep.................................................................................................................................. 86 Doubtful Stamina.............................................................................................................. 88 Puncture ............................................................................................................................ 89 Amanuensis....................................................................................................................... 90 Black ................................................................................................................................. 91 Late Walk.......................................................................................................................... 92 8 Come Glory....................................................................................................................... 93 Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 94 9 Part One: Poetry as Scripture and Wisdom Literature in the Life and Work of Emily Dickinson 10 The author feels no satisfaction and the reader little assurance with qualifying statements at the outset of an essay. Yet, for this writing, it must be so. Such a necessity need not be an expansive one for there is little more to note than two limitations. First, only a quick survey of important points relevant to the thesis is possible for this brief study as it does not greatly substantiate those points, but rather introduces them to fix briefly each for the reader’s attention. Second, the purpose of this essay is, of course, to recommend the logic of each argument, but also to note them all as worthy of further elucidation in an essay of greater length. In addition, the central idea behind these arguments is not entirely a new one, but rather a deviation from correlating ideas already submitted by distinguished scholars. That said, the following essay will note striking similarities