“I think that the Root of the Wind is Water” —1302, Dickinson
Day #1
Lineation, break lines, and capitalization are just some of the elements that help us enter the door of discovering a poem’s meaning. But, what if the poem that we love to read and see looks foreign from what we think it is. Will our encounter with the poem change? will we have a different level of appreciation?
Here’s Dickinson’s “I think that the root of the wind is water” poem:
I think that the Root of the Wind is Water —
It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product —
Airs no Oceans keep —
Mediterranean intonations —
To a Current’s Ear —
There is a maritime conviction
In the Atmosphere —
Now reread the poem in its manuscript form:
Dickinson, Emily, 1830–1886. Poems: Loose sheets. I think that the Root of the Wind is Water. MS Am 1118.3 (280). Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Houghton Library — J1302, Fr1295
Publication History
SH (1914), 56. Poems (1955), 906; CP (1960), 567. (J1302). Franklin Variorum 1998 (F1295A).
-History from Franklin Variorum 1998
Guiding Question:
By comparing the print version to the manuscript version here https://www.edickinson.org/editions/1/image_sets/12177413 (Links to an external site.)
1. How do you account for the changed lineation of the poem as printed?
2. What is the print editor showing that the manuscript version does not show?
3. Did seeing the manuscript change your treatment or encounter with the poem?
4. What does this poem tell us about the time and the cultural atmosphere it was written?
Fore more info., visit Emily Dickinson Archive
http://www.edickinson.org
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