Вот Елисейские Поля... Эмили Дикинсон

Elysium, according to Homer, lies at the very end of the earth and, perhaps
even more important, cannot be reached before death (such at least is
Hesiod's opinion). It is here indirectly related to an adjoining room where
some "Friend" awaits an unspecified but evidently final decision. The
infinitely far away is, as often in Dickinson's poems, correlated to what is
nearest, just as the infinitely great is sometimes dialectically related to the
infinitely small. The element that connects the two places in the mind is
expectation. The opposition "Doom" – "Felicity" accentuates the two
alternative possibilities of fulfillment and disappointment respectively.
"Doom" furthermore implies that the decision will be of an apocalyptic
fatality, while ''Felicity" alludes to the pre-Christian "Isles of the Blest."
That this suspense between "Felicity" and "Doom" is strongly reminiscent of
the Puritan uncertainty between salvation and rejection can hardly be denied.
One might even argue that Dickinson's refusal of all mediation and,relatedly, her tendency for total interiorization, is the logical fulfillment of
the Puritan spirit.
Ultimately, the room may be understood as a death-chamber where a dying
person tremblingly awaits an answer to the ominous question: immortality or
extinction? "Dying is," as Dickinson once put it, "A Kind behind the Door –
" (J 335). As a matter of fact , however, we are constantly being confronted
with the alternative "Felicity or Doom," being or non-being, since each
moment of our lives is of this "critical" nature. It is for this reason that the
poet starts wondering how a human being can possibly endure such a
paralyzing suspense. The radical openness of man's existence becomes both
audible and visible in the final two lines of the poem. The clocklike beat of
the approaching steps represents linear time, which – like death – is
unremittingly and threateningly coming towards us. The visual impression of
the opening door, itself a central image of transition in Dickinson's poetry,
represents the potentiality of human life as such, which plunges man into a
strange mixture of ecstasy and despair. (The door seems to be a variant of
the Romantic motif of the "magic casement.") As a result, "Elysium" itself
becomes ambivalent and the question: Paradise or Hades? remains open like
the door at the end of the poem. The approaching footsteps are at the same
time the metrical feet of the closing lines, so that the poem reveals itself as an
allegory of its own structure, which is necessarily an open one, and at the
critical moment seems to stiffen (note the final hyphen) as at the moment of
death: "Death – so – the Hyphen of the Sea – " (J 1454).
The lyrical "I" seems first to stand outside the situation as a mere observer,
though not indifferent since a friend is concerned. The observer even tends
to blur with the expected visitor himself. "Friend" functions as a sort of link
between author and reader who are both involved in the situation, since
sympathy is normally the first step toward identification. Total identification,
however, would only weaken the paradigmatic character of the situation. The
curiously indistinct identities of the personae could even point to a
confrontation of the soul with itself, which is, in fact, a recurring motif in
Dickinson's poetry.(48) This would not exclude further candidates for the
mysterious visitor, such as "Lover," "God, " "Death" (who in the poet's eros/
thanatos dialectics frequently merge into one another), the more since this
visitor does not appear in person and can merely be inferred from the
approaching footsteps and the opening of the door. The uncertainty is
emphasized by the synecdoche "Foot" and, even more so, by the metonym
"accent." The exact reason for the "Friend's" ecstatic but chilling expectation
is kept hidden from the reader. As a result, the concrete visit tends to
transcend itself and assumes an archetypal significance. The poem can
therefore be understood as an allegory of the human condition.

Андрей Пустогаров   22.03.2012 19:47   •   Заявить о нарушении