In his discussion
of Emily Dickinson's "I know that He exists" (365), Gary Grieve-Carlson
summarizes other interpretations in contrast with his own. Yet all these
interpretations share what seems to me to be a misreading of an image in the second
stanza: while they see God ambushing the speaker, I see the speaker ambushing
God. Before reading Grieve-Carlson's interpretation, I already understood this as
an example of the trope of hidden truths that seekers only unveil at great
cost, as in Friedrich Schiller's "Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais". Dickinson's
speaker knows a hidden God exists; the figure of the terrifying sublime captures
the danger of "ambushing" Him with "our gross eyes". (Andrew
Shields, #111words, 15 April)
365 I know
that He exists.
Emily
Dickinson
I know that
He exists.
Somewhere —
in Silence —
He has hid
his rare life
From our
gross eyes.
'Tis an
instant's play.
'Tis a fond
Ambush —
Just to
make Bliss
Earn her
own surprise!
But —
should the play
Prove
piercing earnest —
Should the
glee — glaze —
In Death's
— stiff — stare —
Would not
the fun
Look too
expensive!
Would not
the jest —
Have
crawled too far!
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