Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

In the Foreword to A Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson, Gregory Orr, taking a cue from
her reclusive life, called her “one of our premier isolatos…”. At the same time, he also wrote:
“More of Emily Dickinson’s poems begin wit “I” than any other word. Paradoxically,
in the lyric this pronoun of self functions inclusively, rather than exclusively. The
reader is invited to identify with the poem’s speaker, for the brief, intensified moment
of the poem’s unfolding.”

But, this seeming invitation to share the intensified emotions expressed through her poetry
can be misleading if we try to find a definite biographical reference in the poem “I cannot
live with you”. Different scholars have found resonances with various intense relationships
Dickinson had shared at different points of her life. It is better perhaps to read the poem as an
expression of an intense and lonely love, and concentrate on the poet’s expression of this
experience than go chasing after biographical details. The most rewarding reading of the
poem is to appreciate the various stages of negations she passes through to eventually reach
the final triumph of the imagination in creating an emotional connection which transcends
space, faith and even joy. Thus, the lovers are united, even though they are doomed to be
apart in life, death, heaven or hell, and despair is embraced as the condition of love.

The poet uses a complex series of enjambed stanzas to develop the idea of the impossibility
of a union that can be sanctioned in the eyes of any establishment, Church or society. The
first stanza begins on a very bleak note, which does not acknowledge either the possibility of
earthly union, or, any other means of union in this life or the next. But the concluding lines of
the poem suggests a paradox that defies the cruelty of reality by creating an imaginative
space fit for emotional fulfilment. It uses religious references only to discard them, almost in
a re-enactment of Dickinson’s own distancing from the Church, in spite of the religious
revival seen in Amherst in the mid-1840s.

I cannot live with you (1863)

I cannot live with You – 

It would be Life – 
And Life is over there – 1
Behind the Shelf
The Sexton2 keeps the Key to – 
Putting up
Our Life – His Porcelain – 3
Like a Cup – 

1
This line could imply a sense of deprivation, of life’s fulfilment being always beyond reach. But the use of
enjambment with which the poet proceeds to refer to the sexton’s cup also indicates a reference to life eternal,
beyond the scope of mundane measures.
2
A church official responsible for its maintenance.
3
The “porcelain” the Sexton keeps, is the vessel used for the ceremony of Holy Communion, when bread and
wine are passed around the congregation, representing the body and blood of Christ. It is a reminder of the
sacrifice on the cross and of life everlasting. The separation of “Our Life” and “His porcelain” suggests a
tension between the claims of an earthly paradise of fulfilled love, and the Christian Paradise. If the intended
addressee of the poem is Rev. Charles Wadsworth, then the allusion to Christian rituals becomes a bitter irony.
Discarded of the Housewife – 
Quaint – or Broke – 
A newer Sevres pleases – 
Old Ones crack – 4
I could not die – with You – 5
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down – 6
You – could not – 
And I – could I stand by
And see You – freeze – 
Without my Right of Frost – 
Death's privilege?7
Nor could I rise – with You – 8
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' – 9
That New Grace
Glow plain – and foreign
On my homesick Eye – 
Except that You than He
Shone closer by – 10
They'd judge Us11 – How – 
For You – served Heaven – You know,
Or sought to – 
I could not – 12
4
Once again, the use of enjambment carries forward the imagery used in the previous stanza. It appears to have
a dual suggestiveness: the Sexton is no more than a prosaic official of the established Church, and even the
vessel used for the ritual of Communion is replaced if cracked or too old; human lives too are as fragile, and
often hopes and desires are shattered. The point to be noted is that, the life of the Church order is not held higher
than life outside where people live and love.
The reference to domestic china could also be an image evoking her relentless domestic duties caused by an
ailing mother.
5
Having acknowledged the impossibility of living with her beloved, the poet turns to the idea of death. To be
united in death is a common literary motif found in numerous tragic love stories such as Romeo and Juliet. But,
Dickinson denies the promise of death to unite the lovers.
6
The reference is to the custom of shutting the eyelids after a person has passed away. But, in this case, the
beloved will not be able to perform the act, and the ‘I’ of the lyric will not be able to bear the loss without dying
instantly, as suggested by the next stanza. The internal logic of the poem seems to suggest that any shared
experience, even that of death, is denied to the lovers.
7
Note the use of synesthetic imagery in bringing together the idea of the body stilled in death and the coldness
associated with death.
8
The poet turns from the impossibility of union on earth, to that in heaven, only to reject the possibility.
9
In an almost heretical assertion, she says that the beloved’s face will eclipse that of Jesus, thus precluding the
possibility of attaining paradise.
10
The enjambment leads to the expression of a heart that will remain forever “homesick”, longing for the earthly
love by her side, making even the vision of Jesus Christ a strange and foreign one, which fails to satisfy her
yearning heart.
11
A rather ambiguous statement, which may mean the Day of Judgment, but could equally refer to a love that is
frowned upon by society. It could be because the relationship is with a married clergyman, Charles Wadsworth,
Samuel Bowles, a famous editor, or, Susan Huntington, who eventually married her brother.
12
These lines appear to refer to Dickinson’s failure to retain her faith in the Church. A Calvinist revival had
swept through Amherst in her youth, but though she had briefly been a part of it, the experience failed to satisfy
her and she ceased to attend Church regularly. The beloved whom she addresses, seems to serve God. This
could suggest Charles Wadsworth. But, neither can the reader dismiss the claim of Susan, who may have
Because You saturated Sight – 
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise13
And were You lost, I would be – 
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame – 14
And were You – saved – 
And I – condemned to be
Where You were not – 
That self – were Hell to Me – 15
So We must meet apart – 16
You there – I – here – 
With just the Door ajar17
That Oceans are – and Prayer – 
And that White Sustenance – 
Despair – 18

practised more conventional religious beliefs.

13
Once again, a most provocatively heretical passage which reverses conventional morality by associating
Paradise with sordidness.
14
Continuing her examination of the various possibilities, Dickinson avers that even a place among the chosen
ones would be meaningless, if her beloved was not among the saved.
15
For her, Hell is not in being in the presence of her beloved, should God’s Grace keep them apart by redeeming
the loved one only and thus, parting the lovers.
16
A wonderfully oxymoronic line, which expresses the final transcendence of reality by embracing absence as
the ultimate means of union.
17
“the Door ajar” seems to be a reflection of the actual fact that Dickinson, who had become a recluse,
continued to communicate with people in doorways and through letters written from afar. Her numerous intense
relationships were mostly conducted through letters.
18
The slender opening of “the Door ajar” expands into immensities of space, faith and an all-consuming despair,
whose intensity is like white heat, or the pallor of death. It also recalls Dickinson’s choice of dressing only in
white in her later years.