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Can anyone help me interpret this poem?

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  • 04-07-2010 9:26pm
    #1
    George Orwell 1982
    Closed Accounts Posts: 595 ✭✭✭


    Me from Myself -- to banish --
    Had I Art --
    Impregnable my Fortress
    Unto All Heart --

    But since Myself -- assault Me --
    How have I peace
    Except by subjugating
    Consciousness?

    And since We're mutual Monarch
    How this be
    Except by Abdication --
    Me -- of Me?



    [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Emily Dickinson, 1862[/FONT]


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    #2
    George Orwell 1982
    Closed Accounts Posts: 595 ✭✭✭George Orwell 1982


    I found this interpretation online:

    She is striving to "banish" herself from herself. It is an "assault" of "Me" by "Myself," and the only way to have peace is by "subjugating" or mastering "Consciousness." The solution: "...Abdication -- / Me -- of Me".

    Written in a different century and different culture, this could be read as a Sufi poem of fana or ecstatic self-annihilation. It could be read as a Buddhist poem of mind dissolving to reveal Buddha mind, an Advaita Yoga poem of discovering the true Self.

    Emily Dickinson is clearly playing with the two levels of self. There is the little self that most people think of as who they are, the identity that clings and sticks, that imagines itself trapped in the body and in time. And then there is the vast, unified Self, who resides everywhere without boundary, but whose seat or "Fortress" is found to be the heart.

    To find the fullness life in the greater Self, the little self must fall away, it must be banished or "die" This is one way Christian esoteric tradition understands Christ's injunction to die in order to be reborn. This is the Sufi goal of self-annihilation in the Beloved. This the discovery of awakened awareness beneath mundane perception, the recognition of the true Self.

    This is how Dickinson can tease us with her playful riddles, talking about banishing "Me from Myself" -- finding peace and an "Impgregnable... Fortress / Unto All Heart."


    Does the "abdication" "me of me" mean she gives up on her narrow self identity?


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    #3
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    It's an ode to the em dash.


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    #4
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    Just think of yourself, on a bad day wanting to murder six pints. Same instinct, same motives, same things going on, different solution.


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