The Soul unto itself

“The Soul Selects her Own Society” by Emily Dickinson (1862)

A poem often paired with 683, this poem explores the concept of the imperial, empowered soul. Here the soul endures no treason but rather acts to defend its complex integrity by seeking shelter against and away from the real-time world, content to select one or two others to admit.

“Think of the Soul” by Walt Whitman (1871)

One of the set pieces from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (which Dickinson knew well), Whitman expounds on the concept of the importance and viability of the soul. He testifies to its reality and suggests, in ways Dickinson agreed, that despite the oppressive reality of the material universe and the dicey concept of a Christian afterlife, the body maintains a soul that is at once imperial and vulnerable.

“Holy Sonnet VII” by John Donne (1633)

Dickinson has often been called America’s Metaphysical Poet. She read widely of the works of these English Renaissance poets, among them Donne, admiring as much their theological speculations as their innovative experiments in prosody. Here, Donne, a bishop in the Anglican Church, speculates on the Christian soul and its inevitable showdown with the bookkeeper God.