The Soul unto itself

As part of Emily Dickinson’s lifelong interrogation of the complex relationship between and among the intellect, the heart, and the soul, Poem 683 (titled by later editors of her work as “The Soul unto Itself”) explores how the soul can be its own best friend and its own most dangerous enemy. Dickinson, thoroughly vested in the writings of Christian theology, wrestled with the implications of the Christian soul, how it differed from the heart and the mind and how it often found itself in conflict with both the intellect and the passions. Which energy, she asks here, most defines a person’s identity? And what happens, she dares to ask, when the heart desires what the soul prohibits?

Because Poem 683 was one of the few of Dickinson’s more than 1700 poems that she sent out and because the poem was sent to Samuel Bowles (1826-1878), a prominent newspaper publisher for whom Dickinson biographers have long speculated she had a formidable affection that she maintained from a discrete distance, the poem has become entangled in Dickinson’s biography. The question it raises, however, about the soul and how it can betray itself reaches far beyond the narrow scope of Dickinson’s biography.

Poet Biography

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born 10 December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Early on, Dickinson was an avid reader, enjoying everything from Christian theological writings to theoretical work in science to metaphysical poetry of the English Renaissance to New England Transcendentalist essays. Dickinson briefly attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning home to Amherst, where she led a quiet lifestyle. She maintained correspondence with close friends and with her younger siblings while maintaining her father’s social schedule.

By 1850, Dickinson was composing original verse. Fascinated by metaphors, Dickinson began crafting verse which set her apart from her contemporaries. She utilized minimalist expression, altered grammar by creating an individual style of punctuation and capitalization, and incorporated Protestant hymns into her verse. Her poems, though individual, seldom found a sympathetic publisher due to their nonconformity. Dickinson's poems, which she only shared with select close friends and which totaled more than 1700 at her death, were stored in collected bundles beneath her bed. Her poems never had titles and were rarely numbered.

After Dickinson’s death in May 1886, at the age of 55, her family began publishing her poems. A complete volume of her poems, however, would not appear until nearly 75 years after her death.

Poem Text

“Poem 683 (The Soul unto Itself)”

The Soul unto itself     

Is an imperial friend –    

Or the most agonizing Spy –   

An Enemy – could send –   

Secure against its own – 

No treason it can fear –  

Itself – its Sovereign – of itself 

The Soul should stand in Awe

Dickinson, Emily. “The Soul unto Itself.” Poets.org.

Summary

At first read, Poem 683 seems puzzling, deliberately ambiguous. Although only eight lines, the poem appears to resist summarizing. After all, there is no speaker indicated, no narrative context, no dramatic setting or characters to indicate the occasion for the poem. It reads like a series of maxims. Each couplet shares an insight into the nature of the soul, insights that do not appear connected to each other.

The first couplet argues the soul, whatever that is, is powerful (“imperial”) and is an energy, an entity perhaps, that is favorable to the person who has one. Your soul is your friend. Then the second couplet counters that assertion by suggesting that the soul, your best friend, can also be a deceiving traitor, a spy, an enemy in your camp. Because a person can do what the soul tells them not to do, because the soul has no authority to direct action or control behavior, your soul can be your own worst enemy. Imagine, the poem argues, instances where you want to do one thing but this soul thing tells you it is wrong to do. In that case, the soul is both friend and traitor. The poem accepts the necessarily contradictory nature of the soul, both friend and spy.

The second stanza continues this interrogation of the soul’s function, the investigation into its very being. If the soul and the person are in sync with each other, if you do what your soul dictates is the best course of action, there is genuine peace in your soul. No stress, no tension, no friction. The soul in those cases is supreme like a monarch—nothing, neither the heart nor the brain, can betray it, trouble it. Nothing disturbs the kingdom. The soul has no reason to fear treason.

In that instance—and the poem does not indicate how often such agreement among the heart, the brain, and the soul might occur—in that moment when the soul is not challenged, when the soul is sovereign, the soul itself would be stunned, in awe, of its own power, its own being. What the poem asks in all but words is what happens with the alternative, when the guidance of the soul is contested or even outright rejected by the overthinking rationalizations of the brain, the brain capable of making the most destructive options seem reasonable, or by the urgencies of the unloosened heart that can as well make destructive options seem reasonable? The question is not answered here—the poet only raises that perplexing premise.