Unfolding poetry

“479” by Emily Dickinson

She dalt her pretty words like Blades –
How glittering they shown –
And every One unbarred a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone –

She never deemed – she hurt –
That – is not Steel’s Affair –
A vulgar grimace in the Flesh –
How ill the Creatures bear –

To Ache is human – not polite –
The Film upon the eye
Mortality’s old Custom –
Just locking up – to Die.


In “479” by Emily Dickinson, her juxtaposition of seeming opposites of symbolism illustrate a cathartic cutting moment which she resolves throughout the poem. Besides symbols, her grammatical constructs convey the time-sense of her resolution.

Blades cut; blades are sharp. Words dealt as blades to the poet cut as deep to her as any steel. Dickinson’s emotional sensitivity displays itself in the poem readily. She begins as if she is reeling from an encounter with an unknown woman. The woman seems eloquent, yet eloquent in a sense of having a way with words carefully chosen to wreak emotional havoc for the poet.

Often pretty words are thought to be those that make one happy or elated. And yet, Dickinson describes them glittering like a blade. Perhaps the woman offending paid a compliment in two ways. A double entendre likened to the slow kindjal piercing to the nerve were her words.

The symbolic aspects contradict one another, furthering the sentiment of a double edged compliment. By calling words that hurt “pretty” and “glittering,” she contrasts pain or aching with the usually positive adjectives negatively. Later, “a vulgar grimace” contrasts back to the “pretty” delivery of hurtful words. The picture of a sophisticated, urbane lady comes to mind dressed in her finery, standing at Dickinson’s garden gate. The lady stands there and harangues Dickinson. Perhaps the lady was one of those who thinks to be doing “a favor” to her addressee by telling to Dickinson all the should be doing – all the while cutting.

Further, Dickinson resolves the episode in two ways. She uses the infinitive form “to ache” to show purpose. “To ache is human” mirrors the saying, “To err is human.” Perhaps she believes that aching is the purpose or lot of a human and part of the province of what being a human is. She contrasts the aching with “polite” in the same line. Politeness is a social convention typically thought to alleviate pain – that is, relationships among humans. Later, she places the final infinitive, “to die,” at the end of the poem – to die as a human’s final purpose. In the penultimate line, she uses “Mortality” as a noun, suggesting that she has relegated herself to a long line of those hurt by words. Dickinson perhaps shed some tears on the way to the emotional resolution with the “Film upon the eye.”

Dickinson’s use of tense gives clues as well to the progress of the resolution. Stanzas one and two are in past tense; three is in present. Although the poet was hurt, like Wordsworth, she experiences the moment and lets it coalesce. Later, she puts it into words with her overflow of emotion in spontaneity.

Dickinson herself cuts with words in this poem, “479.” Her skillful use of symbol and clever, carefully-chosen grammar rend out the emotions of the reader just as she felt them. As a glittering blade can cut to nerve and bone, so can words. As she was cut, so she cuts. And, as those knife-words were double-bladed, so the poem is. Not only does the poem recount a hurtful exchange, but it also counts the exchange among those human things, those inevitable emotions which lead all to the same destination – death. Her seemingly fey attitude is a resolution of sorts. Her hurt has now also died, has been cried out, and resolved.