An American Triptych by Wendy Martin

Author:Wendy Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 1984-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Not only does Dickinson relegate theology to the province of men and boys, but she criticizes the punitive orientation of the Judeo-Christian heritage with a reference to the myth of Orpheus whose music charmed the rulers of the underworld. In addition, she parodies the patterns of language and metrical forms of traditional hymns, especially those of the well-known hymnist Isaac Watts (1674–1748). The rigid 4–3—4–3 meters of Watts’s hymns provide the ground bass against which she syncopates many of her poetic lines. Dickinson’s version has the rhythmic complexity of jazz in contrast to the rigid regularity of Watts’s heavily rhymed lines. Although she reacted against Watts’s predictable meters, they did provide a springboard for her variations.

The following hymn by Watts illustrates his steady cadences and inexorable rhymes:

God of the Seas, thy thundering Voice

Makes all the roaring Waves rejoyce,

And one soft Word of thy Command

Can sink them silent in the Sand.

If but a Moses wave thy Rod,

The Sea divides and owns its God;

The stormy Floods their maker knew,

And let his chosen Armies thro!

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