Dickinson Sonnet 346a

418 Words1 Page

While the previous poem’s drafts varied in language, poem #346’s drafts’ differ in their use of pronouns and their syntactical construction. The prior will be discussed further along in our analysis of Dickinson’s drafts, but the syntactical variations between versions #346A and #346B of “He showed me hights I never saw” provide plenty of insight on how comparing Dickinson’s various choices from one draft to another can elicit some level of homoerotic narration. Because both drafts of Dickinson’s “He showed me hights I never saw” are written from what seems to be entirely different perspectives, a great majority of the text is reformatted. That being said, there are specific lines in which the poem’s punctuation calls attention to Dickinson’s …show more content…

They differ, however, in their syntactic formulation. Draft #346A’s fourth line reads, “‘With me –’ I said – With me?” (Dickinson 346A: 4). In the second version of the poem, the speaker—designated as male—asks the same question: “‘With me –’ He said – ‘With me’?” (Dickinson 346B: 4) The italicized words in the first draft represent the terms Dickinson intentionally emphasized in the copy she had sent to Susan Gilbert, the terms’ emphasis providing a tangible sense of desperation the second draft’s fourth line lacks. Additionally, Dickinson’s added use of quotation marks in the second draft calls into question why the original is formatted differently. By not enclosing “With me?” in quotation marks in her first draft of “I showed her hights she never saw,” Dickinson is coaxing her readers into scrutinizing the identity of the speaker (Dickinson 346A: 4). On the other hand, the male speaker in the second draft only seems concerned with his subject’s answer to his repeated question. Thus, while the male speaker is concerned with the request at hand, the speaker in the first draft is considering how their identity may interfere with their romantic

Open Document