American Literature I Emily Dickinson's I Measure Every Grief I Meet.

 

American Literature -I

I measure every Grief I meet

Emily Dickinson

1830 – 1886

 

I measure every Grief I meet

With narrow, probing, eyes – 

I wonder if It weighs like Mine – 

Or has an Easier size.

 

I wonder if They bore it long – 

Or did it just begin – 

I could not tell the Date of Mine – 

It feels so old a pain – 

 

I wonder if it hurts to live – 

And if They have to try – 

And whether – could They choose between – 

It would not be – to die – 

 

I note that Some – gone patient long – 

At length, renew their smile – 

An imitation of a Light

That has so little Oil – 

 

I wonder if when Years have piled – 

Some Thousands – on the Harm – 

That hurt them early – such a lapse

Could give them any Balm – 

 

Or would they go on aching still

Through Centuries of Nerve – 

Enlightened to a larger Pain – 

In Contrast with the Love – 

 

The Grieved – are many – I am told – 

There is the various Cause – 

Death – is but one – and comes but once – 

And only nails the eyes – 

 

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold – 

A sort they call "Despair" – 

There's Banishment from native Eyes – 

In sight of Native Air – 

 

And though I may not guess the kind – 

Correctly – yet to me

A piercing Comfort it affords

In passing Calvary – 

 

To note the fashions – of the Cross – 

And how they're mostly worn – 

Still fascinated to presume

That Some – are like my own – 

 

Emily Dickinson and Dickinson’s Poetry Background

Emily Dickinson and Dickinson’s Poetry Background

Emily Dickinson led one of the most prosaic lives of any great poet. At a time when fellow poet Walt Whitman was ministering to the Civil War wounded and traveling across America—a time when America itself was reeling in the chaos of war, the tragedy of the Lincoln assassination, and the turmoil of Reconstruction—Dickinson lived a relatively untroubled life in her father’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she was born in 1830 and where she died in 1886. Although popular myth often depicts Dickinson as the solitary genius, she, in fact, remained relatively active in Amherst social circles and often entertained visitors throughout her life. However, she was certainly more isolated than a poet such as Whitman: Her world was bounded by her home and its surrounding countryside; the great events of her day play little role in her poetry. Whitman eulogized Lincoln and wrote about the war; Dickinson, one of the great poets of inwardness ever to write in English, was no social poet—one could read through her Collected Poems—1,776 in all—and emerge with almost no sense of the time in which she lived. Of course, social and historical ideas and values contributed in shaping her character, but Emily Dickinson’s ultimate context is herself, the milieu of her mind.

 

Dickinson is simply unlike any other poet; her compact, forceful language, characterized formally by long disruptive dashes, heavy iambic meters, and angular, imprecise rhymes, is one of the singular literary achievements of the nineteenth century. Her aphoristic style, whereby substantial meanings are compressed into very few words, can be daunting, but many of her best and most famous poems are comprehensible even on the first reading. During her lifetime, Dickinson published hardly any of her massive poetic output (fewer than ten of her nearly 1,800 poems) and was utterly unknown as a writer. After Dickinson’s death, her sister discovered her notebooks and published the contents, thus, presenting America with a tremendous poetic legacy that appeared fully formed and without any warning. As a result, Dickinson has tended to occupy a rather uneasy place in the canon of American poetry; writers and critics have not always known what to make of her. Today, her place as one of the two finest American poets of the nineteenth century is secure: Along with Whitman, she literally defines the very era that had so little palpable impact on her poetry.

 

‘I measure every Grief I meet’ by Emily Dickinson is a moving and deeply sad poem that describes a speaker’s understanding of her grief and that of others.

The poem takes the reader into the speaker’s mind where she explains how she sees grief in the world around her. She wonders about everyone else, their sadness, and the way they deal with them. It brings her some measure of comfort to know that she’s not the only one suffering. The poet’s speaker also considers the possibility that some of these people may or may not eventually get a reprieve from their sorrow. The poem ends with an allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus. 

Structure of I measure every Grief I meet

‘I measure every Grief I meet’ by Emily Dickinson is a ten-stanza poem that is separated into sets of four lines, known as quatrains. These quatrains follow a rhyme scheme of ABCB, changing end sounds from stanza to stanza. To those familiar with Dickinson’s poetry, this pattern will come as no surprise. Dickinson was fond of using what is known as a hymn stanza or ballad stanza in her work. 

This means that the lines follow that specific rhyme scheme, usually, and alternate between iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter. These two different metrical patterns refer to the number of beats per line. The latter, iambic tetrameter means that each line contains four sets of two beats. The first of these is unstressed and the second is stressed in each pair. Iambic trimeter uses the same alignment of stresses but there are only three pairs of two beats per line. 

Literary Devices in I measure every Grief I meet

Dickinson makes use of several literary devices in ‘I measure every Grief I meet’. These include but are not limited to metaphors, allusions, and examples of alliteration. The latter, alliteration, occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same sound. For example, “length” and “Light” in stanza four as well as “piercing” and “passing” in stanza nine. 

An allusion is an expression that’s meant to call something specific to the mind without directly stating it. There is a good example at the end of the poem when the poet alludes to Cavalry, the place where Christ was crucified, and then relates that to her experience of others’ grief. 

A metaphor is a comparison between two, unlike things that do not use “like” or “as” is also present in the text. When using this technique a poet is saying that one thing is another thing, they aren’t just similar. In the final stanza, the poet uses a metaphor to compare people’s grief to the clothes they wear. 

The Nature of Grief

The speaker of “I measure every Grief I meet” can’t help but compare everyone else’s suffering to her own. She wonders if other people's grief is somehow heavier or lighter, whether it eases with time, and what its origins are. While the speaker ultimately concedes that she can’t truly know anything about anyone else’s grief, the simple knowledge that others may suffer as she does helps her feel a little less alone. In this way, the poem suggests that grief is at once deeply personal and an experience that binds people together.

The poem begins with the speaker’s frank admission that she finds herself examining everyone else’s grief, trying to understand whether other people feel “weigh[ed]” down as she does or whether their pain is somehow “Easier” to bear. The speaker also wonders how other people deal with their grief. Her own “feels so old” that she can’t remember when it started, but she notices that, in time, some grieving people “renew their smile.” This would seem to suggest that not everyone’s suffering “weighs” the same, even if the speaker implies that these smiling people are only faking their former happiness.

Deep down, the speaker recognizes that she can’t really understand what anyone else is going through. There are many sources of grief, she observes, from the experience of constant “Cold” to a harder-to-define “Despair.” Though she can’t help but compare others' grief to her own, she acknowledges that grief comes in too many forms to allow accurate "measur[ing]." No matter how hard she tries, she can never “guess the kind” of pain someone else is suffering; she can only imagine it based on her own experiences.

Still, by imagining other people’s suffering, the speaker gains “piercing Comfort.” Even if she can’t grasp the exact nature of others' pain, just knowing that others experience pain at all makes her feel poignantly connected to them. She goes so far as to imagine “passing Calvary” (Calvary being the site of Christ's crucifixion, or a representation of that event). Other people's suffering reminds her of Jesus's suffering for humankind, which helps her find some kind of meaning in her own suffering. In other words, pain connects her to others and maybe even to something divine. As unknowable as others' grief may be, she finds consolation in “presum[ing]” (imagining) that some people’s grief is “like [her] own.”

The idea that she isn’t suffering alone reminds her that grief is simply a part of life—something that can “Enlighten” people “to a larger Pain” as well as a larger “Love.” Through the shared experience of grief, people can bond and empathize with each other, and maybe even understand the love that, according to Christian tradition, led Christ to die for them.

Analysis of I measure every Grief I meet

In the first stanza of ‘I measure every Grief I meet,’ the speaker beings by making use of the line that later came to be used as the title. Due to the fact that Dickinson died before any of her poems were published, they are mostly all titled with their first line. She is discussing, quite simply and directly, something that she often does— measure grief. When analyzing those around her she likes to consider whether they are experiencing the same level of grief, or more or less, than she is. Perhaps, their grief is of an “Easier size” or it “weighs” as her’s does. 

When thinking about the pain that others carry she also considers whether or not they’ve carried it for a long time or if it “just” began for them. She believes that others’ pain has a decipherable beginning and ending but when she thinks about hers she can’t tell when it began or if there could possibly be a date future when it ends. It just feels so “old” to her, as if it has been there all her life. 
In the third stanza ‘I measure every Grief I meet’, the poet considers whether or not others feel pain in their day-to-day lives due to their grief. The mood of the poem, as well as the speaker’s tone, darkens here. She suggests the possibility that others might consider committing suicide because of the weight of their grief. By asking if others struggle this way she is giving the reader a sign that she is herself struggling to want to live. 

There are some, the speaker says in this stanza ‘I measure every Grief I meet’, who eventually get better. Their happiness and their smiles are renewed and they are able to move on to another period of their lives, or so it seems. The speaker is not entirely convinced that this is true. She isn’t sure that their happiness is genuine or if they are putting on a facade. 

The third and fourth lines of this stanza begin with an interesting metaphor that compares a person’s happiness to an oil lamp or the oil that’s inside it. She is suggesting that oil is needed to make a lamp shine just as happiness is needed to make someone smile. Those who suffer as she does don’t have enough oil to light their light of happiness. 

In the fifth stanza of ‘I measure every Grief I meet,’ Dickinson’s speaker considers another hypothetical in regards to the grief of others (but really about her own grief). She wonders if someone who has felt sad for as long as she has would ever be able to throw that sadness off. There is clearly an amount of skepticism that someone like her could find happiness or a “Balm” to their grief. 
The sixth stanza of ‘I measure every Grief I meet’ continues on the thoughts from the fifth. Here, the poet thinks that it’s likely that someone with as much grief as she has would “go on aching” through the “Centuries of Nerve”. She believes that the grief will be unending and that there will never be a light at the end to relieve them of it. In fact, Dickinson’s speaker says, they’ll eventually get to a place where they are “Enlightened to larger Pain”.

They’ll leave the world of normal pain behind and enter into a new one that is all-encompassing. She contrasts the larger pain that she feels is in the future for her and others like to to the “Love”. The source or nature of that “Love” is unknown at this point. It could simply by a disembodied idea of love. 

Stanza seven of ‘I measure every Grief I meet’ explains how there are so many “Grieved” out in the world, or so she’s been “told”. They are sad for a variety of reasons, only one of them being “Death”. She thinks about death and decides that death is easier than many of the other reasons that one might feel grief. It happens only once but other kinds of grief are more permanent that happen over and over again. The last line of this stanza reads “And only nails the eyes”. This striking and disturbing image is a way of reiterating the nature of death. It happens once and then it’s over.
There are many other griefs that are much worse than death. These include wanting, “Cold” and “Despair”. There is also “Banishment from native Eyes,” or one’s home. These griefs are much more long-lasting than death is.

 The speaker returns to the idea that people around her may be experiencing a pain similar to her own in this stanza of ‘I measure every Grief I meet’. This is something she takes comfort in, even though she doesn’t know what those griefs are. There is an example of allusion in the last line of this stanza “Calvary” refers to the site at which Christ was crucified. She witnesses others’ suffering, just as the world witnessed Christ’s suffering for the sake of humanity. 

The last stanza contains an interesting metaphor. Here, she describes grief as fashions that people wear. When she passed the site of the “Cross” she notices how everyone is suffering around her and that makes her think that “Some—are like [her] own”. The poem ends here, on a semi-optimistic note, suggesting that there is some peace to be found in the knowledge that one is not alone in their experience of the world. 

I measure every Grief I meet Summary

The speaker tells us about a strange habit of hers: she's a fan of measuring grief. Now we don't know if that entails scales, rulers, or graduated cylinders. But we do know it means she does a bit of comparison, because she tells us that she compares the grief of others to her own. While she observes these people, she always returns to herself and to her own sadness and grief. So in addition to guessing about other people, she also compares herself to them, asking "Is this person as sad as me?" and "Have they felt sad as long as I have felt sad?"

Next, the speaker talks about people who seem to get over their grief. She's kind of skeptical about this, and she suggests that they are probably faking it. After this, the speaker starts to list some of the causes of grief—some people are grieving the death of a loved one, some are sad because they want something they don't have, others experience a general sort of "despair."

At the end of the day, the speaker never really gets the answers to the questions she asks, and she also may never know why someone is sad, but that doesn't seem to matter to her. The simple act of noticing that someone else is sad seems to be enough to make her feel better, and that's kind of the point.

Themes

Suffering

I could not tell the Date of Mine—
It feels so old a pain— (7-8)

In these lines, the speaker captures the way that grief can feel like it has lasted a lifetime. It seems like her suffering wasn't brought about by some event—it's more like depression, or some internal emotional problem that's hard to pin down.

I wonder if it hurts to live—
And if They have to try— (9-10)

I wonder if when Years have piled—
Some Thousands—on the Harm— (17-18)

Here the speaker uses time to describe what extreme suffering feels like. While the poem began with diction suggesting precision and exactness, it ends up using hyperbole to express what suffering feels like to the person experiencing it. So the poem is less concerned with a scientific approach to sadness, but more an emotional, exaggerated account of what it feels like.

The Grieved—are many—I am told—
There is the various Cause— (25-26)

Unlike other Dickinson poems, this one isn't only about the single speaker's feelings or point of view. In saying that other people experience grief, too, the speaker opens up the world of the poem. Grief isn't something that individual people experience all alone—it's a part of life, and it's a thing that people share. Still, the speaker is only "told" this—it's not like she's out there mingling with the sad people. What does this tell us about her character?

A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary— (35-36)

 

Exploration

The speaker of "I measure every Grief I meet" spends a great deal of time wondering about other people's emotions. Not only is she exploring their grief, she is also exploring several other questions: What is the nature of grief? How do others experience grief? Can grief ever end, or does it last forever? What are the different reasons that people experience grief? These questions are never answered completely; rather, the speaker explores various possibilities without ever closing in on definite answers.

Death

Like many of Dickinson's poems, "I measure every Grief I meet" deals with death, and rather directly, to boot. But here's the thing. All that grief in the poem? It's not necessarily caused by death. Sure, Dickinson drops the ultimate end in there, but she also emphasizes that other griefs—the really long lasting ones, can come from other tragedies, like cold and despair.

Time

Here's a question: how long is it supposed to take for you to get over something sad? Is a week enough? A month? A year? Can you ever get over it? And does it depend on the particular grief? These questions seem to preoccupy the speaker of "I measure every Grief I meet," in a big way. She's had long lasting grief in her life, and she wants to know if others have, too.