Wittgenstein’s and Dickinson’s Columnar Selves
I’ve been nursing a preoccupation with Emily Dickinson’s poem 740: “On a Columnar Self-“, which frequently refers whilst reading Wittgenstein’s Investigations. This blog post will explore the connections between the concepts Dickinson plays with in her poetry— and she is most often playful in her uncertainties— and some of Wittgenstein’s rhetorical technique.
The first two stanzas of Dickinson’s poem:
“On a Columnar Self-
How ample to rely
In Tumult- or Extremity-
How good the CertaintyThat Lever cannot pry –
And Wedge cannot divide
Conviction – That Granitic Base –
Though none be on our side -“
on first glance seem to be presenting different ideas about this columnar self. The second and fourth line of the first stanza appear to undermine the idea of the columnar self and the action of relying on it. The use of “ample” suggests an easy utility; the easy option, when faced with tumult or extremity, is to rely on the ample columnar self. Similarly, “how good the Certainty” suggests that the feeling of self-reliance or getting through something on your own is a good one, perhaps even a selfish one once the whole stanza is taken together. The second stanza has a slight shift: the columnar self seems to be praised by what it can withstand; the lever and the wedge are mechanical images which the columnar self, by comparison something natural, stands against; the capitalisation of “That Granitic Base” adds a certain grandeur to this self; and, standing alone with conviction “though none be on our side” is an almost universally respected act.
These apparent oppositions are questioned by Dickinson even as she is creating them. As is often the case in her poetry, this effect is achieved through her punctuation. In the first stanza “- or Extremity -“ is isolated from the rest of the stanza by dashes making the desire to read it simply as an alternative term for tumult impossible. It could refer back to ample not only as an alternative term but as an alternative implication. If extremity and ample can be interchanged, the sense that relying on one’s columnar self is the easy option no longer stands. It is, rather, a last resort. The capitalisation of “Certainty”, notably the last word in the stanza, allows it, as both term and concept, to act as a bridge between the two stanza. Certainty functions as the opposing force of tumult (and quite possibly of lever and wedge as well) and the ally of conviction in the following stanza. It is not only her punctuation but, as the example of certainty suggests, the ways Dickinson structures and connects the poem that convolutes the notion of the columnar self. Like the stanza before it, the final line of the second stanza straddles both second and third stanza. The columnar self is suddenly plural “though none be on our side”. Interestingly, Dickinson never marks the columnar self as singular earlier in the poem, it is, I would argue, just the natural assumption and does nothing to stop one’s surprise at “our”.
The final stanza is littered with group terms— us, crowd, ourself, assembly — which reverts back to the earlier two stanzas, the two possible attitudes towards this notion of columnar self in order to further investigate them. The bridge structure connecting the stanzas is important here as it hints at how one should read the syntax of the final stanza. The crowd ourself, rectitude, and that assembly, I would argue are three separate groups bridge by something and it is through the structuring of her poem that Dickinson informs her reader. In my reading, “Suffice us” is a plea to allow whichever us that relies on a columnar self may be to be seen as a crowd so it can be part of this pattern, this system whose highest position is “that furthest Spirit- God”. This is not an achievable position for Dickinson but the desire to be as close as possible — “not far off” — is and leads me to question whether this columnar self is not, in fact, some form of faith and it is a reliance on faith that is to be done in tumultuous times, regardless of how different from the norm one’s personal faith may be, in order to be closest to God.
The last stanza, for my purposes, is not useful in connection to Wittgenstein’s rhetorical devices outside of the fact that it causes further investigations into the nature and utility of the columnar self. It is the ambiguity of the prestige or superiority of the columnar self and the question of whether we should stick to convictions, even while they are being questioned by extremes or uncertain times, that Wittgenstein uses as part of his rhetoric in his Philosophical Investigations. Frequently throughout the investigation Wittgenstein uses the phrase “I’d like to”, “one can/may say”, “one may have the feeling”, or “one wants to respond” etc. These phrases are not always used in the same way: sometimes Wittgenstein follows these impulses to productive ends, at other times he warns us to go against these impulses and to question where they come from in order to more understand the language system we exist within. This dual use of the natural impulses is an echo of the first two stanzas of Dickinson’s poem; Wittgenstein both approves and disapproves of following these impulses but the end goals are different. For Wittgenstein, as long as you understand where and why your convictions are what they are, you are welcome to keep them whereas Dickinson’s poem comes back to the question of faith whether in yourself or in a god.
