From: LouisFors@aol.com
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Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 11:36:44 EST
To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
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Subject: # 452:  musings
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Along with Jed and lots of others, I've been pondering #452.  I don't have any
clear answers, and there might not be any, but I'm musing:

1.  Why does ED pick the prize--the jewel of the search--to be a pearl?.  Why
not a nugget or a diamond?  Does she elect the ocean because it is so vast, a
place she can genuinely fear?  Does she want the prize to be white, as she is,
to contrast with the dusky one?  Or, see item 3 below: is it a great setting
for sexual reverberations?
2.  An extra-textual query:  how did ED, react to the slavery issue?  The
complete letters indicate a date of c.1862 for the poem, which would place it
during the War Between the States.
3.  For me there is a very strong sexual undertow to the poem.  My Rorschach?
In ED's time would "bore my jewel -Home" reverberate sexually? And the sea was
"unsanctified - to touch -" Wild image:  the sea to be avoided because it is
impure, and unholy?  Overwhelming, yes. Impure and unholy?  I can't go back
over ED's numerous references to the sea, but there a lot of them.  I suspect
the lexicon people have a good handle on the meanings of the sea for ED, but I
should be able to deal with the problem from this text alone.

Well, musings, my temporary $00.02

Louis Forsdale