Emily Dickinson's Truth

By Steven Scheer

For that German iconoclast, Nietzsche, truth was a "moving army of metaphors." Most people think they know what it is, though it may be a question of claiming it in the way in which certain visitors to art galleries claim that they don't know much about art, but do recognize it when they see it. The word itself goes back to a root meaning something like "tree" or "wood." This means that the concept is so old that at the time the idea for truth has formed itself in the human mind, tree or wood seemed to be strong enough of a substance to be enduring enough to come to represent "truth." Stone would have done us better service, but this is neither here nor there. It so happens that few poets have dared to simply tell us what they think the truth is in no uncertain terms. But Emily Dickinson managed the feat with utter simplicity, yet with incredibly intriguing insight. So, here's her version (the poem is #1129 in the standard edition):

Tell the Truth but tell it slant -
Success in Circuit lies
Too Bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise.
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind,
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind -

Though Emily never mentions the sun explicitly, it is the underlying metaphor in the poem. For it is gazing into the sun too long that would make any of us blind, literally. So telling the truth "slant" means telling it in a roundabout way. That's what the word "circuit" also implies - but electricity comes to mind, too, especially since lightning is suddenly there a few lines later, and lightning is an electric phenomenon (as the American Benjamin Franklin discovered in an earlier time by flying a kite).

Lightning implies something that breaks the dark silence of untruth with a sudden flash the source of which is not the sun. But the sound of which - the thunder - along with its blazing onrush - can frighten children, until their fears are put to rest by an "explanation kind." It's interesting to note the relevance of this duality: a sudden light accompanied with a slight delay by the sound of thunder which is followed by an explanation that must unfold gradually since it comes with words that move forward one by one rather than all at once, like that lightning and the frightful sound that follows it. The "Truth" must indeed "dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind." If seeing is believing, looking at the Truth too long can deprive us of the very sight that we need to see it. A paradox? Perhaps. But one to which it is easy to assent.