The film "Quiet Passion" shows the life of the legendary American poet Emily Dickinson. It's about childhood literary idols and has to be seen, but this film is not well done. In the film, Miss Dickinson's pure and serene literary life seems to be just to fight against the vague "patriarchy" and "Christian civilization".
1. Emily Dickinson's Family, Life and Feelings Based on Puritan Culture
On December 10, 1830, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on a farm in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a prestigious but not wealthy family. Two hundred years ago, during the Great Puritan Migration, the Dickinsons came to the New World that would later make them prosperous. Puritans, derived from the Latin Purus, meaning clean, refer to Reformed Protestants who demanded the removal of the Roman Catholic rites within the Church of England. In 1630, believing that they would find their "promised land" on the other side of the Atlantic, a group of Puritans arrived north of Plymouth, where they established the Massachusetts Bay Puritan community. In 1640, about 20,000 English immigrants lived in New England, and Boston became their religious center. Dickinson's ancestor was one of the Puritans who came to the United States with the Bible and John Calvin's Essentials of Christianity. It can be said that the past and present of the United States are closely related to this group of people and their beliefs. Understanding Dickinson's cultural and religious environment is particularly important for understanding his people and his poetry.
Dickinson's childhood and adolescence received a well-rounded, good Puritan education. This education features "compulsory reading". The Reformed Protestants broke the monopoly of reading and writing by the clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, and handed over the right to read and interpret the Bible to every citizen on a family basis, and housewives were responsible for tutoring children in reading. Both the Massachusetts Act of 1648, as amended, and the Connecticut Act of 1650, emphasized: "If children are not educated in the beginning of reading, they will grow up to be barbaric." Note the word "barbaric." In 1630, when John Winthrop sailed for the New World in North America, he admonished his fellow passengers that North America should be a city on a hill, a purely Christian society that would serve as an example and a model for the rest of the world. To accomplish this, colonial leaders would educate all Puritans. These people who see themselves as part of the international community, either from Oxford or Cambridge, are generally more educated than Europe as a whole at the time. Only six years later, the leaders of the colony founded Harvard University.
"Quiet Passion" focuses more on Dickinson's emotional life and family relations, but it is based on a criticism from a modern perspective rather than an understanding of the times. Neither Dickinson's sisterhood of sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert, nor his restrained affection for Samuel Powers, nor his rejection of Judge Lord, were, as the film suggests, a From a so-called "feminist" perspective. In 1884, Emily wrote an unusual poem "Circumference thou Bride of Awe" ("The Bride in Awe"), which refers to "possessed" and "possessed" in the name of a bride. The form expresses the desire to be "you"'s bride, to have "you" and to love "you", if you are not familiar with Christianity and the Bible, this poem can be misread as a love poem written for a specific person . But not so. In the New Testament, the relationship between the Redeemer and the believers is often compared to the relationship between the bridegroom and the bride. This kind of "religious feeling" that people have towards God is the reverence for each other. People own the body of the Lord, and the Lord owns people's confidence. Dickinson's relationship with several characters in the film is more of a friendship. The Puritan view of marriage is not to find someone you can love passionately right now, but to find someone you can steadily love as your best friend for life, and with God's help to do so Row. Dickinson's seclusion is often talked about, but behind this seclusion is the desert godfather's retreat and search. Contrary to today's cultural concept, "old girl" was not synonymous with eccentric, repulsive, and abnormal behavior in Puritan society at that time. The apostle Paul said in "1 Corinthians" 7:26 "It seems to me that, It's better for people to stay safe and peaceful... Those who are not married are worried about the Lord's business... In this way, it is better to marry one's own daughter, and it is better not to marry her... If you keep the festivals, you will be more blessed. "He directly pointed out that there is no difference between not marrying and marrying in terms of moral ethics, and it is even "better" not to marry. Therefore, we cannot understand Dickinson's seclusion and celibacy from a present-day perspective.
2. Gospel Poetry and Calvinism
The film has a certain expression for Dickinson's creation, but it is mainly based on her "incompatible religious view" and the contradictions and enthusiasm that need to be suppressed from the outside world. In fact it was very different from my own reading of Dickinson's poetry. Dickinson is playful and unpretentious, and her poems follow the rhythm of common church hymns, many of which are about a whole-hearted understanding of the teachings of Christ Jesus, and in fact, many are written to Christ. She emphasized the contemporary content of the Gospels and recreated them, often in "funny language and American colloquialisms." Scholar Dorotheo Bo found that "the main feature that runs through Christian poetry is the reverence for the life of Jesus, and he also believes that Dickinson's inner world can place her on a par with Hopkins, Elliott, Auden, and rank in" In a poem about the birth, she combines joy and wit to recreate an ancient theme:
"God must be / A tractable gentleman / In such cold weather, walking so long / Just a few people / The road to Bethlehem / He and I are just children / Raised / Rough 100 million miles."
Indeed, according to her correspondence with friends, Dickinson did not participate in the faith declaration of the establishment church, and the church service only lasted for a few years, but at that time, this was not a maverick at the religious level, just the concept of different denominations. difference. She thinks the world is so noisy and restless that she wants to get away from it and retreat into a little world built with her own soul. Benmingj Newton, a young lawyer working in her father's law firm, helped her a lot in her studies, often instructing her on what books to read and how to read, inspiring her to understand the beauty contained in the harmonious and complete nature . Newton also frequently preached Calvinist religious ideas for her, making her accept Calvinist ideas of introspection and ideas about the beauty of nature and the ruthlessness of the world. These ideas became the tenets of her life and were later vividly reflected in all her poems.
This has to talk about what Calvinism really is. Why did Dickinson's ancestors, who were Calvinists, use Calvin's ideas to establish a state business in the New World? In just two hundred years, the poet Emily, as a descendant, did not learn from strong family traditions, but from friends Calvinist thought? This has to be said to be a mystery. Whether it is John Winthrop's "City on a Hill" or the "Mayflower Convention", "the people can decide the way of self-government by their own will, and no longer by the power above the people to decide the management. "The ideal of political freedom, combined with the increasingly mediocre US ruling party and the pretense of "religious tolerance", we see that the Christian civilization has changed from prosperous to extreme decline on this continent, which is not unrelated to the original concept of nation-building. . The enthusiasm for the kingdom that has come so far across the ocean seems to be due more to the passion to compete with the old church than to the thoughtful refraining of keeping a low profile. Passion is an integral part of American culture. It seems to have its origin in Calvinism's "active life"
3. The Poetic Power of Contemplating Life
In contrast to "active life" is the spiritual way of "contemplative life". Introspection is the essence of Dickinson's poetry. The film shows Dickinson's seclusion and literary attitude with the setting of a loft, the narrow light passing through, and the clothes of ascetic colors. But what the viewer sees from these images is more repression. Yes, Dickinson's poetic imagery, such as "death," "eternity," and "imprisonment," are repressive, but we still have to look at them in a Christian context.
Dickinson created a kingdom in his retirement. The kingdom is extremely important and represents a political rather than a superficial need for survival and spiritual pleasure. The modern man's kingdom is based on "defense against the enemy", "legal system against morality" and "production and reproduction" as the main elements. Industrialized countries are the inevitable choice of modern countries. In this framework, the labor and taxation of citizens, the mobilization of the army and the maintenance of internal order became possible. Such a framework, the vast majority of countries have achieved. However, regardless of the cultural background, the meaning of the kingdom is still more than these. First of all, the establishment of any kingdom requires a capital, an altar, a triumphal arch, and a memorial tower. This has nothing to do with productive labor and order, it is about the primitive instinct of human beings to praise and revere the highest authority at the political level, so even atheist countries must have these rituals that seem to be useless "vases", which are religious sexual; followed by collective mission. In any country, it is impossible to claim that the work of pure subsistence is a collective mission. No, what can be officially called a mission is always related to spirit and ideas, such as "great revival", "glorious inheritance", "successor of the century"... Finally, there are classics. And the classics must be readable, not paintings or sculptures, but written works and theoretical monographs, epics or collections of sage speeches. The establishment of the kingdom turns classic works into civic moral codes, which are presented in official language, architectural style, and educational content. We often hear the so-called "literature does not serve politics", which is impossible. Because politics is the responsibility of every citizen in the country. Modern countries often forget the meaning behind this. In Dickinson's poetic kingdom, the garden becomes the entity of the kingdom. "Your Excellency", "Sir", and "Jun", which are repeatedly mentioned in her poems written in epistolary style, are the objects of spiritual worship; Thinking of other images is a mission that needs to be faced in the kingdom; and the poetic language and style she created are the creation of classics for the kingdom. Dickinson's kingdom is closer to the very essence of Christianity than the "Christian kingdom" that political liberals dream of. Because Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world." From the very beginning, the political concept of establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth was biased. The visible national defense, legal system, and productive forces were only external signs of the power of the kingdom. Inherently derived from traditions of worship, order, mission, and the Word, it is the eternal meaning of the kingdom. In a little poem by Dickinson, she writes:
"I heard the buzzing of the flies--when I died/In the room, there was silence/Like the air suddenly calmed-/In between storms/Look into my eyes--the tears had run out--/I The breath is getting tighter/Waiting for the last moment- God is in the room/The moment of appearance-coming/I've parted-about me/everything that can be parted/things-and then I see up/a fly--/a blue-subtle undulating hum/between me--and the light-/then the window closed--then/it was dark before my eyes--"
Through the eyes of the dying, experience how God's calm and loving presence in the daily scene of the humming of flies has nothing to do with the splendor and specialness of the deceased's environment. Dickinson invites us to listen to the annoying voices and blue details that are part of her inner kingdom, and in this contemplation we are able to enter the eternal kingdom system she ultimately desires, even though she never Trying to use any substantive description to present what kind of country it was, she was just pious, playful, experimentally curious.
Dickinson had a lifelong love of gardening. The film says little about it. The attempt to freeze the flowers on the paper seems to be the life scenery of her retreating inwardly.
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