So, now we have poem 1129. The numbers were given by editors um, based on the number of poems, some 1700 poems. Ah, but we refer to this one by it's first line, Tell all the truth but tell it slant. And the first, I'm going to read it in a kind of exaggerated way and you tell me what you're hearing, okay? Tell all 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 exclamation kind, sorry, With explanation kind, The truth must dazzle gradually, Or every man be blind. Anna, what do you hear? >> It's a ballad. >> It's a ballad. >> It's a ballad. And how, what kind of ballad? I mean, tell me about the meter? >> Um, well there's four beats, four stress beats in the first line. >> First line. >> Three in the second, and then four. >> Four, three, four, three. Four, three, and then tell, the truth must dazzle gradually has four but you have to really torque it. >> Well. >> The truth must dazzle gradually. Right. >> It's kind of, I mean, it wouldn't really be a Dickenson poem. >> Or every man be blind. Is it rhymed? >> Um, the, well the, in the first stanza, lies and surprise rhyme. >> Okay, that's B rhyme. So, it's A, B, C, B. >> Yup. And then the second is in the same time. >> East, kind, gradually, blind. So, the B rhymes go and that's typical of, that's typical of ballads. Rarely, do you get A, B, A, B, but you can do that. slant and delight don't rhyme. Um, slant and delight don't rhyme? Slant and delight don't rhyme. >> It's sort of slant. >> It's sort of a slant rhyme. >> [laugh] >> Slant rhyme and the word is slant. So, slant not only is going to have a connotation with truth, it's going to have a connotation with form, with poetic form. Right. Where do we get ballads? Really quickly there, three places in life where we get, where we hear ballads. Not so much anymore, but in the old days. Max what's one? >> Ah, in the pub. >> A pub. Why? By the way, why do pubs, especially, especially British, Welsh, Irish, Scottish. >> Cuz they're. >> Do we sing in American clubs? >> No. >> Not really. What kind of people sing in, in British Pubs? >> I don't mean kind, but you know, what have they done? Where have they come from? >> Football. >> Football. >> Football games, soccer. >> Soccer. >> Right. And they, and why are ballads good in bars? >> They're easy to sing. >> Easy to sing, and. >> Easy to remember. >> Easy to remember. Now, if you've been drinking a lot. This is not Bourbon but let's pretend. >> [laugh] >> If you've been drinking a lot, you grab your mug. Right? Tell all the truth but tell it slant, Success in circuit lies, Too bright for our infirm. Okay. So, ballads are memorable, and the ballad is easy in that sense. Orally easy. Okay. Where else, do we have ballads? >> Nursery rhymes. >> Nursery rhymes, right? Nursery rhymes, anyone want to do a nursery rhyme that's an A, B, A, B, 4, 3, 4, 3? Put you on the spot, all right, we'll have to come back to that. And there's a third place where we get ballads. >> Church. >> In church, hymns are often ballads. Okay. I'm not sure that any of that has to do with this, but we're going to find out in the second stanza that it does. But that's the way teaching is. You sort of say something and then it comes back. Alright. This poem makes a contention. And it's in the first two lines, and I'm going to ask you if you agree with it personally, to the extent that Emily Dickinson's poem is saying that we should tell truth in a slanted way rather then in a, Allie? >> Roundabout way. >> Yes, in a roundabout way rather than in a. >> Direct? >> Direct way. The opposite of slant is direct, right? Again, anyone? >> Mm-hm. Okay. Tell all the truth but tell it slant. Success in circuit lies. I'm going to ask you to try to understand what that line means. Success in circuit lies. Circuit, Ann Maris? >> Um, coming at it in a roundabout way, an oblique way. Um. >> Circuit. >> It's strange because. >> Circumlocutiously. >> Mm-hm. >> Circumlocutiously. >> Like a circuit. >> Mm-hm. >> What else? Allie? Circuit? >> Well, kind of systematically. >> System, there's a, it has a connotation of system, good. Exactly. Molly, circuit? I don't really have anything else to add. >> Okay. Anna? Circuit? Not in Emily's time, but in ours. >> I mean, circuit could also be like, this is a little bit anachronistic about electricity, electric circuit. >> I don't know if that's anachronistic. We still need circuits. You can't actually complete an electric ah, conduit without a circuit. Once you break the circuit, you don't have it. It's anachronistic cuz it's been since middle school or grade school that you've built a circuit. >> Yeah, probably, that's it. >> Okay, but teaching children is important . But tell all the truth, but tell it slant. She insists that success lies in roundaboutness, in going around. Success. Let's quickly understand what success means. Dave. >> Well, I think, the circuit also implies something that takes more effort. And ah, success you're saying is actually learning the truth, understating that success comes from ah, you know, putting more work into it. >> Um, Emily um, when you're, you know family says, success. Emily, we hope you be a success. What do they mean? >> Achievement, accomplishment. >> Can you be a little bit more press? Ah, I'm, I could. I'm just trying to think of how. >> [laugh] >> Okay. Allie, when your parent, when the Cassleman's say, Allie, we want you to be a success. This Liberal Arts stuff is making us nervous. >> Find some way to make money. >> Money, success. Does Emily mean that, do you think? >> No. >> Except, maybe ironically she does, but I don't think she's being ironic here. Okay, so now we are ready. We're going to go around and each one of you is going to tell each other, us, whether you agree with Emily Dickinson on this, you personally. As valuable as that will be, okay? Ann Maris, tell all the truth, but tell it slant, success and circuit wise. She's making a contention here. Do you agree with the contention? >> Um, yes. I agree because I mean, it seems paradoxical cuz it's like she presupposes that there exists a total and absolute truth and I disagree with that. >> Oh, you're being fancy. Oh, you're disagreeing because theoretically it's not sophisticated enough. Wow. >> Well, I'm saying that she's probably. >> I should have done you last. >> [laugh] >> Okay, Emily. Emily, do you agree with the contention, we should tell the truth gradually, carefully? I do. This, I mean it's. >> You really do, don't you? >> I've done all types of literary art, telling them directly. >> So, really. It's the artful, aesthetic thing to do, not to tell the truth directly. Now, um, I believe that Walt Whitman and a number of other people who are Whitmanian in this course are going to disagree, at least, nominally. They want the director, they want to tell the blab of the page, they want everything. They want everything. At the very end of our course, Kenny Goldsmith is going to include everything. So, there's no essential selection and there's no slanted truth, it's just whatever is, is. So, I don't know where this is going to take us. Dave? >> I agree. >> You agree? Wow, I thought, I would think you'd be a direct kind of guy. So we should tell kids ah, as lightning to the children, eased with explanation, kind. We shouldn't tell kids about lightning, what about the third rail? Should we tell them about the third rail? >> I think there are thing that. >> [laugh] >> Don't you think it would be cool not to tell them about the third rail? >> [laugh] >> The third rail, that was when Zeus was having a bad day and he made this nice, like extra rail that the train doesn't ride on it. But, I wish you leave, leave Zeus alone. >> [laugh] >> Like. >> Everybody would say. >> And your kid touches, and snaps then. >> Let's talk about this. >> Oh, yeah. Where do the gifts come from? You're advocating this kind of bullshit mythology? >> [laugh] Not to that extent. I think there are things that you can tell people just by giving them the facts that won't resonate. But, it will resonate if they can think it through and come upon that fact, on their own. >> Allie, was your thought? >> Well, I agree. >> You agree to, everybody agrees. >> I also think that it's important that. >> Except for Ann Maris whose got a theoretical problem. >> [laugh] >> I think she's kind of toying with the notion of being able to tell someone the truth and have that be the way that they. >> Oh. >> Um. Interesting. >> Kind of [inaudible]. >> So, you're thinking of the word tell and that's, you know, I've been teaching this poem for so many years, I've never actually focused on, tell. Can you do a little bit more with that?>> Well, [cough] I think you know, on one hand we've been focusing on the best way to understand the truth. But I also think it's easier for like, say a parent to kind of ah, embellish something that might be hard um, to understand. So that kind of, you know, is ah, in a way a cop-out for them so that makes it easier. But I also think that um, she's kind of saying, no matter what we tell, that might be a futile um, act because truth um, might not be able to be understood through a second hand experience. >> Wow. You said so much there. Ah, I can only respond to one of those points which is that, I think, I, on my best days I disagree with this as much as I respect the aesthetic that Emily is reminding us that it's associated with, and respect on Ann Maris' theoretical problem with the notion of all the truth. But, I think that there's an implicitly a parental ah, condescension in, in this, the speaker of this poem telling us that some people, and she's not only talking about children. I mean, I don't think Emily Dickinson is thinking about actual children, she might be. But she's, you know, her parental has to be ah, metaphorical here. And it turns out that we, the readers of the poem, are children if in fact, the poem is not delivering us the truth. It slanted it for us. And I feel a little left out like the guy standing outside the house of possibility and not able to get in. I feel a little left out and kinda sad, actually. So, all you guys agreed. Anna? >> I disagree. >> Oh my goodness, we have a disagreement. >> Well, my problem with this is that, like, and there's kind of two ways to go about this. There's the way of, if we're getting, if me and my roommates are getting ready to go out and I say, hey, does this shirt look good on me? And they say, oh, yeah. It looks great. When it actually looks awful. >> But it actually looks awful. >> Yeah, I don't really, I would rather know. So, that's problem A. Problem B. >> The problem with your analogy of course, is that she's talking about. >> Oh. >> Superb surprise, dazzling. I mean, I don't think the shirt situation >> Oh, my goodness. >> Alright. >> Well, let's think about I mean, you know, I've taken class with you that's on the Holocaust. >> Yeah. >> And. >> Oh, the trump card is coming. >> Well. >> The Holocaust. >> [laugh] >> But I, it's, it's not just that. I mean, you can think of any, any disaster you know, if you, if you. >> Disaster, yeah. >> If you don't talk about it and if you don't tell children about it, they don't know about it. >> Well, but the problem with that, since we're onto disaster and genocide, the problem with that is that if the truth dazzles not gradually, if it just comes on you like a thunderclap, you are so alienated and so unable to cope, that there's a kindness in delivering it gradually. I don't mean Steven Spielberg, gradually, or circumloquaciously. But, I mean, thoughtfully delivering all the truth. Wow, I've seem to be coming to the other side by you're coming to the other side. >> Well, thoughtfulness doesn't necessarily need to be circumnavigation. I think there's a little more to us. >> Nice. Okay. Thank you. Molly, your thought. >> I think that it's sleazy but effective. It reminds us. >> Sleazy? >> Yes, I said, sleazy. This mode, not the poem, but this mode of telling the truth. It reminds me of a politician, ah, sort of. >> [laugh] >> Circumnavigating the, the question and sort of slipping in bits of truth without the whole picture. >> Wow. >> [inaudible]. >> Yeah. >> [laugh] >> It can be very. >> Emily, how's this, how's this thing with ah, lightning? >> [laugh] >> Well, let me say this about that. >> [laugh] >> I've been thinking a lot about that, and we will have a position on that very soon. And ah, I'll have to think a little more about my position on that, really? >> I think it works but I hate it. >> Wow. Max? Wrap this up somehow. >> [laugh] >> Well I, I don't think that, I, I agree with Emily Dickinson. I don' think she's advocating dishonesty the way that Molly and Anna seem to suggest because she does after all say to, to tell all the truth in the end. Um, and I don't think that, that the slantedness or the circuit necessarily means to, to, to dance around it in, in a dishonest way or a disingenuous way. But rather, it seems to me the difference between to, to go with the, the metaphor of, of circuits and lights and lightning. And the difference a harsh light on something which ah, would be blinding and ah, a softer light which allows you to actually see. Um, and so. >> Interesting. >> Hm. >> I, I, I agree with. >> Interesting. Ann Maris, your theoretical qualm. >> Mm-hm. I think it's interesting because you brought up Whitman before, but I think the main difference that I have to point out is that Dickenson was a woman of the period. And. >> And after her work >> Exactly. >> [laugh] >> Um, [laugh] and her personal experience wouldn't have had any authority at the time so she gives her, she wants herself a soft of authority by speaking in these vague abstractions um, or as Whitman would have been able to express those at the time. >> So, it's sort of easier, this is really interesting. So, it's in a gender way, it's easier, and in a, who can be official poet, although Whitman was never really an official poet until the very end. It's easier for the, for the male Whitman to assert a theory of direct communication. And Emily is saying that, given the circumstances of truth telling that I have, the telling, I think that's so important here, this is what I must do and this is success for me. And success would be deeply ironized because it's success of essentially self-publication. Success of reticence, the success of indoorsness. Right? The success of agoraphobia ah, is circuit. I, I just want to conclude by thinking about what success in circuit could possibly mean. So, again, if this is the x, this is the thing that one wants to refer to, the world, and world is kinda moving along to find its circuit. You know, think cup, mug, I think is the word I'll use, right? >> [laugh] >> Mug, M, U, G, mug. [sound] It did it, success. Linguistic success is mug identifying this thing, here. But actually, what Dickinson is saying is that, you know, let's try moog, moog. >> [laugh] >> Let's try something other than cut. Let's try, let's try thirst, let's try appetite, or let's try the thing. Or, let's try something else entirely. Let's take this problem of reference and refer to it as telling children about lightning. Not at night, dear sweet heart, that's just thunder and lightning and it's running 120,000 volts through it and if it strikes the house and the lightning rod isn't working, we'll all burned to a crisp. Good night. But rather, once upon a time the gods were bowling and thunder was the sound of the bowling alley and the light was the signal that they had scored 300 or something like that. So, a story gets told, a mythology gets created and that's the way truth gets communicated, and that the kind of bluntness of directness is not only cruel but boring. Finally, she's opting for something much more complicated. [sound]
