Critical Appreciate of the poem “I taste a Liquor Never Brewed” written by Emily Dickinson

          Emily Dickinson-a great American female poet represented the farthest point in the 19^th century American Poetry. American poetry in regard to the adventures of the spirit is beautifully reflected in her poetry. She had the distinction of being a pioneer of 19^th century American Poetry. She was an anticipator of metaphysical poetry, a smeller of modernity and a defender of romanticism. Conard Alken described her as,

“The most perfect flower of

New England-Transcendentalism.”

          The poem “I taste a Liquor Never Brewed” is one of the most delicate and suggestive Emily’s poems in which she presents sublime joy of life and spiritual intoxication. Drunk with the joy of living, she expresses her transport in terms of a cosmic spree. The poem deeply suggests the sensuous elements in Emily’s personality. 

Theme of the poem

          The theme of the poem is indirectly presented through images, metaphors, and symbols. The poetess speaks of her inebriety. The liquor that she tastes does not belong to this world, but to her world of sensuous imagination. When she has drunk the wine of life, her wine leads her heaven. Her life is so beautiful and full of joy which gives glimpses of paradise. Instead of going to paradise, it would come to you. Life becomes a medium to reach to him. In this way, Dickinson through fresh and unusual image makes us share her ecstasy.

Critical Appreciation of the poem

          The poem consists of the sublime range of imagery. It opens with exaggeration about the liquor. Here the poet is drunk with the wine of divine spirit. Hence she does not need ordinary liquor brewed in earthly breweries. The divine liquor she had tasted is better than all the vats upon Rhine. Her wine is not from tankards scooped in pearl.

          In the second stanza, in a deeply confessional note, the poet tells us of her addiction of drink and her sensual nature. She is exhilarating and her sensual indulgence is in dew. Tipsy with intoxication the poet reels away her endless summer days. No edicts or edifications can bar the poet from this indulgence, because she drinks not from earthly bars, but from the ‘inns of molten blue’, meaning heavenly inns. Thus her intoxication is divine. As he

Inebriate of air am I

And debauchee of dew,

Reeling through endless summer

Days from inns of molten-blue.

          The poet continues to drink and to enjoy the life, when the landlord turn out the drunken bee from foxgloves in their garden, and when the butterfly drinks to her fill and renounces. Thus it means that ‘Bee’ and ‘Butterfly’ have drunk and also satisfied that they don’t want to drink more. But the poetess can still drink the draughts of ecstasy.

          The poetess continues to drink the divine intoxicant from the inexhaustible vessels of nature, till the saints and angels in heaven grow jubilant to see the ‘little tipple leaning against of sun’. Behind this the feeling is ecstatic feeling. It shows forgetting the world and living into a different one almost like that of the paradise. As  she says,

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats-

And Saints-to windows run-

To see the little Tippler

Leaning against the-sun.

  Here ‘leaning against the sun’ is an excellent expression of crazy imagination. The ecstasy of divine intoxication is so profound that the poet is transported to the sun when she leans against him.

          The poem is influenced by Emerson whose essays Dickinson had as early as in 1849. It seems that Miss Dickinson may be writing here a parody of Emerson’s transcendental rendering of poetic inspiration in his poem called ‘Bacchus’ which begins thus:-

Bring me wine, but wine which never grew

In the belly of the grape….”

          Emerson’s wine is the plutonian ‘flowing’ of divine spirit. Drunk with it, Emerson merges with Nature, breaks through convention, annihilates time and spare, and recovers his lost heaven. Miss Dickinson’s beery speery lands her in heaven too but in a different.

Conclusion

          As far as poetic quality is concerned, the poem is rich in metaphorical expression. It gives solidarity to the mood and tone: ‘From tankards scooped in pearl.’ Here the word ‘pearl’ shows worth wine and tankard suggests quality. We find many example of exaggeration. e.g.

I taste a liquor never brewed-

From Tankards scooped in Pearl-

Not all the Vats upon the Rhine

Yield such an Alcohol.

          The expression in the second stanza ‘inebriate of air’, ‘debauchee of dew’ are deeply suggestive of  the sensuous element in Emily Dickinson’s personality. Intensifiers ‘never’, ‘not all’, ‘such’, gives importance to the poets’ feeling.  

          There is no systematic rhyme scheme but it has rhyming words. Dew-blue, door-more, sun-run The poem possessed tremendous musical through alliteration.

-Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats  - And Debauchee of Dew

Conclusion

          To summing up, the poem may be regarded as characteristic so far as her inner personality is concerned. The joys of life have been expressed with a rare power. The poetess is intoxicated with divine madness, just as Emerson’s poet is ‘inebriated by nectar’ or as Thoreau speaks of ‘bardic rage’. The poem is simply a humorous fable of poet’s inspiration, drunk with the joy of life and elevated into a very sensuous heaven. As Albert J. Gelpi observes,

“It was a reeling triumph to

be a secret drinker while in

the name of Orthodox religion

her father laboured tirelessly.”