I find the ingenuity and brilliance of Emily Dickinson astounding! I feel as if in just a few words she can bring a whole world as we know it down and build up a whole new one. She can make us see words, ideas, things -- the whole world -- with new eyes, new perspectives -- as if it has never been seen before; the world we think we know perceived anew as if for the first time!

Love reckons by itself – alone –
“As large as I” – relate the Sun
To One who never felt it blaze –
Itself is all the like it has –
~ Emily Dickinson

Four Lines: A poet’s Fiery Passion
“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion,” Hegel said in this quote attributed to him, and Emily Dickinson, as we see from her above poem, would have agreed with him. If we were to see her poem meta-poetically, we have to consider two of the several definitions offered by the dictionary.com for the word “Love.” In one of the definitions, “Love” is defined as “Strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books,” and also as “The object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love.” What is that “Love” for Emily Dickinson? What is the object of her affection, of her enthusiasm? Is it a person, a thing, a place, an activity?
From the solitaire life that she lived and the copious number of poems that she wrote, we can be certain that Emily Dickinson was passionate about writing – Poetry was her great love. The speaker of the poem, assuming is Emily Dickinson herself, writes: Love reckons by itself – alone-- Here, Love is personified as a separate living entity that works within the poet against her will, as if poetry, the poet’s great love, was an independent living being that imagines and presupposes ideas by itself without the poet having control over what this passion creates within her mind. This way, the poet assumes no responsibility for her thoughts, words, and poems that Love engenders from within her; she assumes no responsibility for the ideas, feelings, passions, and desires she expresses in her poems. It is not her; it is this “Love” inside her, this enthusiasm, this passion for creating, for writing that grows inside of her and fills her being – “As Large as I” she writes. When something is as large as ourselves, it is difficult to carry the weight. For the poet, this Love for writing is large enough to fill her being and assume a life-size identity of its own, thus, becoming as real and active as the actual existence of the “I” of the poet’s persona. The “I” of the individual as defined in grammatical terms and the “I” of the poet at the moment of the creative act are fused and the latter cannot be stopped or controlled by the first one.
Moreover, Emily Dickinson shapes the form of the poem in a way that conveys its meaning. The dashes before and after the word —alone— enclose the word alone within them isolating it from the rest of the words; hence, demonstrating in its form the concept of “Love” working unattended while the openness of the dashes still allows it to maintain a sense of freedom of activity as if the word itself indicates self-sufficiency and independence as opposed to inactivity and constrain. This is in contrast to the phrase right after it, “As large as I”, which is encased within quotation marks and indicates that this Love acts alone in spite of the individual person and becomes life-size. The “I” of the poet fills in and takes over, and constrains her whole being who now acts on the will of the poet that becomes alive within her.
Furthermore, it is this enthusiasm, this passion, this feeling of love of writing and poetry that the poet cannot hide and constrain within her because it “reckons by itself – alone --” to explain, to describe itself and show itself even against the poet’s will – but it is as if trying to “relate the Sun/To One who never felt it blaze.” It is impossible to explain, to describe what it is to have this fire within her that burns with the desire to write and brings out on the paper this uncontrollable abundance of creativity that discovers and imagines, and tries to communicate as real and tangible, things and concepts that to the One who has never felt them are as distant and untouchable as the Sun. Trying to describe this great love, this light of poetry to “One” who has never felt and experienced the fiery passion for the creative process, it would be comparable to trying to explain the Sun’s warmth to someone who has never felt its warmth, its burning sunrays on his/her skin.
Thus, “Love reckons by itself – alone – [...].”
“Itself is all it has – “
How can one relate a poet’s fiery passion within four lines? It is impossible, Dickinson’s tells us. Poetry, this “Love,” has no way of comparison to describe, explain, and relate this burning desire, this fiery passion to another. All it has to show for this feeling is “Itself” – The sole comparison it has is this poem. This poem, this reckoning is all it has -- “Itself” -- laid out against the page before us, in hope that even if we do not experience the Sun’s blaze, we will still be able to see in these four lines a poet's love for her art.
- Louiza