Regret is a theme we as people are not particularly keen on studying because of the inherent pain that is attached. You are more likely to hear the blind expression, “No Regrets!” (which is horrible advice) instead of having a sober conversation with a friend about an actual regret and a subsequent action to take. Emily Dickinson was a masterful poet, her two favorite subjects being death and pain. “Remorse—is Memory—Awake” is not necessarily one of Dickinson’s more widespread popular poems (although it is one of my favorites), but it is a poem that shows how powerful the pain of regret is:
Remorse—is Memory—awake—
Her Parties all astir—
A Presence of Departed Acts—
At window—and at Door—
Its Past—set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match—
Perusal—to facilitate—
And help Belief to stretch—
Remorse is cureless—the Disease
Not even God—can heal—
For 'tis His institution—and
The Adequate of Hell—
Our imperfection is why regret exists. Without mistakes, regret would have no life force. The reality is regret is a living, growing entity in our minds. As we see in Dickinson’s first stanza, it is not one we live down. “Her Parties all astir—” is beautiful imagery of a seductive yet uninviting party we throw for ourselves that is “awake,” or is persistent and unending. Much like an actual party is seductive, we do tend to wake up with a bad hangover. Hence why regret often accompanies an actual hangover. Our “Departed Acts,” though they are past mistakes, continue to influence our thoughts. Until we make amends in some form, we allow our past mistakes to pile up and overwhelm us.
The second stanza is a beautiful act of self-examination. “Its Past—set down before the Soul / And lighted with a Match—” is powerful reverb, or we could say an echo of how our “Soul” can transmute the “Past” into a more useful form. Implied by Dickinson is the process of self-examination leading to our growth of a better self. The “Match” acting as a spark towards “Belief” in a better self.
What feels like an uplifting second stanza, our growth through examination of our souls, turns sharply to the divine’s creation of this wretched and hopeless “Disease” called regret. “His institution” is a marker of our folly, which reminds me of the lines from Homer’s Odyssey:
This is absurd,
that mortals blame the gods! They say we cause
their suffering, but they themselves increase it
by folly.-Book 1, Lines 32-35, Emily Wilson translation
Our propensity to repeat these mistakes becomes what Dickinson calls “The Adequate of Hell—,” or we might say those that bury themselves in their own version of hell. Whether the Biblical hell or the Inferno of Dante is in fact reality, we can at least say that us humans are impeccably good at living inside our own hellish landscapes because of our actions.
Emily Dickinson likely wrote this poem in the 1860s when very little was known about psychology, especially regret or remorse. Any one of us could write a poem or an essay on regret today and we have not only our own experience to draw from, but countless psychology texts on the subject depending on how deep of a dive we want to make. Dickinson, I surmise, is drawing singularly from her own experience, which is what makes her poetry so impressive. For another point of reference, William James, the father of American psychology, did not become a Harvard professor until the 1870’s. His most prominent text on psychology was not released until after Dickinson’s death.
Another interesting point, today’s view between regret and remorse is thought by some to have differing qualities. Although they are generally the same concept, some view us humans as capable of regret with things that happen outside of our control. Whereas remorse is essentially regret with responsibility attached to it. From a philosophical perspective, I question our ability to feel regret for much of anything outside of our control. Regret exists predominately because of an action we took, or more likely an action we didn’t take. In either case, it was our decision that accounts for our regret.
If one of the reasons we read poetry is to better communicate with ourselves, then Emily Dickinson is one of the best we should seek to understand. Reading a poem like “Remorse” helps us to discover a more complete voice.
I will have more on regret in a future post.