Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul selects her own Society” features three quatrains. They represent the innovative quatrain that readers have come to expect from Dickinson, generously splashed with dashes—17 in all in only 12 lines; three lines display two dashes, and one line yields three.
The Dickinson dash has been debated by critics and scholars speculating about how it functioned rhetorically in her poems. One possibility is that the poet used the dash to represent a pause that is longer than a comma and shorter than a period, but she could have meant the dash to represent a pause longer than a period.
Another possible function is to signify a breath group, but since Dickinson did not perform readings and probably did not write specifically to be read aloud, a more likely function is that she placed the dash to hold for thought groups, that is, she placed the dash where she stopped to think.
First Quatrain: “The Soul selects her own Society”
In the first quatrain, the speaker makes a commanding and startling revelation, “The Soul selects her own Society.” The life force knows what belongs to it, and it will not allow intruders; it “shuts the Door” barring intrusions from those who do not further the purpose of that “Society.”
The speaker then uses a royal court metaphor to command that no one further be allowed to “her divine Majority.” After the king or royal figure has accepted all the guests to his court, he will allow no more. Her “divine Majority,” however, consists only of what her soul has selected, and those selections may not be people at all, but perhaps books, personal items, thoughts, prayer, and meditation.
Second Quatrain: “Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —“
The speaker is unyielding about keeping her “own Society,” and even though she is aware of visitors arriving in “Chariots” and “pausing — / At her low Gate,” she insists on remaining alone with her soul society and will not accept a visit from them. Even if “an Emperor” comes calling and “kneeling / Upon her Mat,” she will remain aloof for the sake of her soul, and the grace that solitude brings her.
Third Quatrain: “I’ve known her — from an ample nation —“
The speaker then projects herself from the obvious position that it is, indeed, she who is this ultra discriminating soul doing all this selecting and dismissing. She claims she has known someone who held this unwavering attitude, and she has seen this person, whose station could assure her much attention “from an ample nation,” “close the Valves of her attention — / Like Stone.”
The speaker’s experience is that the soul who selects her own society and has the courage to remain alone with that culture becomes content to remain apart from ordinary humanity. That soul becomes close to the Divine, Whose company she reveres above all else.
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