Analysis of "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" by Emily Dickenson

 Poem Found Here: "The Soul Selects Her Own Society" by Emily Dickenson

The version I have probably isn't the version she wrote.  I see this version out there which has the end dashes in place.  I'm going to go off the one I've read and wrote some notes about.  I just wonder who interpreted the punctuation this way since it does make a difference.  Bluntly put, the consistent usage of the semi-colon to connect couplets within the quatrains makes it so the lines are connected; however, this might not be the case with the end dashes.  It's too late for me though.  I can't unsee the way I see the poem.

"The soul selects her own society, / Then shuts the door;"  Within two lines, there's an openness with the soul choosing and then the closing seems more of a protection and ownership ideal. The next two lines state the reason why, "On her divine majority / Obtrude no more."  The lines cast an ideal: devotion, loyalty, ownership of what the soul chooses and will not budge.

"Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing / At her low gate;"  The symbol of the chariot seems to be a momentum based image to take the soul away -- maybe death, but not explicitly stated.  For now, the image seems like a temptation to budge, to move away.  "Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling / Upon her mat."  Even an emperor who kneels to her doesn't move the soul.

"I've known her from an ample nation / choose one;"  The direct command of "choose one" throws me off, but I feel it's the crux of the poem.  It is choice of the soul to go from one way or another.  Even though there are options like nations, emperor, and chariots. the speaker comes in and forces a decision as though the options are a distraction.  "Then close the valves of her attention / Like a stone."  Attention is the most important aspect, it seems, in divinity.  There's a feeling of not straying from a path, but furthermore, not straying from the path that the soul sets.  Stick with the soul.