John,
Dickinson generally uses a ballad stanza--8/6/8/6 for syllable counts. Someone once pointed out that you can sing all her poems to the melody for "The Yellow Rose of Texas." It's the stanza Coleridge uses in The ancient Mariner. That's a base line, though, so seven syllables is an acceptable variation. ("Water. water, everywhere/But not a drop to drink.")
"Madness" and "sense" are not being treated as count nouns. ("Much love," but "many loves.") Many words in English can be both.
"Divinest" is a superlative, but it doesn't have to be a category of one. The highest level of sense can be applied to more than one thing.
She is eliding "is" in the second clause. It tightens the structure, but doesn't strain the sense.
Craig
________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Chorazy [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2011 3:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Poetry grammar question: Dickinson
While the line uses iambs, there aren't 5 iambic feet and as such isn't pentameter; nonetheless, the rhythm (iambic tetrameter) is common to Dickinson (Because I could not stop for Death...), as it was to Blake (And did those feet in ancient time...), Byron, Browning, and on and on...
The lack of the suggests that "divinest sense" is term without need of a determiner - it isn't a specific or local sense, but a concept, a quality I suppose Dickinson wishes to categorize for us. We don't say the humility when speaking of humility, unless that quality belongs to someone in particular (The humility she exhibits is remarkable). Read the sentence without the inverted syntax and it gets clearer - "To a discerning eye, divinest sense is much madness."
I would question more why she uses Much in line three, "Much sense the starkest madness", when she means many, as in many people...
John
On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 2:53 PM, Carol Morrison <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
In my humble opinion, perhaps Dickinson left the article "the" off of "divinest" for the rhythm and meter of the poem. The iambic pentameter would be disturbed by inserting the article. Also, it would make that line 9 syllables in contrast to the 8 it presently carries which align nicely with the 7 syllables in /Much sense the starkest madness/
Carol
--- On Tue, 9/6/11, Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
From: Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Poetry grammar question: Dickinson
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tuesday, September 6, 2011, 2:33 PM
Dear List,
Consider these lines from Dickinson: Much madness is divinest sense/ To a discerning eye;/ Much sense the starkest madness.
Why is there no "the" in front of "divinest sense" and why is there a "the" in front of "starkest madness"? It sounds wrong to my ear to say "Much madness is the divinest sense," and it sounds off to say "much sense starkest madness," but I don't know why this is. What is the rule I'm missing?
Thanks,
Scott Woods
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John Chorazy
English III Honors and Academic
Pequannock Township High School
973.616.6000
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