Joan Burbick's Emily Dickinson And The Economics Of Desire

A poet’s writings are often the author’s personal views of the events going on around them. As noted by Joan Burbick in her work “Emily Dickinson and the Economics of Desire” during the time Dickinson was writing America was going through a period of “managing sexuality,” (362). Single women were a major concern for the movement. Unmarried women had the power to use sex, but they did not have the “proper guidelines for how to manage it” (Burbick 363). In Dickinson’s poem, Did the Harebell Loose Her Girdle, the poet expresses how the act of sex is complicated by society’s various social contracts and standards for women.
The first stanza of the poem poses the initial question, “If the woman decides to be intimate with this man, will the act be regretted?” In the first two lines of the poem, “Did the harebell loose her girdle / To the lover Bee” the harebell represents the woman in a sexual encounter, and the bee represents the male (Dickinson). Of course the flower does not have to think about whether or not to let the bee collect its pollen. Dickinson is being playful with the idea of human nature. No other species has to contemplate the social repercussions of having sex. The next two lines of the poem,
If the couple were to copulate would either one regret it? In line seven, “Would the Eden be an Eden” Eden alludes to the biblical story of the Garden of Eden (Dickinson). Eden is used as the standard example for the idea of paradise. By using the word “Eden” Dickinson is alluding both to the biblical tale and to the fifth line of the poem. If the two were to consummate their relationship would the paradise desired become a reality? The eighth line of the poem, “Or the Earl an - Earl?” continues the thought from the previous line (Dickinson). An earl is the term for a British nobleman. Will this nobleman actually be noble or will his righteousness disappear with him after the deed is