There is no Frigate like a Book

Emily Dickinson’s “There is no Frigate like a Book” highlights a reader’s ability to travel through the study of literature. Dickinson’s speaker presents literature as capable of more than allowing their reader to travel topographically. Starting in Dickinson’s contemporary period, the poem’s imagery progresses backward in time. The speaker suggests that poetry—and literature more generally—allows one to travel historically and to engage with the fundamental questions of the “Human Soul” (Line 8).

Dickinson’s poem is an extended metaphor that emphasizes literature’s ability to transport its reader (See: Literary Devices). Dickinson’s speaker uses literal vehicles as the vehicles for their metaphors. First, they compare a “[b]ook” to a “[f]rigate” (Line 1), a full-rigged warship notable for its agility. The speaker proceeds to compare “a [p]age” to a “[c]ourser” (Line 3) or horse, and literature more generally to a “[c]hariot” (Line 7). Each of these vehicles stand among the fastest in their category, especially compared to more traditional and common-place forms of travel such as walking or taking a coach. By comparing literature to these vehicles, Dickinson’s speaker positions reading among the most capable modes of topographical transportation.

The order in which the speaker chooses to make these comparisons suggests a secondary movement to the past. The term “frigate” originated around the 15th century but did not become popular until the early 18th century. In the middle of the 19th century, around the time that Dickinson wrote the poem, the term fell in popularity. The use of the term “frigate” at the beginning of the poem places the speaker as Dickinson’s rough contemporary. This position changes when the speaker mentions “Coursers,” a type of warhorse used during the Middle Ages. This movement from frigates to coursers signals a parallel movement back through history as the reader engages with “Lands away.” In other words, the lands that the speaker envisions literature engaging with are not bounded by one’s own position in time. The continued movement through to “[c]hariots” in the poem’s penultimate line reinforces this sense that literature allows one to explore both topographically and temporally.

The chariot is the last vehicle the speaker mentions. The chariot draws the poem’s narrative back to ancient Greece and the origin of Western literature and civilization. Ending the poem with the image of the “[c]hariot / That bears the Human Soul” (Lines 7-8), the speaker evokes literature’s long engagement with poetic metaphor as a way of understanding the human condition. The image alludes to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s idea of the tripartite soul, which he imagines in his Phaedrus as “two parts in the form of horses and the third in that of a charioteer” (Plato, Phaedrus. 360 B.C.E, translated by Benjamin Jowett, the Internet Classics Archive. 253d). In Plato’s metaphor, he imagines the charioteer as reason much in the same way that Dickinson’s speaker imagines the chariot carrying the “Human Soul” (Line 8).

While Dickinson’s speaker does not engage with Plato’s thought directly, their allusion to some of the earliest works of poetic introspection highlights the long history of people using poetry to grapple with fundamental questions. This conclusion suggests that the close study of literature is also a study of the history of human thought. The possible pun between “bears” (Line 8) and “bares” in the poem’s final line solidifies this suggestion. Poetry—through the image of the chariot—both carries and reveals the human soul.

“There is no Frigate like a Book” relies on multiple puns to communicate its ideas concisely. Many of Dickinson’s words exist between potential definitions. The “[t]oll” that does not “oppress” the speaker’s imagined reader could refer to either the stress of physical labor or a payment due for passing through a particular area. These coexistent meanings suggest that reading requires neither the physical work nor the monetary funds of conventional travel. “Toll” could also refer to the toll of a church bell, which often signals death and a progression into the afterlife. The speaker’s “[l]ands away” might include spiritual realms that readers are able to envision through close attention to literary texts.

The play between the rhyming “[t]oll” and “[s]oul” explores a similar idea that the speaker’s mode of literary travel helps to develop one spiritually. The idea that physical or mental “tolls” while on earth help to prepare one for the afterlife is common among many Christian denominations. Protestantism in particular emphasizes the close study of religious texts as a mode of knowing and engaging with God (see: Background). The speaker’s focus on imagined travel through time and space builds on this mode of religious textual engagement.

“There is no Frigate like a Book” suggests that mental travel through the close reading of poetic texts might develop one’s soul more than physical travel is able to. The poem’s movement through time and space demonstrates how literature has a long history of engaging with the fundamental questions at the roots of Western culture and philosophy. The poem also highlights how poetry itself is able to carry readers to these places faster and farther than any conventional mode of transportation.