There's a certain Slant of light - Interpretation‏
From:
Jimmy George (jg-ltuil@lntecc.com)
Sent:
Tue 5/26/09 8:36 AM
To:
Thomas Samuel (tomsabb@yahoo.com)
In the first stanza, the speaker claims that on winter afternoons, the light that shines through her window has a “certain Slant” to it that “oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes.”
Something as weightless as “light” feels heavy to the speaker.
The weight of “Cathedral Tunes” would be quite profound, sound being heavier than light, but to the speaker that “certain Slant” causes the light to be as heavy as that heavy sound coming from the gigantic organs that deliver church music.
Because church music is meant to be uplifting, the speaker’s words become paradoxical: how can an inspirationally uplifting hymn be oppressive?

The profundity of the “Cathedral Tunes” causes the speaker to experience a “Heavenly Hurt.” She confirms, however, that the “hurt” leaves no scar, because it is inside;
it is the soul that is affected by the oppression or “Heavenly Hurt.” The speaker says that the pain is on the inside “Where the meanings are.”
“Meaning” is very important to all human beings, whether they are yet aware of that fact or not. The speaker is keenly aware of the soul’s sensitivities to the “meanings” of physical things and events,
and she is aware that they are internal— not external.

The speaker declares that no one can teach another how to become aware of the mystical attributes of the yearning for meaning. While “Despair” leads one in that direction,
and the desire is universal, it comes to each one as simply as breathing. One’s spiritual development has to be right before one can entertain such divine cravings.

When the strong spiritual desire for understanding the nature of reality comes, everything seems to stop and listen. She speaker dramatizes that utter stillness by claiming, “Shadows—hold their breath.”
The quietness implied by “shadows holding their breath” is astounding; it is a miracle of striking awareness, undetectable to most and unceasingly secure to but a few.
Then the speaker avows that when the sense of melancholy goes, when the “[h]eavenly hurt” lightens into understanding, it is “like the Distance / On the look of Death.”
Of course, it is not death itself, but merely like the blank stare that none can fathom, save those who can distinguish that profound melancholy in the “certain Slant of light” on “Winter Afternoons—.”