Emily Dickinson

Cobwebs

COBWEBS.
THE spider as an artist

"never been employed"

Dickinson is playing with the word 'employed'—spiders aren't hired as artists, but they do work constantly. The joke sets up her defense of unrecognized labor.

Has never been employed
Though his surpassing merit
Is freely certified
By every broom and Bridget

"broom and Bridget"

Bridget was the stereotypical name for Irish housemaids in 19th-century America. The spider's 'certification' comes from being constantly swept away—proof of productivity through destruction.

Throughout a Christian land.
Neglected son of genius,

"I take thee by the hand"

This gesture of solidarity is both absurd (you can't shake hands with a spider) and serious. Dickinson identifies with another small, industrious creature whose work goes unvalued.

I take thee by the hand.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Artist Nobody Hires

Dickinson published only a handful of poems in her lifetime, all anonymously and most edited without her permission. By the 1860s, when she wrote this poem, she'd largely given up trying to publish. So when she calls the spider a "Neglected son of genius," she's writing about herself.

The poem's central irony is that the spider's "surpassing merit / Is freely certified"—but certified by destruction. Every cobweb swept away proves the spider was working. Dickinson knew this feeling: her poems were regularly rejected or "corrected" by editors who couldn't recognize what she was doing. Like cobwebs, her work was evidence of labor that most people wanted to erase.

The phrase "Throughout a Christian land" has bite. In Christian theology, industry and productivity are virtues—the spider works constantly, never rests, creates intricate structures. But Christian housekeeping also demands the removal of cobwebs as signs of disorder. The spider can't win. Neither could Dickinson, whose radical poetic style violated every rule of proper verse in her "Christian land."

Domestic Rebellion

"Bridget" wasn't just any name—it was shorthand for Irish immigrant housemaids, the women doing the actual sweeping in middle-class homes like Dickinson's. By naming Bridget specifically, Dickinson points to the chain of undervalued labor: the maid sweeps away the spider's work, but who values the maid's work? Who values the poet's?

The poem takes the "broom"—symbol of domestic order and women's work—and makes it the enemy of art. This is pointed for Dickinson, who lived her entire adult life in her family home, never married, and was expected to contribute to household duties. She's siding with the spider against the broom, with the maker against the cleaner.

"I take thee by the hand" is the poem's climax. It's a gesture of alliance between outcasts, a formal greeting extended to something most people kill on sight. The line works because it's both ridiculous (spiders don't have hands) and dignified (she's treating the spider as an equal). Dickinson, isolated in Amherst, making art no one wanted to publish, shakes hands with the spider, isolated in the corner, making art no one wants to keep.