Dr.Lee
American Lit.
12/4/2015
Main Blog Post 8
The reading that I picked to do the blog post on is Emily Dickinson's poems. The poems themes vary from death to the unknown. Ever from a young age Emily Dickinson was intrigued with death and nature, so a lot of her work deals with death and nature. Dickinson grew up next to the city cemetery so she saw most of the city services. Also, the Civil War was going on at the same time she was writing some of these poems. So death surrounded her, for her whole life.
In the first portion of her collection of poems they deal with nature and life it is not until later where she starts to engulf her writing with death. So the first poem I'm going to talk about is poem 340 on page 1673. The poem starts off with Dickinson saying " I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" (LN 1). I think this means that the writer was depressed and wanted to be left alone. The poem goes on to talk about depression and how it feels. In the second stanza Dickinson said " A Service, like a Drum" (6). This quote leads me to believe that the author had a pounding head ache. The next poem that I'm going to talk about is more upbeat and that poem is 598 on page 1686. This poem has three really descriptive metaphors that describes the brain. The first metaphor that Dickinson uses in the poem is " The Brain - is wider than the sky" (LN 1). This is talking about how the brain does so much its hard for us to fathom it and the sky is so large its also hard to fathom. The second metaphor is "The Brain is deeper than the sea" (5). The metaphor is talking about how the brain can learn so much its almost endless. The final metaphor is "The Brain is just the weight of God"(9). This means even though the brain is endless with knowledge it still bares the weight of anxiety and worry.
Emily Dickinson is one of Americas best poet because she wrote about stuff that people normally didn't want to talk about. She talked about death, religion, and nature. She is one of the most influential.
Baym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th Ed., New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.
I agree Emily Dickinson is one of Americas best poets especially during her time, not only because she wrote about what people didn't like talking about but because she wrote her poems about death and nature and the real aspects of these elements. Death she really talks about alot most of her poems are about death and she really uses a lot of metaphors to describe the feeling of it and the coming of it. She really paints a bright picture in our heads when she talks about Death and shows us the true aspect of it by using a metaphor or a phrase to really show how it is be represented in that certain poem or stanza. Emily Dickinson to me was a really great poet because she really described what she talks about in her poetry such as nature, she points out the really important aspects of it not straight forward but in a sense of figuring it out but realizing that is how nature is. This is what really brings her out to be a good poet is the way she can paint a picture in her poetry so that people better understand what she talks about.So overall i really liked how you picked out pieces of her poetry here and there and showed what she was trying to say in those stanzas, giving us an incite to what she was trying to make us see.
ReplyDeleteNice work on your post Caleb! I agree with most of your analysis of Dickinson's poems and thought you provided some well-thought out insight. With regards to her first poem you talk about, number 340, I feel that the speaker is being enveloped with depressive and overwhelming thoughts until they soon hit rock-bottom. I agree with you as you mentioned that the line stating, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” is alluding to the narrator entering a depressive state (Ln. 1). This is particularly shown when they continue by stating that, “...Mourners to and fro Kept treading – treading...” (Ln. 2-3). By this it seems as if they are talking about all of those surrounding them and how their emotions and stress are getting to them and making them feel as if they too are barely hanging on. As the writer continues along the dark path of depression and to insanity they state, “A Service, like a Drum – kept beating – till I thought My mind was going numb” (Ln. 6-8). This indicates that perhaps the speaker is feeling as if it won't end; it being the funeral of sadness and despair. The mind “going numb” is possibly showing that the continuous “beating” of the drum has become too much to bear and the monster of depression has finally won. To close out the poem this is furthermore shown when the speaker states that, “I dropped down, and down – and hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing – then” (Ln. 18-20). As the poem comes to a sudden conclusion without any warning, it seems as though the speaker is alluding to the idea that they have finally had enough and words are no longer needed or aren't enough to describe how they have dropped so deep into depression and at this point there is no hope of return.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to the other poem you speak about Caleb, I completely agree with how you analyze and describe what Dickinson is speaking of and what she means by her words. For this reason I thought it might be interesting to provide some insight on another poem I found quite interesting. In looking at another poem of hers numbered, “409”,Emily Dickinson seems as though she is speaking of love and that's the focus of this poem in particular. She states that, “The Soul selects her own Society—Then shuts the Door” possibly meaning that people are drawn to certain individuals throughout their life or that of a companion who they connect with, gravitate towards and who are of worth or could be to them (Ln. 1). When she says, “Then shuts the Door” it seems as though she is saying that once you find that person or thing that your “soul selects” then there is no room for anyone else or anything to enter in; enter into that of the soul. Mostly because maybe no one else could possibly compare or no one else could be the one “the soul of one selects” (Ln. 2). Then she continues and when she says “Choose one” it is almost as if she is saying there is only one the soul will select in a lifetime and her poem overall seems to be that of a romantic nature, discussing that of love and the soul selecting her someone (Ln. 9). In closing though, it seems as if such a thing isn’t attainable or it didn’t happen for the person she is speaking about; finding “the one”. That seems to be the case because she states that, “Then close the Valves of her attention, like stone” (Ln. 10). This could perhaps mean that whoever she is speaking of lost all hope and she became a rock, making it so no one could enter her soul.
DeleteBaym, Nina. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th Ed., New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.