10-12-2004, 04:40 PM | #1 |
Fëanorophobic
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The Emily Dickinson Fan Club
I have checked and there are no threads on that remarkable poet. So I thought I'd start this one.
Basically, it's meant to be a discussion thread where fans of Miss Dickinson can discuss a particularly difficult or ambiguous poem or just share their thoughts about an interesting one. I have been reading a collection of her poems recently and I found a lot of interesting stuff and I'll (soon) start the discussion off with one of her poems. Meanwhile, anyone is welcome to participate. Any Emily Dickinson readers out there? |
10-13-2004, 12:40 AM | #2 |
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Where would you recommend I start? I've never read anything of hers, and I like your taste in poetry! (we both loved Paradise Lost)
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10-13-2004, 08:07 AM | #3 |
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You wouldn't necessarily like Emily D. if you liked PL. They fall under different categories. If you want to start with some Dickinson poetry, however, I'd recommend The Wordsworth Poetry Library book (the one I'm reading right now) called The Works of Emily Dickinson It has a biography and an intro. Even though it doesn't have all of her poems, it's still a good read.
As an appetizer, here's one of her famous poems: Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense, the starkest madness. 'Tis the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent and you're sane. Demur and you're straightaway dangerous And handled with a chain. The punctuation is probably wrong. Emily Dickinson was known for her idiosyncratic punctuation and her wild paradoxes. Last edited by Beren3000 : 10-13-2004 at 08:12 AM. |
10-13-2004, 10:28 AM | #4 |
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I like very much Dickinson's poetry. It is often very sad and she deals frequently with the topic of death, but I find it somehow heart-strengthening
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10-13-2004, 10:29 AM | #5 |
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BTW, the second poem in your sig is the one quoted in Seabiscuit, doesn't it?
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10-13-2004, 10:59 AM | #6 | ||
Fëanorophobic
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10-14-2004, 12:57 PM | #7 |
Fëanorophobic
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To anyone who's interseted, one of my favorite poems by Dickinson is:
To learn the transport by the pain As blind men learn the sun. To die of thirst, suspecting That brooks in meadows run. To stay the homesick, homesick feet Upon a foreign shore Haunted by native lands, the while, And blue beloved air. This is the sovereign anguish, This, the signal woe! These are the patient laureates, Whose voices trained below, Ascend in ceaseless carol, Inaudible, indeed To us, the duller scholars Of the mysterious bard. |
10-14-2004, 03:21 PM | #8 |
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Very beatiful
I have not my Dickinson's book at hand, but one I like very much is that begins: "Through what transports of patience I reached the stolid bliss to breathe my blank without thee atest me this and this. By that bleak exultation I won as near as this thy privilege of dying Abreviate me this..." Hey, that was out of memory. I'll check it later
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10-14-2004, 10:41 PM | #9 |
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i love emily dickinson; she's the author who got me really into poetry and she's still in my top three fav poets
right now i have this one as my desktop on my comp: Troubled About Many Things How Many times these low feet staggered, Only the soldered mouth can tell; Try! Can you stir the awful rivet? Try! Can you lift the hasps of steel? Stroke the cool forehead, hot so often, Lift, if you can, the listless hair; Handle the adamantine fingers Never a thimble more shall wear. Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window; Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane; Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling- Indolent housewife, in daisics lain!
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10-20-2004, 10:18 AM | #10 | |
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Here's one of the poems I find hard to understand:
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10-20-2004, 11:01 AM | #11 | ||
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I love Emily Dickinson! I can't believe I haven't posted here yet. My favourite poem is "Because I Could Not Stop for Death".
I'll try a hand at interpreting the poem. I think it's about how kids have to go to school all the weekday afternoons, and church on Sunday. Saturday is the only time they have for themselves. I understand the second stanza a bit less though. This line: "Alas! That frowns could lie in wait" stumps me.
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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10-20-2004, 03:52 PM | #12 | ||
Fëanorophobic
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10-21-2004, 03:46 PM | #13 |
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According to my English teacher, every Dickinson poem is about Death, so I'm sure you're close I don't have any better ideas I'm afraid.
I'm applying to join the fan club. I love Dickinson's poetry, especially this one: Safe in their alabaster chambers, Untouched by morning and untouched by noon, Sleep the meek members of the resurrection, Rafter of satin, and roof of stone. Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine; Babbles the bee in a stolid ear; Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence,— Ah, what sagacity perished here! Grand go the years in the crescent above them; Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row, Diadems drop and Doges surrender, Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
10-21-2004, 04:35 PM | #14 |
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Great poem!
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10-22-2004, 11:12 AM | #15 | ||
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About symbolism in general, I think there are many layers to a poem. The "top" one is the most literal, and the bottom ones make the people who think of them wonder if they are too farfetched. Perhaps they are not too farfetched. The bottom layers are down so deep, they could have many meanings.
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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10-22-2004, 01:54 PM | #16 |
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Oh! I want to join! I saw the title and would've shouted "yay!" in joy, but then there would've been soy milk everywhere.
When I'm not in such a rush, I'd like to continue the discussion about "Because I could not stop for death" because I don't know how well I understood it. |
10-22-2004, 03:19 PM | #17 | |
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10-22-2004, 08:32 PM | #18 | ||
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Eek! I'm not very good at interpreting poetry. In fact, I don't even like most poetry. I mainly only like four poets: Emily Dickinson, Robert Burns, Robert Frost, and Robert Service. (I only like poets named Emily or Robert. j/k! ) Of course there are exceptions. I'd really rather read someone else's discussion on it. It was very kind to ask me though, tack så mycket! (Thank you very much in Swedish.)
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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10-23-2004, 07:06 AM | #19 | ||
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10-23-2004, 11:01 AM | #20 | |
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Ok, here's "Because I could not stop for death" in full, it's called "The Chariot":
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The "carriage" or "chariot" is probably the passage of time. She could not "stop" her life to think about Death, so Death stopped and waited for her. What she means is that no matter how much you try to dodge it, you end up thinking about your mortality and eventual death. Death's "civility" in this context would be ironic because in fact Death is being "rude" if you will by sticking to her. Immortality was in the carriage because it's the thought that accompanies death: immortality of the soul. It's the thought that could keep her moving through life. In fact, in another of her poems called "Immortality", Dickinson says that it's "an honorable thought". She gave away her labor and leisure because her life centered around this obsession with Death. The scenes of children in the school and the fields are probably scenes from her own life. Then she passed the sunset; IOW she died. Death took her to a house in the ground: her grave. It seems to her that she had spent centuries there since her death because she's floating out of time after her death. YET longer than these "centuries" is the moment when she first discovered that the chariot is taking her towards eternity; i.e. whe she first learned of the immortality of the soul. Thoughts? |
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