1. Study for your mid-term exam. Bring a blue book on Tuesday.
2. Group A comment on one of the blog posts by 11:59 pm Friday night.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Free writing on what you learned from the Civil War poetry unit
Here's a compilation of your free writing on the Civil War poetry unit. I also received an excellent drawing of a bearded Confederate that I wish I could post on the blog.
Poetry
- poems have numerous layers of depth in them
- multiple meanings of poems
- double meanings
- I'm horrible at reading poetry but I have learned a "process." Read once (or twice) to gain the literal meaning and again for literary devices. Look for a metaphoric meaning. Words often have more than one meaning. Think about who the speaker is and who he is talking to. Remember, there can be more than one possible speaker. Are there allusions? What meaning might they add to the poem? Is the punctuation unusual? How does this affect reading?
- when reading poetry, don't take anything at first glance; have to look at literal and symbolic meanings
- everything needs a second glance
- significance of poetic form
- form has meaning too
- read MORE DEEPLY!!!
- historical and Biblical allusions
- in this unit I learned about how poets incorporate their perspectives into the issues of the times
Dickinson
- biographical facts about Dickinson (more than I'd expected) that help tie together loose things I've learned about her over the years. I think Dickinson could have been better about putting herself into society, but it's not my place to judge. Had she been a man she may have done things differently.
- Dickinson's poems were about the Civil War but she was not a direct spectator. I don't think Melville was either.
- random capitalization
- strong nature imagery and concentration on death
- I definitely enjoyed Dickinson's poetry; I feel like it captured the essence of poetry because every poem evoked some sort of mental image or feeling.
- twists and turns; secret meanings; no titles; focus on death--only the coffins; the still ends of battle
- Dickinson is focused on the silent bodies; the photography; still succumbing, overpowering, death
- Autumn --> fall or Civil War
- red wheel rolling in blood, may be Antietam collecting bodies
- Alabaster grave: tomb grave; irony: meek shall inherited the earth but engraved; interchangeable verses between volumes; later about the passing of time
- Dickinson's poems tend to seem very straight-forward when in actuality they can trick you
- Civil War - cause of mental disturbance for Dickinson
- Dickinson was a very intense person
- Dickinson's poems are so metaphorical that they can be taken even as a non-Civil War poem because the soldiers suffering share readers' humanity
- Dickinson wasn't totally crazy! Her poems had good meanings that pertain to everyone.
- Dickinson was so secluded but she wrote about topics that could relate to anyone. A lot of her poems are literally not about the Civil War, but she usues a lot of metaphors to talk about the Civil War and its bloody nature.
- I learned a large amount about how to interpret Emily Dickinson's poetry. Previously I viewed it as dry and boring; now I have learned that it is necessary to simply make random connections to words and phrases in her text.
- Dickinson's poetry was difficult to understand completely and I felt like I was missing her intended references to the Civil War.
Melville
- Melville must have been very articulate to be able to twist words so nicely
- I now think of Melville as clever, if I had to put him into one word. He clearly keeps his audience in mind and write two different things in one.
- Melville's poems confused me because I am not knowledgeable about the Civil War.
- more bold; Shenandoah!; titles; but the irony of battle; raucus beginning
- Melville focuses on explosive beginnings and ends of war. His words are resounding, drawing on these great mythical figures.
- shadow of body lies in Shenandoah
- the thought processes of the speaker in Melville's poems are similar to those of Delano: the tone changes, the attitude shifts
- Melville thought war to be "boyish"; soldiers naive/ignorant
- Melville tried to write from a holistic American perspective when writing about the Civil War, rather than limiting himself to a Northern or Southern perspective
- Melville's writings, with their abolitionist values, are valuable for getting across a Northern point of view.
- conflicting sentiments: debate of antislavery? in "Benito Cereno"; "Fall of Richmond" celebrating the end of the war/slavery
- Melville still confused about pro/anti-slavery
- Melville wrote his poetry to show how he was against the war and so most of his poems are ironic.
- Melville has a more sarcastic/ironic tone in some of his writings
- Melville's writing seems to criticize
Dickinson and Melville
- Melville's titles helped in how direct it was. Dickinson's title were edited in later.
- I didn't see as many similarities between Dickinson and Melville as I did with works in the sea narratives unit. The subject matter was similar, but Dickinson's poetry was left up for interpretation. Melville's poems we read were all obviously about the Civil War.
- Dickinson's poems were more open to interpretation. For example, "It was not death for I stood up" could mean a number of things. You can say it was a Civil War death but it could be a close family death. Melville is more direct (for the poems we've read); it's easy to tell which battle/Civil War event he is referring to
- both made riddles in their poetry, but with Melville it is more clear who he was talking about--the clearly listed names. Dickinson spoke in more general terms about the soldiers dying and the difficulty of war. It seems as if Melville was more political and Dickinson had more of a general statement
- I appreciated Melville's poetry more than Dickinson's because it was straight-forward in addressing the Civil War as its topic.
- Melville looks at more specific scenes while Dickinson looks at the war as a whole
- I think it is fascinating to contrast Dickinson and Melville, especially since she stayed in her house all day and he sailed all over the world. I wonder if that contrast says something about how they wrote.
- both were from the North (2x)
- Dickinson and Melville were both just observers of war, yet Melville gives more opinion on it
- both had to base their knowledge on information presented through news and images
- as spectators they still got facts and such right
- Dickinson and Melville both tried to convey the complexities and tragedies of the Civil War
- Dickinson was able to incorporate her perspective on the issues of the times more effectively than Melville since she seems to also connect the themes of her poems to timeless archetypal themes, while Melville's poems seem much more grounded in his era.
- a sense of irony (2x)
- Dickinson made statements on the universal themes of death; Melville was more specific, yet packed lots of meaning and irony to still make some point.
- Melville and Dickinson understood, even in their poems at the beginning of the war, how serious the Civil War was bound to become
- these poems weren't necessarily written to make readers feel a certain way about the war, but rather to explain Melville's and Dickinson's personal feelings
- I feel like between the two I prefer Dickinson over Melville. She seems to do better justice to the deep emotional pain associated with war time. Melville seemed to put the war time reports to a poetic meter and then sprinkle in classical allusions. But that may be a "gender-biased" interpretation of their work
- both tie Civil War into poetry; Melville's poetry is more ironic, Dickinson's is more relatable
- Dickinson and Melville were very moved by the Civil War---much more than I had previously thought.
Civil War
- I learned a lot about the Civil War, both the facts of it and how people living at that time felt about it. In high school we spent one brief unit on the Civil War in American history in 10th grade and almost never brought it up again. I never before got to read about the thoughts and opinions of people who lived it, which I find very interesting. My perception of the thoughts of the North from the little I learned was more of a "we're right, you're wrong" mentality, and I liked reading Dickinson's struggles with it. Furthermore, I find it fascinating how differently things are taught in diferent regions of the country. For example, in AP US Govt and Politics, my class was told that only powerless people go to war.
- execution of John Brown Oct. 2
- I did learn a great deal regarding the literal sense of the Civil War: John Brown, Antietam, McClellan, Manassas, and so forth. It is very important to understand the historical context of the poems in order to fully appreciate the poetry.
- Civil War battles are named differently by the North and the South
- connection between a cycle of nature and war/ death and life
- Civil War sparked questions of religion; moral issue with widespread death
- Antietam = bloodiest
- Death Death Death --> good summary of the Civil War
- death and dying associated with the war is evident in both sets of poems; both authors seem to grasp the negative outcomes that will have resulted from the war
- How does America deal with death? They're separated from direct action and they have a way of drawing conclusions from a broader perspective.
- McClellan a hero; Grant likened to God; generals elevated to god-like status
- metaphors and allusions used to create the sense that war is a repeating tragedy (almost like it is timeless)
- the Civil War had a deep impact on all Americans; tone of death, loss, destruction
- someone not directly effected can have a strong opinion about war as well
- history has a great effect on writers
- naivete of young soldiers in the beginning of war...leading to depressing loss/struggle
- overall struggle/debate of knowing what is right or how to feel about the war
- what do writers do when they are faced with a war? They can explain things in a way that runs deeper than North or South...hit on the humanity involved in the wars.
- people aren't satisfied by the war --> focused on battles, results of the war, rather than causes, like why we went to war in the first place
- many cryptic messages related to the Civil War
- allusions to Civil War in poetry aren't always obvious
- knowing background of Civil War helps to be able to understand poetry
- knowing who John Brown was made the poem "The Portent" [better...? the last word was cut off, so I'm guessing that's what you wanted to say]
- I learned a lot about the Civil War that I never knew before, and I found it interesting that the different regions can have such a huge impact on one's outlook.
- Civil War discussed more in southern schools
Slavery
- one can read a message about slavery in ANYTHING! (it's amazing)
- less about slavery and more about deaths of soldiers
- these works, and "Benito Cereno," showed how some authors of the time approached the image of the US and part of its history with slavery, human rights. Like the first unit, those authors were able to comment on the behavior of people in the US and whether or not their actions were appropriate (Civil War and continuation of slavery for so long)
And one late-breaking thought on the sea narratives unit:
The problem of a narrator strikes me: first we had Pym who was cocky and prone to exaggeration; in"The Heroic Slave," Mr. Listwell waxes terribly sentimental while the protagonist himself is just too good to be true; in "Benito Cereno," we experience limited 3rd at the hands of the terribly naive also sentimental Delano. Further, out of the 3 books, we only really want to root for Madison: I just can't support anyone else.
Poetry
- poems have numerous layers of depth in them
- multiple meanings of poems
- double meanings
- I'm horrible at reading poetry but I have learned a "process." Read once (or twice) to gain the literal meaning and again for literary devices. Look for a metaphoric meaning. Words often have more than one meaning. Think about who the speaker is and who he is talking to. Remember, there can be more than one possible speaker. Are there allusions? What meaning might they add to the poem? Is the punctuation unusual? How does this affect reading?
- when reading poetry, don't take anything at first glance; have to look at literal and symbolic meanings
- everything needs a second glance
- significance of poetic form
- form has meaning too
- read MORE DEEPLY!!!
- historical and Biblical allusions
- in this unit I learned about how poets incorporate their perspectives into the issues of the times
Dickinson
- biographical facts about Dickinson (more than I'd expected) that help tie together loose things I've learned about her over the years. I think Dickinson could have been better about putting herself into society, but it's not my place to judge. Had she been a man she may have done things differently.
- Dickinson's poems were about the Civil War but she was not a direct spectator. I don't think Melville was either.
- random capitalization
- strong nature imagery and concentration on death
- I definitely enjoyed Dickinson's poetry; I feel like it captured the essence of poetry because every poem evoked some sort of mental image or feeling.
- twists and turns; secret meanings; no titles; focus on death--only the coffins; the still ends of battle
- Dickinson is focused on the silent bodies; the photography; still succumbing, overpowering, death
- Autumn --> fall or Civil War
- red wheel rolling in blood, may be Antietam collecting bodies
- Alabaster grave: tomb grave; irony: meek shall inherited the earth but engraved; interchangeable verses between volumes; later about the passing of time
- Dickinson's poems tend to seem very straight-forward when in actuality they can trick you
- Civil War - cause of mental disturbance for Dickinson
- Dickinson was a very intense person
- Dickinson's poems are so metaphorical that they can be taken even as a non-Civil War poem because the soldiers suffering share readers' humanity
- Dickinson wasn't totally crazy! Her poems had good meanings that pertain to everyone.
- Dickinson was so secluded but she wrote about topics that could relate to anyone. A lot of her poems are literally not about the Civil War, but she usues a lot of metaphors to talk about the Civil War and its bloody nature.
- I learned a large amount about how to interpret Emily Dickinson's poetry. Previously I viewed it as dry and boring; now I have learned that it is necessary to simply make random connections to words and phrases in her text.
- Dickinson's poetry was difficult to understand completely and I felt like I was missing her intended references to the Civil War.
Melville
- Melville must have been very articulate to be able to twist words so nicely
- I now think of Melville as clever, if I had to put him into one word. He clearly keeps his audience in mind and write two different things in one.
- Melville's poems confused me because I am not knowledgeable about the Civil War.
- more bold; Shenandoah!; titles; but the irony of battle; raucus beginning
- Melville focuses on explosive beginnings and ends of war. His words are resounding, drawing on these great mythical figures.
- shadow of body lies in Shenandoah
- the thought processes of the speaker in Melville's poems are similar to those of Delano: the tone changes, the attitude shifts
- Melville thought war to be "boyish"; soldiers naive/ignorant
- Melville tried to write from a holistic American perspective when writing about the Civil War, rather than limiting himself to a Northern or Southern perspective
- Melville's writings, with their abolitionist values, are valuable for getting across a Northern point of view.
- conflicting sentiments: debate of antislavery? in "Benito Cereno"; "Fall of Richmond" celebrating the end of the war/slavery
- Melville still confused about pro/anti-slavery
- Melville wrote his poetry to show how he was against the war and so most of his poems are ironic.
- Melville has a more sarcastic/ironic tone in some of his writings
- Melville's writing seems to criticize
Dickinson and Melville
- Melville's titles helped in how direct it was. Dickinson's title were edited in later.
- I didn't see as many similarities between Dickinson and Melville as I did with works in the sea narratives unit. The subject matter was similar, but Dickinson's poetry was left up for interpretation. Melville's poems we read were all obviously about the Civil War.
- Dickinson's poems were more open to interpretation. For example, "It was not death for I stood up" could mean a number of things. You can say it was a Civil War death but it could be a close family death. Melville is more direct (for the poems we've read); it's easy to tell which battle/Civil War event he is referring to
- both made riddles in their poetry, but with Melville it is more clear who he was talking about--the clearly listed names. Dickinson spoke in more general terms about the soldiers dying and the difficulty of war. It seems as if Melville was more political and Dickinson had more of a general statement
- I appreciated Melville's poetry more than Dickinson's because it was straight-forward in addressing the Civil War as its topic.
- Melville looks at more specific scenes while Dickinson looks at the war as a whole
- I think it is fascinating to contrast Dickinson and Melville, especially since she stayed in her house all day and he sailed all over the world. I wonder if that contrast says something about how they wrote.
- both were from the North (2x)
- Dickinson and Melville were both just observers of war, yet Melville gives more opinion on it
- both had to base their knowledge on information presented through news and images
- as spectators they still got facts and such right
- Dickinson and Melville both tried to convey the complexities and tragedies of the Civil War
- Dickinson was able to incorporate her perspective on the issues of the times more effectively than Melville since she seems to also connect the themes of her poems to timeless archetypal themes, while Melville's poems seem much more grounded in his era.
- a sense of irony (2x)
- Dickinson made statements on the universal themes of death; Melville was more specific, yet packed lots of meaning and irony to still make some point.
- Melville and Dickinson understood, even in their poems at the beginning of the war, how serious the Civil War was bound to become
- these poems weren't necessarily written to make readers feel a certain way about the war, but rather to explain Melville's and Dickinson's personal feelings
- I feel like between the two I prefer Dickinson over Melville. She seems to do better justice to the deep emotional pain associated with war time. Melville seemed to put the war time reports to a poetic meter and then sprinkle in classical allusions. But that may be a "gender-biased" interpretation of their work
- both tie Civil War into poetry; Melville's poetry is more ironic, Dickinson's is more relatable
- Dickinson and Melville were very moved by the Civil War---much more than I had previously thought.
Civil War
- I learned a lot about the Civil War, both the facts of it and how people living at that time felt about it. In high school we spent one brief unit on the Civil War in American history in 10th grade and almost never brought it up again. I never before got to read about the thoughts and opinions of people who lived it, which I find very interesting. My perception of the thoughts of the North from the little I learned was more of a "we're right, you're wrong" mentality, and I liked reading Dickinson's struggles with it. Furthermore, I find it fascinating how differently things are taught in diferent regions of the country. For example, in AP US Govt and Politics, my class was told that only powerless people go to war.
- execution of John Brown Oct. 2
- I did learn a great deal regarding the literal sense of the Civil War: John Brown, Antietam, McClellan, Manassas, and so forth. It is very important to understand the historical context of the poems in order to fully appreciate the poetry.
- Civil War battles are named differently by the North and the South
- connection between a cycle of nature and war/ death and life
- Civil War sparked questions of religion; moral issue with widespread death
- Antietam = bloodiest
- Death Death Death --> good summary of the Civil War
- death and dying associated with the war is evident in both sets of poems; both authors seem to grasp the negative outcomes that will have resulted from the war
- How does America deal with death? They're separated from direct action and they have a way of drawing conclusions from a broader perspective.
- McClellan a hero; Grant likened to God; generals elevated to god-like status
- metaphors and allusions used to create the sense that war is a repeating tragedy (almost like it is timeless)
- the Civil War had a deep impact on all Americans; tone of death, loss, destruction
- someone not directly effected can have a strong opinion about war as well
- history has a great effect on writers
- naivete of young soldiers in the beginning of war...leading to depressing loss/struggle
- overall struggle/debate of knowing what is right or how to feel about the war
- what do writers do when they are faced with a war? They can explain things in a way that runs deeper than North or South...hit on the humanity involved in the wars.
- people aren't satisfied by the war --> focused on battles, results of the war, rather than causes, like why we went to war in the first place
- many cryptic messages related to the Civil War
- allusions to Civil War in poetry aren't always obvious
- knowing background of Civil War helps to be able to understand poetry
- knowing who John Brown was made the poem "The Portent" [better...? the last word was cut off, so I'm guessing that's what you wanted to say]
- I learned a lot about the Civil War that I never knew before, and I found it interesting that the different regions can have such a huge impact on one's outlook.
- Civil War discussed more in southern schools
Slavery
- one can read a message about slavery in ANYTHING! (it's amazing)
- less about slavery and more about deaths of soldiers
- these works, and "Benito Cereno," showed how some authors of the time approached the image of the US and part of its history with slavery, human rights. Like the first unit, those authors were able to comment on the behavior of people in the US and whether or not their actions were appropriate (Civil War and continuation of slavery for so long)
And one late-breaking thought on the sea narratives unit:
The problem of a narrator strikes me: first we had Pym who was cocky and prone to exaggeration; in"The Heroic Slave," Mr. Listwell waxes terribly sentimental while the protagonist himself is just too good to be true; in "Benito Cereno," we experience limited 3rd at the hands of the terribly naive also sentimental Delano. Further, out of the 3 books, we only really want to root for Madison: I just can't support anyone else.
Prefer Dickinson's poetry to Melville's
I liked Melville’s poems, but not as much as I like Emily Dickinson’s. The meaning behind Dickinson’s poems seem more subtle because of her carfeul use of metaphors and imagery. While Melville employs imagery as well, it just seems more obvious to me. For instance, in the poem the Protent, I instantly pictured a lynching. Even if there is a deeper meaning to this poem that I am overlooking, Melville’s word choice seems to bluntly portray this image, and I feel locked into it for the rest of the reading. Dickinson’s poetry on the otherhand includes words which have many double meanings and her metaphors often work with each other to create more than one possible meaning. Also, in the poem The Victor of Antietam, I felt like Melville’s rhyme scheme was very forced. Some of the lines, while related, did not seem like they should necessarily follow each other, and it seems as if he placed them one after the other just to enforce his rhyme scheme. For example, I thought that entering the line ‘a pall-cloth on the Seven Days fell’, seemed to introduce a different theme than what he was developing. On the other hand, I did like Melville’s use of his refrain of McClellan in this poem. It seems he used different punctuation after it at different points in the poem to either say something about or to McClellan.
To my classmates
To my classmates:
THANK YOU for clearing the name of Emily Dickinson.
I had been growing increasingly frustrated as I heard multiple and varying conjectures about Emily's character and stability - based on our cumulative hearsay and what we could gather from the poems. I don't know that Ms Dickinson was not in love with her publisher, or her sister-in-law, or that she was not mentally ill, as many of us would like to suggest, but I am again comfortable in our knowing that this determination is not our place to make. Like an entire generation of people reading her poetry, our perception of Emily Dickinson is tempered with the manipulation of her audience that struggles to label and sort the poor woman so that her distinctiveness was something we could understand. If her poems did not fit into the transcendentalist format such as the environment of her time dictated, it's alright, it can be edited and titled - arguably, the same content, but a completely different flavor. If our brains can't wrap around the idea that some people are maybe in love with no one at all, maybe it is easier just to decide that something scandalous simmers below the surface, like lesbianism or insanity.
We too often take for granted the condition that the works we read in class were published in. It should have made plenty of sense that Arthur Gordon Pym was terribly organized, because Edgar Allan Poe was uncomfortable with the format and because he was terribly concerned with its literary quality, only with the story's marketability. There is a marked contrast between "Benito Cereno" and Herman Melville's selected battle pieces. BC is the interpretation of a true story by a talented individual - it's good because Melville is good at what he does, good enough to make money at it. It may be surprisingly to read the poems and find hey - these are really good - because this is the style and these are the pieces that Melville really cares about. Herman Melville struggled and failed to make a living as a poet, but ultimately considers himself this above all else.
It is very unfair of us to project meaning on published works of the long past, and we are increasingly aware of its inaccuracy. As her fascicles gain common ground, so does a more fair perception of Emily Dickinson. I urge my classmates to let Emily's supposed personal life Lie in Her Alabaster Chamber and to concentrate more on the life that she and our other authors wished to project.
THANK YOU for clearing the name of Emily Dickinson.
I had been growing increasingly frustrated as I heard multiple and varying conjectures about Emily's character and stability - based on our cumulative hearsay and what we could gather from the poems. I don't know that Ms Dickinson was not in love with her publisher, or her sister-in-law, or that she was not mentally ill, as many of us would like to suggest, but I am again comfortable in our knowing that this determination is not our place to make. Like an entire generation of people reading her poetry, our perception of Emily Dickinson is tempered with the manipulation of her audience that struggles to label and sort the poor woman so that her distinctiveness was something we could understand. If her poems did not fit into the transcendentalist format such as the environment of her time dictated, it's alright, it can be edited and titled - arguably, the same content, but a completely different flavor. If our brains can't wrap around the idea that some people are maybe in love with no one at all, maybe it is easier just to decide that something scandalous simmers below the surface, like lesbianism or insanity.
We too often take for granted the condition that the works we read in class were published in. It should have made plenty of sense that Arthur Gordon Pym was terribly organized, because Edgar Allan Poe was uncomfortable with the format and because he was terribly concerned with its literary quality, only with the story's marketability. There is a marked contrast between "Benito Cereno" and Herman Melville's selected battle pieces. BC is the interpretation of a true story by a talented individual - it's good because Melville is good at what he does, good enough to make money at it. It may be surprisingly to read the poems and find hey - these are really good - because this is the style and these are the pieces that Melville really cares about. Herman Melville struggled and failed to make a living as a poet, but ultimately considers himself this above all else.
It is very unfair of us to project meaning on published works of the long past, and we are increasingly aware of its inaccuracy. As her fascicles gain common ground, so does a more fair perception of Emily Dickinson. I urge my classmates to let Emily's supposed personal life Lie in Her Alabaster Chamber and to concentrate more on the life that she and our other authors wished to project.
Subject to change thoughts on Melville
When I read the Melville poems for the first time I was left thinking, "Okay, so what?" I'm not sure if it was because I read them aloud or if I was just close-minded at the time but I didn't find much there. I thought that Melville was just writing something straightforward and direct which is really different than the Dickinson poems that we've been reading. However, I read it again and then a third time and I found it interesting that I would get something more out of each reading. I realize that you can say almost all poetry is like that but I found something about Melville different. His poems almost tell a story until you look at each line really closely. Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely not ragging on Melville. I actually liked his poetry because it was easy to follow. "The Fall of Richmond..." is probably the best example of what I'm trying to say.
Anyway, I started to think about why Melville might write poems like this and my mind shifted back to "Benito Cereno" and all the discussion we had on Melville's stance on slavery. In his novel, Melville would always leave us guessing and present an idea with so many sides to it that it was difficult to separate his own feelings from the narrators and other characters. I thought he did this because he didn't really want people to know his opinion and I think that even more after reading his poetry. Perhaps his poems are tellings us stories so directly because that's really all that he wants to offer us. Maybe his poems are so straightforward because he doesn't want us to know how he feels about slavery or the war.
Those are just random guesses at what I got from reading Melville. I'm hoping that we can do as we did in "Benito Cereno" and try to figure out his opinions and feelings. It might help me tie Melville together better as an author because he still has me guessing.
Anyway, I started to think about why Melville might write poems like this and my mind shifted back to "Benito Cereno" and all the discussion we had on Melville's stance on slavery. In his novel, Melville would always leave us guessing and present an idea with so many sides to it that it was difficult to separate his own feelings from the narrators and other characters. I thought he did this because he didn't really want people to know his opinion and I think that even more after reading his poetry. Perhaps his poems are tellings us stories so directly because that's really all that he wants to offer us. Maybe his poems are so straightforward because he doesn't want us to know how he feels about slavery or the war.
Those are just random guesses at what I got from reading Melville. I'm hoping that we can do as we did in "Benito Cereno" and try to figure out his opinions and feelings. It might help me tie Melville together better as an author because he still has me guessing.
Dickinson
t first, Emily Dickinson's poems were a little hard to follow. I felt like it was scattered pieces of thoughts, strung together.
After reading them several times, I liked them more and more. I still don't think I'll fully understand all that she put into the poem, but I can appreciate them for what I can understand. I especially like One Need Not Be a Chamber...
I feel like it was true what Nyssa pointed out in class that we quickly assign mental illness to poets when their material is dark or when their material is vague. I do believe Dickinson probably did have some depression issues...but I think that she was just completely vulnerable when she wrote...especially since most of her poems were written in letters for people and weren't necessarily intended for the world to see.
I like the third stanza when she talks about being afraid of confronting yourself alone. I think a lot of people have a fear of being completely and entirely alone, with nothing and no one around. But it's ironic because Dickinson chose this a solitude lifestyle for herself. Perhaps this lifestyle is what enable her to process and come up with this ideas in this poem. Maybe being alone showed her how it can be a scary thing to confront yourself, and maybe she was able to conquer that and become comfortably with herself so that she could write about it.
After reading them several times, I liked them more and more. I still don't think I'll fully understand all that she put into the poem, but I can appreciate them for what I can understand. I especially like One Need Not Be a Chamber...
I feel like it was true what Nyssa pointed out in class that we quickly assign mental illness to poets when their material is dark or when their material is vague. I do believe Dickinson probably did have some depression issues...but I think that she was just completely vulnerable when she wrote...especially since most of her poems were written in letters for people and weren't necessarily intended for the world to see.
I like the third stanza when she talks about being afraid of confronting yourself alone. I think a lot of people have a fear of being completely and entirely alone, with nothing and no one around. But it's ironic because Dickinson chose this a solitude lifestyle for herself. Perhaps this lifestyle is what enable her to process and come up with this ideas in this poem. Maybe being alone showed her how it can be a scary thing to confront yourself, and maybe she was able to conquer that and become comfortably with herself so that she could write about it.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Melville and Dickinson
After reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry, the straight forward nature of Melville’s style seems harsh. Each of the two poets has a different way of describing aspects of the war. Emily Dickinson delivers her views of the Civil War through sublime messages and different rhetorical devices that leave the reader guessing at both their implications and the true topic she is discussing. Contrastingly, Melville provides his readers with more direct images and language clearly expressing various battles and events that took place. The differences in their styles could be attributed to their proximity and knowledge of the war, as well as what was acceptable for that time period. It may have been more acceptable for the males to integrate, more directly, the grotesque images of the war as well as their feelings about it.
Melville’s poem “The Portent” gives details of the hanging of John Brown for his participation in “John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry.” The initial image focuses on the dead body hanging from a tree branch and the deformation that was done to it. The slow rhythm of the poem mirrors the swinging motion of Brown’s body. The progression into the second stanza takes a more macroscopic view as it hints to the uncertain future, mostly the future of the United States at this point in the war. Even the “shadow” in the first stanza could symbolically represent the darkness that is coming over the United States during this period. Melville is able to strategically combine strong images as well as historical references to give a warning to his readers and the country
Melville’s poem “The Portent” gives details of the hanging of John Brown for his participation in “John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry.” The initial image focuses on the dead body hanging from a tree branch and the deformation that was done to it. The slow rhythm of the poem mirrors the swinging motion of Brown’s body. The progression into the second stanza takes a more macroscopic view as it hints to the uncertain future, mostly the future of the United States at this point in the war. Even the “shadow” in the first stanza could symbolically represent the darkness that is coming over the United States during this period. Melville is able to strategically combine strong images as well as historical references to give a warning to his readers and the country
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