Transcript Document

Emily Dickinson
(1830 – 1886)
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
• (1) Life
• A. She was born in a Puritan’s
family. Her father was a famous
lawyer.
• B. She received college education.
• C. She lived a leisure and simple
life and kept single all her life. She
enjoyed gardening and writing and
tried to avoid visitors. (Her life
style is similar with Jane Austen’s.)
• D. She wrote 1775 poems, but only
seven of them published in her life
time.
• E. Before her death, she asked her
sister to burn all her poems.
However, her sister published those
beautiful poems.
(2) Her life story
• Emily Dickinson , born in Amherst, Massachusetts on Dec. 10, 1830,
was the best poetess American ever created. She was a daughter of a
prominent lawyer and politician. She did not receive much formal
education but read widely at home. Actually, during the narrow span
of her lifetime, she kept staying at home except for a few short trips to
Boston or Philadelphia.
• Emily Dickinson was a witty woman, sensitive, full of humanity and
with a genius for poetry. While she was living in almost total seclusion,
she wrote in secret whatever she was able to feel, to see, to hear and
whatever she was able to imagine. She wrote whenever and wherever.
Although she guarded her poems even from her family, 1775 poems
were discovered and published after her death. However, as the only
noteworthy woman poet in American literature of the 19th century, she
had only seven of her poems published during her lifetime, and it was
not until the beginning of the 20th century that her genius was widely
recognized.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death --Emily Dickenson
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children
played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
• Stanza 1: The angel of death, in the image of a kind person, comes in a
carriage for the sake of Immortality and the poet.
• Stanza 2: To show my politeness to god of death, I gave up my work
and my enjoyment of life as well; I give up my life.
• Stanza 3: The journey of our carriage implied the experience of human
life; school implies time of childhood; the fields of gazing grain, for
youth and adulthood; while the setting sun, for old age.
• Stanza 4: Probably we may say the sun sets before we reach the
destination---the night falls, death arrives. I felt a fear and chilly after
death, for my shroud is thin and my scarf too light. Despite the
description of “death”, the usual gloomy and horrifying atmosphere is
lightened by the poetess with the elegantly fluttering clothing she
describes.
• Stanza 5. Several centuries had passed since the arriveal of death upon
me. However, I felt it is shorter than a day. On that day I suddenly
realized that death is the starting point for eternity, and the carriage is
heading towards it.
Comment on the poem
• The poem is discussing death, a very gloomy
subject, but it is done with a rather light tone. The
tone is light just because the author does not take
death as a catastrophe; instead, she treats the angel
of death as a very polite gentleman, as a longmissing guest, giving up her work and leisure,
putting on her fine silky dresses, she accompanies
death in the same carriage to eternity. All the
beauty of this work lies in the poetess’ openminded attitude towards death.
(3) Analysis of Her
• A. Strong influence of Puritanism on her thought
(pessimism and tragic tone of her poems)
• B. Care about death and immortality (1/3 of all her
poems talked about these two themes.)
• C. exploring human’s inner world (psychology
description in her poems)
• D. severe economy of expression
• E. original images
• F. direct and plain language
• G. great influence on the Imagist Movement in the
20th century
(4) Features of Her Poems
• 1. In subject matter Emily Dickinson was very
similar to the great romantic poets of her time. Her
poems are short, many of them being based on a
single image or symbol. But within her little lyrics
she wrote about some of the most important things
in life: love, nature, morality and immortality. She
wrote about success, which she thought she never
achieved; and she wrote about failure, which she
considered her constant companion. She wrote of
these things so brilliantly that she is now ranked as
one of American’s greatest poets.
I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died --Emily Dickenson
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air Between the Heaves of Storm -
The Eyes around - had wrung them
dry And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -
I willed my Keepsakes - Signed
away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly With Blue - uncertain - stumbling
Buzz Between the light - and me And then the Windows failed - and
then
I could not see to see -
I Heard a Fly Buzz---When I Died
• Stanza 1: When I was dying, I heard the buzz of a
fly which reminded me of the stillness in the air.
• Stanza 2: Before the absolute power of death, I
was helpless, so were my relatives and friends.
They could do nothing more than gathering
around me, tearless and breathless, and watching
the arrival of death to me.
• Stanza 3: When I was abandoning this material
world, a fly comes to me.
Comment on the poem
• This poem is the description of the moment of death. The
poetess made use of a very strange image of a fly to
symbolize her last touch with the human world and,
moreover, the perspective of a decaying corpse. The fly
appeared as something which is able to fly between the
two worlds of life and death.
• Besides, the word “fly” is very cleverly used in the work.
On the one hand, it refers to that insect; on the other hand,
it may indicate “free flying”. Before death, the “fly” was
buzzing around, I hear it; after death, it may lead me to go
far and forever, I am flying.
• The fly is inconsequently, of little importance---implying
perhaps that death is the same.
(4) Features of Her Poems
• 2. Poetry is for Dickinson a means to attain
pleasure, away to preach her doctrine, and a
medium to express her world outlook, an
outlet for her despair and a remedy to pacify
her soul. Her life experience fostered her
belief as an existentialist as well as a great
poet.
(4) Features of Her Poems
• 3. Despite her seclusion of life, Emily
Dickinson covered a wide range of subjects
in poetry. Her favorite subjects are love,
death or natural beauty. In her writing she
wrote about life and death, expecting to
understand the meaning of life by
understanding the meaning of death.
I Died for Beauty --Emily Dickenson
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth - the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a-night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUWsVqMjGE4
(4) Features of Her Poems
• 4. Living in the 19th century, a
comparatively religious era, she did not
belong to any organized religion. However,
she wrote of God, man and nature; she
probed into the spiritual unrest of man and
often doubted about the existence and
benevolence of God, because she felt that
wild nature was her church and she was
able to converse directly with God there.
(4) Features of Her Poems
• 5. Emily Dickinson was a poet who could
express feelings of deepest poignancy in
terms of the true and wide saying, often in
an aphoristc style. Her gemlike poems are
all very short, but fresh and original,
marked by the vigor of her images, the
daring of her thought and the beauty of her
expression.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
(1263) -Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
(4) Features of Her Poems
• 6. Emily Dickinson wrote in
the conventional metrical
form, though she did not
always strictly observe the
rules of versification.
(4) Features of Her Poems
• 7. Emily Dickinson defamiliarised
conventional poetic form, deliberately
overusing capitalization and dashes, to
make her poems look strange. In some way,
she is very much similar to the style of John
Donne.
A narrow fellow in the grass (1096) Emily Dickinson
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him—did you not
His notice sudden is,
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your feet,
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn,
But when a boy and barefoot,
I more than once at noon
Have passed, I thought, a whip lash,
Unbraiding in the sun,
When stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled and was gone.
Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality.
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
(5) Selected Poems:
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Because I Could Not Stop for Death
I Heard a Fly Buzz---When I Died
My Life Closed Twice before Its Close
As Imperceptibly as Grief
Mine---by the Right of the White Election
Wild Nights---Wild Nights
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass
Apparently with No Surprise
I Died for Beauty---but Was Scarce
Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant
I Like to See It Lap the Miles
The Brain---Is Wider than the Sky