Thursday, March 24, 2011

Journal #42: Go Dickinson!

So if I lived in Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman's time period and I had to choose between the two to say which one I would like better it would be Emily Dickinson all the way. Walt Whitman is straight weird. I do not like him at all. I really dislike every idea he has. I think his "everyman" or whatever it is called is soooo dumb, and I really dislike how he tries to incorporate God in all of his poems. I just really dislike it. Every poem that we have read of his in class I have not liked, therefore, Emily Dickinson is a better choice for me.

All of Walt Whitman's poems are supposed to be so spiritual and absolutely inspiring. His poems do not inspire me at all. A lot of his poems make him sound like a self absorbed jerk. A lot of his poems seem very egotistical and narcissistic. He is so annoying. I really do not like him at all. I really really really really really really really do not.

Emily Dickinson is not much better than Walt Whitman, but she is not annoying and ego-centric like Whitman appears to be at times. A lot of her poems are more easy to read and understand. They do not have a billion meanings like most of Whitman's poems do. She tends to write with a more literal meaning which is more entertaining because then the reader does not have to try to think of what the writer is saying. I think that is what poetry should be like. Who wants to read something FOR ENTERTAINMENT and have to actually think about it? I guess people in that time period were more philosophical then we are today.

So far there is like one poem that I like of Emily Dickinson's. I do not remember what it is called, but it is about a girl who has a crush on a boy and she gets all fumbly with her speech and stuff and she cannot do anything right and then across the room the boy is the same way. I thought it was funny, and I actually understood it the first time I read it so that was awesome.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Emily Dickinson: There Came A Day At Summer's Full

"XIII

THERE came a day at summer’s full
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad, 5
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no sail the solstice passed
That maketh all things new.

The time was scarce profaned by speech;
The symbol of a word 10
Was needless, as at sacrament
The wardrobe of our Lord.

Each was to each the sealed church,
Permitted to commune this time,
Lest we too awkward show 15
At supper of the Lamb.

The hours slid fast, as hours will,
Clutched tight by greedy hands;
So faces on two decks look back,
Bound to opposing lands. 20

And so, when all the time had failed,
Without external sound,
Each bound the other’s crucifix,
We gave no other bond.

Sufficient troth that we shall rise— 25
deposed, at length, the grave—
To that new marriage, justified
Through Calvaries of Love!" (Dickinson).

After reading this poem by Dickinson I think that it is about two lovers during an afternoon. They are not really supposed to be together, but they like each other a lot, so they make time to see one another. The first two stanzas of the poem describe the setting. Dickinson says that it is summer, and during this particular day she feels that it is a day for her and no one else. During the second stanza we can conclude that it is a the summer solstice, and although she feels the day is different, nature goes on like any other day. The third stanza says that she does not need to speak, because the meaning of why she is where she is, is already known by herself, so she does not need to say it. She says this feeling is like when you are at sacrament at mass and God knows what you are thinking, so you do not need to explain.

I think the fourth stanza is saying that the author and her lover both belong to different churches, so they are not allowing to see each other or get married. The fifth stanza is saying that the time is passing by fast while they are together, and they soon have to look back to their different lives and leave one another again. I think the sixth stanza is saying that when they have to leave, they take the others crucifix, so they will have something to hold on to from their lover.

As for the last stanza, I think it means that they have decided that they want to get married, and they will keep that promise to each other no matter what anyone says. The last line, "Through Calvaries of Love"(Dickinson) basically means through sufferings of love, so they are suffering because they love each other so much but are not allowed to get married.

This excerpt from Bloom's Literary Reference Online can help one conclude that this poem is about two lovers who cannot be together. This quote says that the poem is about a love that is formed and then taken away within the same day because the lovers cannot be together. It says that they can only be together after death, so they must wait until their life is over to be together.

"Unlike the great majority of Dickinson's poems, this famous and much-debated narrative appears to contain a specific "scene" from the poet's life: a day within the summer solstice, June 21 and 22, when a love is consummated and virtually simultaneously renounced. Appropriately, within this season of weddings, a "marriage" takes place, yet its only "future" is in the life to come. The poem is Dickinson's most complete expression of this central theme of a reunion with the lost beloved in God's heaven, a vision evoked in other poems of this period" (Leiter).

Works Cited:

Dickinson, Emily. "XII: There came a day at summer’s full". Part Three: Love. Complete Poems. 1924. http://www.bartleby.com/113/3013.html

Leiter, Sharon. "'There came a Day—at Summer's full—'." Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCED126&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 22, 2011).

Journal #41: If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking

"IF I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain" (Dickinson).

"If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking" is a poem by Emily Dickinson. Dickinson did not name many of her poems, so the first line of her poems are often taken as the names.

This short poem is Dickinson saying that if she can make one person happy in life, then she will be happy (Dickinson). She is saying that she will not live in vain if she can make at least one person's life seem happy and good. In the fifth line Dickinson is saying that it does not have to be a person that she helps, she can also help an animal like a robin (Dickinson).

A lot of people can relate to Dickinson's poem. A lot of people want to feel like they have made a difference in someone's life. I think that is one of the main meanings of life: to help others. That is, at least, a very highly emphasized point in my life. Some people do not care to help others though, which I think is kind of sad. I think people should help each other to succeed and live a great life. I think that is what human nature is for. People should help others, so that everyone can feel better about themselves and we can all live in harmony.

Like Dickinson's poem says, if she can help one person, make one person feel good about themselves and live a great life, she will be happy and not live such a horrible, sad life. I think all people feel this feeling of needing to help people and needing to be helped by people. Everyone loves to be loved and to love others, so everyone likes to help the people that they love. One thing that can make someone feel even better and not live their life in "vain" is if they help someone that they do not really know.

Works Cited:

Dickinson, Emily. "If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking". Part One: Life. 1924. Accessed 22 March 2011. http://www.bartleby.com/113/1006.html.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Journal #40 My Self

Walt Whitman portrays his "self" in all of his poems. Or, it is said that he portrays his "self" in all of his poems, sometimes it is kind of hard to see it. Walt Whitman's "self" is like the everyman. He is religious, and someone that can relate to everyone.

If I had to make up my own "self", which I do because that is what this assignment says to do, I guess I would describe my "self" as follows...

My "self" would include a lot things. I guess I would be somewhat religious, but not as weird crazy so called religious that Whitman is. Whitman is just a very strange man. I do not really like him. My kind of religious would be just to follow the Then Commandments and go to church and do good things for others. I am not really a die hard Christian, and I do not ever want to be a die hard Christian. I believe you should have a religion and believe in something and have faith in God, but I think it is a little inappropriate to go all crazy about it. I especially do not like people who insult other religions and other people's beliefs. People can believe whatever they want. No one has the right to tell other's what they can and cannot believe. I think that is soooo annoying. And yeah, that one "religion" that is all about science is pretty dumb, but I am not going to go tell the people who are apart of that religion that what they believe in is stupid. I, honestly, believe in the scientific formation of the Earth because there is an extremely high possibility that it is true. Maybe God made the certain particles and stuff that all smashed together for the Big Bang Theory. You never know.

My "self" would also include honesty, perseverance, a good attitude, and all of that other good stuff. I really just do not like Whitman or his idea of finding one's "self". I think it is dumb, and I really do not like his "everyman".

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Journal #39 Bardic Symbols

Walt Whitman's poem, "Bardic Symbols" is pretty much about a main character who is going back and forth between his mother (ocean) and his father (land). The main character is drift wood.

"As I wend the shores I know not,
As I listen to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked,
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, or that I see or touch, I
know not;
I, too, but signify a little washed-up drift,—a few sands and dead leaves to
gather,
Gather, and merge myself as part of the leaves and drift" (Bardic).

As this quote shows, the narrator (main character) is drifting between his mother and father like children do. During the course of a person's life, they drift back and forth between their mother and father seeking advice from either of them. This portrays the Everyman because in everyone's life they go back and forth between their parents. They not only do it in their childhood, being the mommy or daddy's girl or boy, but they also do it within their whole lives.

In William Dean Howell's review of the Bardic Symbols he is very confused. William Dean Howell pretty much says that the reader cannot interpret the Bardic Symbols, but you pretty much can because in class we said that the symbols could represent a father, mother, and child. His opinion is said below:

"No one, even after the fourth or fifth reading, can pretend to say what the "Bardic Symbols" symbolize. The poet walks by the sea, and addressing the drift, the foam, the billows and the wind, attempts to force from them, by his frantic outcry, the the [sic] true solution of the mystery of Existence, always most heavily and darkly felt in the august ocean presence. All is confusion, waste and sound. It is in vain that you attempt to gather the poet's full meaning from what he says or what he hints. You can only take refuge in occasional passages like this, in which he wildly laments the feebleness and inefficiency of that art which above all others seeks to make the soul visible and audible" (Howell).

Works Cited:

"Bardic Symbols." Atlantic Monthly 5 (April 1860): 445-447. Revised as "Leaves of Grass. 1" in Leaves of Grass (1860) and reprinted as "Elemental Drifts," Leaves of Grass (1867). The final version of the poem, "As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life," was published in Leaves of Grass (1881–82).

[Howells, William Dean]. ""Bardic Symbols"." The Daily Ohio State Journal (28 March 1860): 2.