LITR 4232: American Renaissance
University of Houston-Clear Lake
Student Presentation, spring 2001

Reader: Kelly Figueroa

Discussion notes: Lisa Runnels

Thursday, 26 April

Emily Dickinson

Objective #3: To use literature as a basis for discussing representative problems and subjects of American culture, such as equality; race; gender; class; the family; emergence of the individual; the individual and the community; nature or land; the writers conflicted presence in an anti-intellectual society.

Book pp. 2856 – "Explaining…" and pp.2856- "Attenuated…"

One source I read stated that in Dickinson’s time, when you finished school you married or (as in her case) you went back home to live (as she did).

Pp. 2857 –"Dickinson…" 2858- "One poem…" 2860- "The words…"

Several sources say if you’re trying to read Dickinson’s poetry, while taking the words literally, your missing the big picture.Pp. 2876 Poem # 328

Line 11- fear is introduced (in the bird)

Line 14 – the more the author interferes in nature (by trying to feed the bird) the more fear is present in the bird.Pp. 2884 Poem # 465

This poem has a definite beginning, and an open ending (pp. 2 of the Emily Dickinson handout)

My interpretation: A person is on their death-bed, with mourners in the room, very still and close by, as the person makes her last wishes known (like a last will). Those around her await to her the "last words of a dying person", but instead she is burdened and totally annoyed by a fly buzzing in her ear. Her finial moments on earth are with the fly. The fly actually comes between her and "death" by interfering in her path of the light (path to God/ heaven). In line 14: by coming "between the light-and me-" Pp. 2907 Poem #986

The style of this poem is Personification (pg.2 of E.D. Handout), and it is a Riddle poem.

This poem is easy to guess, if you have ever observed a snake in the grass, and easy to relate too, especially the last few lines.

Dickinson is great at using very visual, descriptive language that places you right there observing the same things that she is observing. You can picture every movement of the snake up to the finial feeling of fright.

The last poem pp.2877 Poem # 341

My Interpretation: A shocking event has taken place, maybe the loss of someone very close, (I remember feeling this way when my Dad died), You feel numb, and you’re doing well by just existing.

In line 5- you walk around "mechanically" doing life’s chores, but your not really there. Your heart & mind are somewhere else.

The last 3 lines can almost be compared to the stages of grief. Shock, denial, and acceptance.

Dr. White commented on poem 328 and how the bird shifts to a boat then a butterfly. This is a shift in identity and it works.

Speaker 1: Felt the fly was the soul of the dying person. That the soul of the dying is hovering around the body.

Dr. White: The identities of spirit and nature blur. Death was called the "King of Terrors" or the king reference could actually refer to British royalty.

Speaker 2: Third stanza: Your whole life can come down to a piece of paper.

Speaker3: The last stanza has synesthesia.

Dr. White: The poems are perfectly fluid.

POEM 986

Dr. White: It is quatrains, but varies it right in the middle. Keeps it from being too sing song. The closing line is characteristic of Dickinson.

POEM 341

Dr. White: Describes what it must be like to die. We really don’t know.

Speaker 4: The reader’s interpretation is correct if her views are what she feels and thinks when she reads the poem.

Dr. White: The quatrain is there, but she varies it again. Makes us read it with the proper pause.

Speaker 5: The 8 lines sped up the previous poem