Tuesday, 23 November: Emily Dickinson, introduction 2969-74; 2975 "I never lost as much but twice" 2976 "These are the days when Birds come back--" 2977 "Come Slowly--Eden!" 2977 "I like a look of Agony" 2977 "Wild Nights" 2978 "There's a certain slant of light" 2979 "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" 2979 "I'm Nobody! Who are you?"

Reader: Daniel Davis

Course objectives to be covered:

Objective 2: To study the movement of “Romanticism” the narrative genre of “romance,” and the related styles of the “gothic” and the “sublime.”

Objective 3: To use literature as a basis for discussing representative problems and subjects of American culture.  This assignment in particular will focus on nature and the writer’s presence in an anti-intellectual society. 

Emily Dickinson’s poetry was by definition, introspective.  She pondered things she did not understand such as belief in, or the benevolence of God, the beautiful and terrifying forces of nature, and unknowable death.  I have selected to focus on “There is a Certain Slant of Light” and “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain”

Section 1

There’s a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons-

That oppresses, like the heft

Of Cathedral Tunes-

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us-

We can find no scar,

But internal difference,

Where the Meanings, are-

None may teach it – Any-

‘Tis the Seal Despair –

An imperial affliction

Sent us of the Air-

When it comes, the Landscape listens-

Shadows- hold their breath-

When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance

On the look of Death-

Objective 1

Are there any romantic/gothic elements in the poem?

What is sublime about the imagery?  The language?

Section 2

I felt a funeral in my brain,

And mourners, to and fro

Kept treading, treading, till it seemed

That sense was breaking through

And when they all were seated,

A service like a drum

Kept beating, beating, till I thought

My mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a box,

And creak across my soul

With those same boots of lead again

Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell

And Being but an ear,

And I and silence some strange race,

Wrecked, solitary here.

Objective 3

How is this poem about Dickinson’s presence in an “anti-intellectual society”?

What died to make room for sense?