POETRY Flashcards
Death
I heard a fly buzz when I died - “I could not see to see”
structure: “-When I died”
This world is not conclusion - “This world is not conclusion”
Behind Me - dips Eternity - “Son of None”
“Behind Me -
Before Me - “
My life had stood a loaded Gun - ‘My life had stood a loaded Gun’
‘I smile, such a cordial light’
Key quotes for enlightenment critique…
‘certain Slant of Light’ - There’s a certain Slant of light
‘I smile, such cordial light’ - My life had stood a loaded Gun
Key quote for Milton’s Paradise Lost link -
A narrow fellow in the grass = personified snake - ‘he who shalt not be named’ - Biblical capitalisation of “Him” “Fellow” –> aggrandising omniscience onto snake - links to Milton’s Paradise lost - metamorphisizing elements of the story - snake = temptation
AO4 quotes = death
- ‘spiritualist discourse current during Dickinson’s adult life’
> Idea of the permeable boundary between life and death - Poems reveal a strong religious belief as well as nature and death being subjective which is a pantheistic belief - “Made nature different” from The last Night that She lived
- Some poems are a “Mediation of death”
AO4 quotes = Nature
“she sought to expose the contradictions implicit in the cultural demands for a clear definition of nature” Paul Crumbley - dichotomises animal and human worlds (links to “made nature different” - the last night that she lived”
“Her vision of nature cannot be tightly summarized”
>nature presents ambiguity and complexity
>Some respect a more secular inspiration
AO4 quotes = Religion
Uses religious imagery for the ‘spiritual intensity of nature’
>Informed by a Christian perspective
>Denies any church Dogma
Her entire family is religious “except me”
>Poetry suggests Dickinson finds God in Nature as opposed to the church
>Her rebellions against the retsraints of organised religion are evident in her poetry
AO4 - Life and individualism
‘Dickinson seems to find very little truth, honesty and integrity in human activity’
AO4 - Literary movements
Romantics -
Nature, the past and the inner world of human nature
>They express the nationalist spirit of the age and created a truly significant, national literature
Transcendental -
Relating to a spiritual realm
IMMANUEL KANT - “critique of practical reason”
>real truths lay outside the senses - residing in an over-soul - an Omni-presence
>belief in the unity of God and Nature
Authors notes
I felt a funeral in my brain - “ psychological and physical deaths merge”
465 - I heard a fly buzz when I died - “recollection of last dying moments as soul is leaving the body
Religion quotes
328 A bird came down the walk - “Walk” Dew” “Grass” “Beetle”
>Biblical significance of capitalising
links to…
A narrow fellow in the Grass - “Him” “fellow”
>LINK to Milton’s Paradise Lost - metamorphisizing situation - snake = pervasive temptation - mirrored y sibilance = “stooping to secure it”
721 - Behind Me - dips Eternity - Eternity” vs. “Immortality” Religion vs. S/natural”
Son of None”
>Biblical links
Structure of 721 =
fluctuating structure = reassurance despite expressed lack of confidence in topic - PRAYER CONNS.
328 ‘Oars divide the ocean’ - moses
