American Literature Week 15

American Literature Note 15

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive American poet. Unrecognized in her own time, Dickinson is known posthumously for her unusual use of form and syntax.

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video about her

While Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

Three her poems

1. A characteristically vivid and sensuous poem:

A narrow Fellow in the grass

Occasionally rides;

You may have met him, did you not?

His notice instant is.

The Grass divides as with a comb,(稀疏)

A spotted Shaft is seen;

And then it closes at your feet(在腳邊)

And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,

A floor too cool for corn.

Yet when a child and barefoot

I more than once, at morn,

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.

critical overview about this poem

Perhaps because it is one of only a few poems that Dickinson agreed to publish in her lifetime, “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” has received a great deal of critical attention. Cynthia Griffin Wolff, writing in her literary biography Emily Dickinson, praises “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” as “perhaps the most nearly perfect poem addressing a nature possessed of some compelling mystery.” Wolff describes how the poem “moves the snake into some undefined psychological relationship with the speaker, a move away from simple realism toward a portent of danger.” According to Wolff, the poem begins with the “civilized” experience of an adult describing the motion of a snake, “then moves beyond the boundaries of arable land, into the swamp where not even corn can grow.” There, the speaker recalls the “more vulnerable” experience of encountering snakes as a frightened child. Wolff suggests that this terror of snakes formed during childhood experiences carries into adulthood, so that in the final stanzas the adult speaker is unable to see the snake as anything but “fearsome and chill.”

2. With perfect economy and internal order, is a poem that is a revelation:

Because I could not stop for Death—(因我無法為死神駐足)

He kindly stopped for me--

The Carriage held but just Ourselves—(馬車上載我們兩個人-speaker/death和永生)

And Immortality.(永垂不朽)

We slowly drove--He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility—(溫文儒雅)

We passed the School, where Children strove (note)

At Recess--in the Ring—(下課時分在操場)

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--

We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather--He passed us--

The Dews drew quivering and chill—(露珠招來涼意)

For only Gossamer, my Gown--

My Tippet--only Tulle- ( = thin soft silk = 薄紗)

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--and yet each(流歲年轉幾世紀)

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses' Heads

Were toward Eternity—

(note)

1. Dickinson 在這個詩行裡用了 strove 這個字 (strive 意為 '努力，奮力作某事')，與上個詩節出現了 labor 與 leisure 相呼應。或許對 Dickinson 而言，"存在" 本身就有著許多的磨難與辛勞，即便是孩童成長過程都得費勁掙扎。

2. 呈現人生三大狀態。

3. 滄海一粟的感覺，死亡朝向永生。

3. [I heard a Fly buzz- when I died-]

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air –(遲滯)

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 (=eyes，死去閉眼)

I could not see to see -

(note)

1. 死亡朝whirlwind =>約伯傳”Job is the most righteous person on earth.”(公義)

成scapegoat代罪羔羊。

2.對死亡的期待與恐懼。

3.提到的電影:

A Streetcar named Desire (video)

Over the Hedge (trailer)

1索引

My sister’s keeper (trailer)

11索引

The Masque of the Red Death

"The Masque of the Red Death" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a masquerade ball within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. Prospero dies after confronting this stranger, whose "costume" proves to have nothing tangible inside it; the guests also die in turn.

(瘟疫=> 生病=> 皮膚爛掉=> 戴面具=> 不知道死神長什麼樣子) 威尼斯面具節

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Mark Twain

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Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "the Great American Novel".

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