Topic Brainstorm (Again.)

My first project idea is to use the following prompt: "compare and contrast elements of two different texts. For example, explore the similarities and differences between two characters in the texts, or examine how one theme is handled in similar and dissimilar ways in two different texts." With this prompt, I would be interested in comparing Emily Dickinson's poem "1129" to that of Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and/or "When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be" by John Keats. I would examine how these works handle the theme of death. I'm interested in this topic mainly because of how much I enjoyed reading poem "1129" by Emily Dickinson. The theme present in that poem was the theme of death and I felt like it was present in Keats and Melville's writings as well. I think this would create a strong foundation for me to work off of. By completing this project, I feel like I'd be able to learn exactly what it is that Keats and Melville are trying to say about death in their works since I haven't thought about it as much as I did with Dickinson's poem.

Another idea I would be interested in trying is this prompt: "Think about a theme you see running through your life (failure is the best lesson, love is eternal, etc). Choose a reading that you think also discusses this theme (even if it reaches different conclusions about it). Explore connections between how the theme plays out in your life, and how the theme gets played out in the reading." A theme in my life that I would enjoy writing about is my belief that everything gets better. I think I could use "Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger" by Feng Menglong to show how differently my belief compares to the way Jia Li views his own life since I feel the two are almost complete opposites. This project should be something I can manage since my life is the only one I lived, so there's no way I can realistically mess up that half of the project, meaning I would just need to be careful when addressing Jia Li in order to make sure that I've clearly analyzed his life and the way his story doesn't line up with my beliefs. Something I would hope to learn from writing this project is whether or not everything can get better for people, or if maybe some people are destined to crash and burn.

My third idea would be to address the prompt that asks me to choose a female character to focus on and discuss several questions about her. For this project I would discuss the character Du Tenth from Feng Menglong's "Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger." Of course, if I end up choosing the previous project idea I listed, then I won't be able to use this idea for my third project. I'll need to think about my options. For this project, I would address how several characters view her in a negative manner and share my contrasting opinion about her. I'm interested in this topic because I felt sympathetic for Du Tenth the whole time I was reading this story. At first I had doubts as to whether or not her love for Jia Li was sincere, but it ended up becoming clear to me that it was sincere even if Jia Li didn't realize until it was too late and he had already ruined things with her. I might end up learning something about the way that we as people perceive others who don't meet society's standards of what makes someone a good person and whether or not our judgments are fair.

What I've learned from the first project that I've written in this class is that I might be better off trying to stick closer to a provided prompt than trying to completely reshape one into my own. I feel like it will help me stay organized and keep my thoughts in a presentable structure. Organization is a reoccurring criticism I receive in my essays not just in this class but others as well. I know I'm capable of writing a thorough and well-written analysis, I just need to collect my thoughts and lay them out in a way that's clear to my audience.

Reading Notes W8: Poetry by John Keats, Part X

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Reading through this poem, I didn't understand it that much. I only understood it when I reread what was on the previous page: "The poet is pointedly celebrating Chapman's 'loud and bold' seventeenth-century translation of the ancient Greek poet over the neatly rhymed, standard translation of his own time--that of Alexander Pope" (405). So in this poem, he's explaining how he's loved the translations of Homer's works that he's already read. But by reading Chapman's translation after reading Pope's translation, he's experiencing it all over again but in a way that he can appreciate even more. He tells of how he's "traveled in the realms of gold" and has seen "many goodly states and kingdoms" from getting lost in his immersion by reading Pope's translations of Homer's works (406). However, halfway into the poem Keats says "Yet did I never breathe its pure serene / Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold" (406). He's hearing the same exact story, but when is written in a way that he's found to be more enjoyable. The message I take away from this poem is that someone can tell a phenomenal story, but it won't be as memorable if it wasn't written as good as it could have been. Different writing styles can create a major difference in the way someone appreciates a story and can be what decides whether or not the story is treasured briefly or for a lifetime.

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

I liked this poem more than the previous one since it isn't directly referencing an existing work. I like poems that actually give me a realistic chance of being able to understand them without needing to be told what they're about or what they meant. Keats starts off this poem by expressing that he has reoccurring fears about his death. He worries that he'll die before he can successfully write down everything he's wanted to write. He looks up to the stars at nights and wonders if he'll be able to accomplish everything in life that he's wanted and whether or not love is something he can really achieve on a fairy tale level. "Of the wide world I stand alone, and think / Till love and fame to nothingness do sink" (407). It's with these last two lines that he realizes all of his desires, while a big deal in his eyes, are microscopic compared to the rest of the world. The poem kind of reminded me of the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes where Langston Hughes wonders about what happens to a dream deferred.

Bright Star

Keats speaks to a star and wonders what it would be like to be a star. He would be up in the sky able to look at all the beautiful things on Earth. He would watch how the waters shape the shores and how the snow coats mountains. While he would enjoy being a star and having these sights all to himself, he realizes there would be downsides. He wouldn't be able to sleep with his wife if this were the case. He cherishes the feeling of her touch and the sound of her breath. It's because of this that he's okay with not being a star.




Keats, John. The Norton Anthology World Literature, edited by Martin Puchner, Third Edition, vol. E, W. W. Norton 2012, pp. 403-407, 410-415

Week 8 Analysis: Literary Analysis of "1129" by Emily Dickinson

I chose to analyze poem 1129 by Emily Dickinson because so far it's my favorite piece of writing that we've read this semester. The poem begins with a line that uses consonance. "Tell all the truth but tell it slant--" (489). It's consonance because of the way it repeats the "T" and "L" sounds: Tell all the truth but tell it slant. The way this line is written causes it to sound almost like a tongue twister when read aloud. I also felt like the the line complements the message she's sharing with this poem. To read a line as entertaining as this one creates a feeling similar to that of a nursery rhyme that uses an A and B rhyme scheme, allowing for consistent moments of entertaining sounds and words. The reason I say the playfulness of this line's sounds complement her message is because of how she mentions the way that adults and religions teach kids about death. They try to make death not so terrifying in their eyes as a means of maintaining their innocence and allowing them to have fun and be kids without having to worry about getting killed or feeling so torn up about the deaths of others. Heaven, reincarnation, and other similar ideas give people a sense of comfort and security when the subject of death comes about. Dying isn't so bad when you can find solace in the belief that your death will at least allow you an afterlife full of joy and peace or an opportunity to live another life. These beliefs aren't bad at all and there are nothing wrong with them. I'm a Christian and I believe in heaven, but Emily Dickinson does bring up a great point and it's something that people choose to find bliss in ignoring. "The Truth's superb surprise" is that death is nothing more than an end and Emily Dickinson claims that "The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind" (489). People don't like to accept the idea that their lives end when they die and it's because of this that it's so easy for everyone to instead accept the idea that there's something more after death. I believe that Emily Dickinson placed a lot of her life experiences and her religion into this poem and a lot of her other poems. In the biography provided in our anthologies, Emily Dickinson said "Christ is calling everyone here" "and I am standing alone in rebellion" (481). She states clearly that she feels isolated in her criticisms and doubts about her religious faith. To me, this is evidence that she is indeed criticizing views of death in poem 1129 and wanted to get her ideas on paper because she felt alone in her beliefs.



Dickinson, Emily. "1129." The Norton Anthology World Literature, edited by Martin Puchner, Third Edition, vol. D, W. W. Norton 2012, pp. 489

Reading Notes W8: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Part B

"Ode to the West Wind" begins by addressing the beginning of Autumn. This season leaves behind the ghostly remains of dead leaves. The remains of these leaves eventually give rise to new life come Spring in a never-ending cycle of life. Spring brings about rain and lightning. The lightning is an unpredictable pattern and each shape looks like that of hair being lifted. From what I can interpret, Shelley seems to want all of his knowledge and wisdom to be spread around like dead leaves when he passes away in hopes that he can leave behind something great. He wishes for his death, while he views it to be sad, to at least allow it to do something great for the world. "Scatter" "my words among mankind. (401). "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" (401). He hopes that the spreading of his wisdom won't come too long after his death.

The conclusion of Shelley's "A Defense of Poetry," I assume, summarizes most of his key points. He believes that poetry is the best method of recording life's best moments. He acknowledges this idea that looking back on memories through poetry can sometimes leave yourself with regret or wishing that things were even better than they were but reminds himself that pleasure is still there regardless of any negativity. He believes that poets can bring experiences and feelings to life with their poems. Poetry is a powerful tool to explain things such as emotions that other wise can't be expressed with literal terms. Poetry is a way to immortalize something throughout time. Shelley believes that the most divine feature about human beings is our ability to capture feelings through the simple act of writing a poem. Poems can retain the sense of beauty that the writer saw when appreciating nature or something else they enjoy and they can use poetry to address darker topics as well. You can coat words of darkness with things that can shed light on them and make them less painful or at least make them into something that can be appreciated for having occurred.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Norton Anthology World Literature, edited by Martin Puchner, Third Edition, vol. E, W. W. Norton 2012, pp. 395-401

Week 8 Reading and Writing

The reading and writing assignments are both two different things to me. The close readings and literary analyses are something I feel confident in writing and I don't have any noticeable difficulty with completing them. The reading assignments vary. Some of the readings throughout the class are difficult for me to try and get into while others are at least tolerable. It can take a lot more time for me to read depending on how interested I am in the reading.

For example, trying to read through "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth was a nightmare. It just felt like it wouldn't end. It was only three and a half pages long but it dragged on for so long. It's probably just a bias I have against poems that worship scenes of beauty and long poems that don't move from a single subject. After the first two large stanzas on the first page I couldn't help but wonder how long he could realistically fantasize about this place. I also don't feel like he lacks the talent to do so, but I really wish he would have condensed his thoughts a lot more since most of the content in the poem felt redundant.

Poem 1129 by Emily Dickinson on the other hand was a great read. I mentioned in my reading notes for Emily Dickinson's poems that I'm not normally a fan of her works. I don't dislike her writing, I just typically don't like it either. It just exists. But Poem 119 was really enjoyable. I was engaged from the first line. I'm probably being biased since this poem was short and I feel like my best poems are usually short as well. When I write poems, they average about 10 to 30 lines. Rarely ever do I write a poem longer than a page. But when it comes to poetry, I'm one of those people that believe poems should be concise unless the amount of content in the poem requires a larger amount of writing to do it justice. Emily Dickinson definitely did a lot with just 8 lines in Poem 1129. I was able to understand the message she was trying to share about the way people view death and think about the ways that different people process the idea of dying and their beliefs around it. I'm not one to be fascinated by death since I'd like to live as long a life as possible, but this poem was just so well written and interesting.

My reading notes are helping me a lot with my story posts since I take way more notes than I actually end up managing to use. I practically type up a summary of every important event or detail that I feel is worth noting in a bullet point format with page numbers so I can read through them and remember how the story went. The page numbers help me if I need specific quotes to make a point or explain my thoughts. These notes do get tiresome though. I move away from this style of note-taking when it comes to the poetry. My notes for poetry feel more like analyses than notes with the exception of William Wordsworth's poems but I don't want to rant about him again.

I wasn't exactly satisfied with the end result of my class project because I confused myself somewhere along the way and was under the impression that we had one more week to finalize our projects. I know there's still things I wanted to add into my project. Ignoring that, I do feel like I relearned a lot of things that I had forgotten about writing thanks to the revisions that I did. I feel as if I have a stronger grasp on how to organize and structure my projects better. This should definitely help me with our upcoming projects.

I don't feel like I've had any accomplishments worth praising in this class. All of my work in this class feels satisfactory to me which is good and all, but I don't feel like anything I've written really stands out in a way where I can pick something and say "this is the best thing I've written in this class." Maybe I'll finish an assignment before the end of the semester that I feel proud of and maybe I won't. If I don't, maybe that just means I don't care much for any writing I do that isn't poetry or fiction.

Moving forward I think there's at least a few things that I could do to get the most out of this class. I should probably look at my classmates' notes when it comes to readings that I didn't understand well or struggled with. Or maybe their notes and analyses can change my opinion when it comes to writings that I didn't particularly like.

Reading Notes W8: Emily Dickinson Poems, Part A

Poem 216

Dickinson seems to be talking about death. She refers to the "members of the Resurrection" as being "safe in their Alabaster chambers" and remaining untouched all throughout the day and night (482). I feel like she's saying the members of the resurrection are in their graves or coffins. They're safe because they're dead and cannot be harmed. They remain untouched because of the way that their dead body was buried or preserved. "Roof of stone" makes me think it's more likely that they're in some kind of stone tomb or coffin (482). She thinks of them as being wise and of good judgment since she described them as being sagacious when she said "Ah, what sagacity perished here!" (482).

Poem 258

Dickinson seems to be speaking about death again. She refers to a "certain Slant of light" in "winter afternoons" that "oppresses" similar to the "Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes" (483). The way I interpret this is that she's seeing a cloudy and gloomy sky because of the current season and weather. Barely shining through the clouds at a slant is a beam of light. The way it shines down makes her think of heaven. And by seeing such a heavenly light, she feels a daunting sense that she feels whenever she listens to the music played at cathedrals as if some impending doom is awaiting. She also mentions "Seal Despair" and describes it as being "an imperial affliction / Sent us of the Air" (483). As I understand, she's saying that despair is in the air and the sky as evident by the slant of light and her earlier feelings. She then goes on to share how the landscape and shadows react to this. "The Landscape listens" and "Shadows--hold their breath" (483). "When it goes, 'tis like the Distance / on the look of Death" (483). I think she's viewing the shadows on the ground as they move due to the movement of cloud blocking sunlight and causing the visual effect of a moving shadow across a large space of land. This sight to her looks like that of death spreading.

Poem 341

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes-- / The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs" (484). Emily Dickinson seems to be speaking about a feeling of peace that occurs when one dies. She says the nerves "sit ceremonious" as if relaxing and celebrating, and mentions the "stiff Heart" (484). She speaks about how feet move but goes on to mention "a Wooden way" and says regardless, they grow a "Quartz contentment" (484). She's saying that people move and function for so long as living beings before eventually dying and no longer being able to move; as if they were an inanimate object with no other option besides being content with their new permanent state. "As Freezing persons" they "First--Chill--then Stupor-- then the letting go" (484). Ignoring undesired Frozen vibes, she's saying that death is like freezing. First, you becomes still, then you lose your sense and mind, then you accept fate.

Poem 435

"Madness is divinest Sense" (484). I'm not completely sure, but I feel like this poem is about rebelling and not conforming to society's norms. She says "Assent-- and you are sane" meaning if you express approval of life and the way other's live, you're sane because you meet their expectations (484). But if you "Demur-- you're straightaway dangerous / And handled with a Chain" (484). So if you object to society's rules and expectations, you're seen as a threat and dealt with legally. This poem also might be Dickinson's way of expressing her belief that corruption is present and her fears of sharing her thoughts about it with others because she doesn't want to be arrested for speaking her mind, writing out her thoughts for her eyes alone.

Poem 519

"Twas warm--at first--like Us" (485). Dickinson continues to express her fascination with death. She describes this life as being warm at first, but goes on to mention a "chill" that "crept upon" the life until they had to "be gone" (485). She's a lot clearer in this poem than the previous ones. "The forehead copied stone" meaning that the person is dead and no longer has the feeling of life that can't be felt with bodily contact, as if a stone. "The Fingers grew too cold" because they're lifeless and cold (485). "The busy eyes--congealed-- / It straightened--that was all-- / It crowded Cold to Cold" (485-6). Dickinson is pointing out how the eyes lose life and any definite direction when someone dies. They became cold and solid as well due to the lack of fluids in the eyes. "'Twas lowered, like a Weight" is her way of illustrating the coffin being lowered into the grave (486). "It made no Signal, nor demurred, / But dropped like Adamant" (486). The dead cannot object to their burial and instead must drop like adamant, meaning they are no different than a heavy rock being dropped.

Poem 1129

I normally don't care much for Emily Dickinson's poems, admittedly. But I really loved this poem because of word choice, the message behind it, how simple it was to grasp despite not being completely literal, and because I felt like she successfully got her message across without trying to put too much meaning in too little text or dragging out over unnecessary stanzas. "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--" (489). She's saying that people explain life in ways that hide the complete truth in order to protect innocence and allow people to retain their sense of hope and not view life as some downward path to a meaningless end. She's pointing out how, religion, folktales, and the ways that people explain death to children are shaped in a way that tries to not seem as terrifying. When people die, some people share the belief that they go on to Heaven or some other afterlife, or are reincarnated into another life. There's this idea that death doesn't need to be an "end," but just a shift in life. "Too bright for our infirm Delight / The Truth's superb surprise" (489). She's reinforcing the fact that the reality of death is terrifying to our human delight because of how fragile our happiness can be when faced with impending death; the truth is a surprise that slaps many people in the face because of how sudden and tragic it is. "As Lightning to the Children eased / With explanation kind" (489). She's making it clearer how the mysteries of death are explained to children in a gentle and delicate way as to not deprive them of their innocence and scare them from life. "The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind" (489). People have to slowly learn and understand the reality of death because it's traumatic to fully realize. Everyone would be unable to see the rest of the world and what life has to offer because death would be the only thing they could see if it was forcefully realized.



Dickson, Emily. The Norton Anthology World Literature, edited by Martin Puchner, Third Edition, vol. E, W. W. Norton 2012, pp. 480-490