Dickinson priority what/why Flashcards
FLY
what:
(last onset )
why #1:
(i could not see to see)
why #2:
WHAT: In this mortuary lyric poem, a speaker seemingly recounts their own death and vigil preceding it, Dickinson again engaging with the contemporary cultural traditions of Ars Moriendi and the inevitable inscrutability of death.
WHY: Thus, Dickinson engages with the cultural practises of her time, and possibly endorses the belief that a ‘Good Death’ may result in the epiphany of transcendence.
WHY: The mundanity of the fly able to obscure the “light” of heaven indicate Dickinson’s proclivity to view death in ambiguity. Dickinson expresses her faith in the Christian afterlife but mitigates this with reminders of death’s mundanity and mystery.
FROST
what:
(we hated death and hated life)
why:
WHAT: In passage ___, the speaker resists death and its inevitability.
WHY: Dickinson departs from transcendentalist beliefs that death is a necessary part of the cycle of nature, instead lamenting irreplaceable human life.
BLANK
what:
(shut eyes / blind)
why #1:
(groped / lighter - to be blind)
why#2:
WHAT: In Passage ___ a speaker wanders through a maze of “Blanks” that signifies emotional despair and suffering, but also finds possible revelation in imagination and intuition.
why: As such, like in “Funeral”, this poem seems to express an experience of despair that is isolating, and excruciating.
why: Thus, Dickinson utilises Passage __ to give voice to debilitating anguish, but also to reaffirm her faith in the transcendental power of imagination to alleviate times of despair.
SLANT
what:
(breath/ death)
why #1:
(we/ us)
why #2:
WHAT: For the speaker in Passage ___, nature’s light engenders despair and reflection in the face of mortality, and – possibly – connection.
WHY: depicting the speaker’s dread over their mortality and the cruelty of God’s inability to console humanity, Dickinson subverts transcendentalist notions around the cyclical promise of God and nature.
WHY: Ultimately, Dickinson utilises the speaker to acknowledge the disappointing relationship with nature and divinity that subverts contemporary ideas, but through the visceral expression of interior experiences, Dickinson provides an occasion for connection within suffering.
TO KNOW
what:
(settled broad - on paradise)
why #1:
(love that was - love too best to be/ return to iambic)
why #2:
WHAT: In Passage ___ a speaker, possibly a lover, speculates upon a soldier’s death in the civil war.
WHY: Thus, Dickinson echoes her contemporary concerns of battlefield death, and firmly trusts in the role of Christian rituals in divine election.
WHY: Ultimately, Dickson departs from traditional thought that God is the only site of consolation for mortality, instead positing it is equal with connections and relationships that human life offers.
BLAZING
What:
Why:
What: In passage __ the sun is represented through the conceit of a protean juggler whose many guises reveal Dickinson’s somewhat romantic celebration of nature’s grandeur and dazzling ephemerality.
Why: Overall, Dickinson’s contemplation of the ephemeral qualities of the sun leads her to an assertion seen elsewhere in her opus, that what is transitory in nature and in life, is fragile and splendid.
TWO BUTTERFLIES
what:
(beam)
why #2:
(ether sea)
why:
WHAT: In Passage ___ Dickinson dramatizes the final day in the life of two butterflies, using their life cycle as a conceit to represent nature’s beauty and inspirational grandeur, as well as the transience of poetic vision.
WHY: Therefore, the butterflies represent how the sublimely beautiful nature can inspire feats of imaginative greatness as in “Like Rain”.
WHY: Ultimately, the intense rise and fall of the speaker and their imaginative powers in Passage ___ may reflect Dickinson’s ambivalent view of sublime nature as both a key to poetic perception but forever beyond mortal grasp.
PUBLICATION
what:
(snow – of poetry)
why #1:
(reduce no human spirit/to disgrace of price)
why #2:
WHAT: In Passage ___ a speaker, possibly Dickinson due to her strained relationship with the literary marketplace, defines publication as a sacrilegious act.
WHY: Thus, for Dickinson, publication is a sordid affair, suggesting poets should resist the wicked call of profit to maintain spiritual integrity.
WHY: Overall, this passage defines publication a debasing act with Dickinson urging poets to defend their creative independence.
OPP HOUSE
what:
(- that - / fling)
why #1:
(dark parade/tassles/coaches)
why #2:
WHAT: In Passage __, a male speaker conflates the domestic and gothic in a critique of civil war America’s attempts to elide the ineffable state of death.
WHY: Thus, like her other deaths poems such as “Something Quieter” and “Fly”, Dickinson suggests that no routine can dissipate the ghastliness of death’s reality or inevitability.
WHY: The speaker’s cavalier reminder to readers that “its as easy as sign” to perceive death in its religious and domestic setting belies Dickinson’s belief that these ubiquitous rituals evade death’s unknowability, which she prefers to face unflinchingly.
