To Know Flashcards
C1
Stanzas 1 and 2 initiate the speaker’s enquiries as to the nature of the soldier’s – her lover’s – death. S1 and 2 show a speaker keenly invested in the ‘Good Death’ and in seeking assurances that the soldier died a death of Christian dignity, leading to election and the consolations of the afterlife. These stanzas also align with traditional elegy in that they accentuate the consolations of the Christian afterlife as a relief after a painful human life.
C2
Stanzas 3-5 question that heaven is the only consolation, poignantly illustrating the human relationships the soldier (and the speaker) will lose upon his passing. Human relationships – based on shared mortality and vulnerability - take on a privileged position, meaning that both heaven and the here and now occupy the mind of the soldier (and the mind of the speaker)
C3
The final stanza acts to sum up the poem’s views and values; while the Good Death is important, mortality gives humans an increased awareness not just of desired election, but of the ephemeral consolations of the here and now; these must be given up beyond ‘the junction of eternity,’ which Dickinson laments.
C1
No quote (poetic form)
> Heroic quatrains + initiation of anaphoric enquiry
-establishes expect. traditional elegy (painful death à blissful resurrec.) / tone mournful questioning = speaker mourning intimate friend or lover, most likely CW soldier, wishing ‘to know’ if died death of X’n dignity
C1
‘to know if any human eyes were near’
+ ‘wavering gaze’
+ ‘settled broad on paradise’
> Synecdoche (“eyes”)
-synecdoche = speaker’s wish for attendants (PGD)
Contrast b/w “wavering” + “settled”
-adj ‘wavering’ evokes extreme vuln. dying man’s death throes, contrast w. verb ‘settled’ on ‘paradise’ (soul soon to be granted redemption + restfulness in heaven)
C1
‘patient – part content –‘
> Adjectives (or just diction)
-adjs = Sp. wish know soldier = accept death calmly (leads to election, PGD)
C1
‘did the sunshine face his way’
> Simple, uncomplicated syntax (word order) + diction (language)
-Simple syntax + diction = speaker wish soldier received simple comforts
t/f S1&2 predictable metre reflects sent’lity convent. elegy (afterlife = ultimate consolation) + reveals speaker (+
possibly ED’s) keenly engaged w. beliefs of PGD
C2
‘His furthest mind – Of home – or God –‘ + ‘What the distant say’
> Breakdown of heroic quatrains / additional line
-metrical shift = ED prob’zing assump heaven only source consolation / multiple foreshortened lines may replicate imperfect rhythms mortality + genuineness speaker’s grief
-loss of ‘home’ elevated to same status as contemplation of heaven
Parallelism + caesura and dash
-soldier contemplates legacy in the mortal world, not just resurrect.
C2
‘Just his sigh – accented – had been legible - to me - ’
> Synaesthesia
-Imply privileged r’ship btw sp + soldier / only sp has the unique sensory capacity to discern soldier’s final wish
C3
‘afraid – or tranquil’
> Adjectives
-speaker still interested PGD (wishes soul to be ‘tranquil’)
C3
‘How conscious consciousness could grow’
> Near identical repetition
-x2 readings: dying man has revelation of God before death AND/OR awareness of death intensifies our humanity (our ultimate vulnerability makes life’s ephemeral r’ships precious
C3
‘Til love that was – and love too best to be - ’
> Past tense + hyperbole
-stresses twin loves: one of the mortal world that must be left behind (past tense) – the other the perfection of God’s redemption (hyperbole)
