One the poem that we were asked to pay particular attention to was poem 764 and it also happens to be one of the more interesting ones that I read in this section. Upon reading the introduction, I was interested to see whether or not the revisions that men who had published her work had made on it would be apparent. I imagine Emily Dickinson's writing to be whimsical in style and more vast in terms of rhyme and rhythm. This particular poem broke out of the norm that I noticed in the rest of her works that were put on display in this chapter because the rhyme was not consistent, making the overall voice and movement of the poem that much better.
The first line, "My Life has stood - a loaded Gun" was enough to let the reader know that her intentions in the poem and its meaning would be strong but not easily identified, given her use of typography like in her capitalization and hyphens. The poem overall gave me a sense of uneasiness from beginning to end. She shares in this poem many facets of malevolence, through the talk of foes, death, killing, and the comparison to her life as a loaded gun, as I pointed out in the first line. The last two lines, in my opinion, are the two most noteworthy, possibly in the entire works selected in this chapter. And it is what I will end this post on, "For I have the power to kill, / Without - the power to die -"
Saying that the poem makes you uneasy describes the feeling perfectly. We'll be talking about this poem tomorrow, and I hope you'll bring up this point.
ReplyDeleteI found this poem eerie as well. The last two lines are very powerful and I feel that they really carry the meaning of the poem well. It will be interesting to see if you have more to add in class tomorrow. ~Alyssa G.
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