tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post2918558403972127417..comments2024-03-29T00:07:13.458-07:00Comments on the prowling Bee: My eye is fuller than my vase –Susan Kornfeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-52169598835441794372023-01-30T12:32:18.032-08:002023-01-30T12:32:18.032-08:00In many poems and letters ED and Sue refer to each...In many poems and letters ED and Sue refer to each other as Antony and Cleopatra, respectively. Cleopatra was from Egypt, which both Elizabethans (e.g., Shakespeare) and Victorian artists, composers, playwrights, and poets (e.g., ED) often referred to as the Orient or the East (e.g., ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ by Shakespeare and ED’s L203 to Kate Anton, March 1859, CAPS mine):<br /><br />….”My heart votes for you, and what am I indeed to dispute her ballot-?-What are your qualifications? Dare you dwell in the EAST where we dwell? Are you afraid of the Sun? -When you hear the new violet sucking her way among the sods, shall you be resolute?” …. L203<br /><br />In the last two lines of’ ‘My eye is fuller than my vase’, “East India” is a metaphor for Sue:<br /><br />“Despite my sadness losing you, my heart holds more love than my eye holds tears / <br />Sue – for you!”<br /><br />Larry Bnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-17942479221952928752020-06-20T19:10:50.774-07:002020-06-20T19:10:50.774-07:00Thank you for the comments. I find it interesting ...Thank you for the comments. I find it interesting (now that I think about it) that in quite a few of Dickinson's poems an exotic location is central to the meaning and imagery. But she would be in tune with her times, I suppose, with famous explorers reporting on faraway lands and with artists such as Frederick Church depicting highly dramatic landscapes. Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-78624240290259038462020-06-20T06:10:07.589-07:002020-06-20T06:10:07.589-07:00Interesting commentary. This poem is certainly evo...Interesting commentary. This poem is certainly evocative despite its short length.<br /><br />The hyperbolic imagery is rich with suggestion. I am wondering if the reference to East India, being a land on which intense monsoon rains pour, also extends the imagery of tears shed for the absent lover in the first two lines? <br /><br />As an exotic land, East India additionally suggests the great emotional or physical distance between the speaker and her absent loved one.<br /><br />The slow pace of the poem, which is abundant with dashes, conveys the heavy burden of the weight of the speaker's sadness and yearning, too.<br />Jimmynoreply@blogger.com