tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post3215199845788666419..comments2024-03-28T18:48:28.471-07:00Comments on the prowling Bee: I am alive — I guess —Susan Kornfeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-40621282371442952092023-12-31T08:45:52.028-08:002023-12-31T08:45:52.028-08:00What a life-affirming last stanza, with that surpr...What a life-affirming last stanza, with that surprise repetition, “Alive”! For that one moment, at least, ED felt deep in her soul that life was good and that she was born again in “Thee”:<br /><br />“How good — to be alive!<br />How infinite — to be<br />Alive — two-fold — The Birth I had —<br />And this — besides, in — Thee!” <br /><br />The two loves of ED’s life were Susan Gilbert (Dickinson) and Charles Wadsworth. The first was Sue, who in summer 1850 , when both were 19, gave ED her second birth, her birth into romantic love, which the poet would later remember as “when love first began, on the step at the front door, and under the Evergreens.” (L177 to Sue, 1855).<br /><br />She first fell into infatuation with Wadsworth in March 1855 and loved him for the rest of her life, but by the time she copied F605 into Fascicle 26 (“summer 1863”, Franklin), she was no longer obsessing about him, as she had been since September 1861 (L261 to Higginson, 25 April 1862).<br />Larry Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02810899482852120751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-9163593858803490942023-11-12T17:00:03.600-08:002023-11-12T17:00:03.600-08:00Yes, ye. I would guess that ED meant this poems f...Yes, ye. I would guess that ED meant this poems for a specific "thee" but because she left the specifics private, and because she left the poems for posterity, the lover becomes, through transference, the reader. It's romantic this transference, wherein the love story continues in the reader. It's an odd thing about any love poetry, that any "you" becomes, by extension, the reader. And yet the "I" seems to be, despite her protest, always Emily. It's the unique quality that we love back. d scribehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08242682202760522439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-75657956686773612332023-11-12T13:14:08.331-08:002023-11-12T13:14:08.331-08:00I love thinking of Me in the Thee as I read her po...I love thinking of Me in the Thee as I read her poems. Thanks for that --Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-26712175642533506532023-11-12T07:31:09.396-08:002023-11-12T07:31:09.396-08:00The turn in this poem from feeling dead in life to...The turn in this poem from feeling dead in life to the <br />surprise ending of feeling good and infinitely alive is such a sharp turn. It seems to rest, perhaps, on the "Key" in this poem. The key is in the girlhood name of the self, and the "visitor" being able to find the "room". At first I thought that girlhood "name" was limiting, limiting the infinite, "precise and fitting no one else", but now I see it as a key for the visitor, and it is in the visiting that the "rebirth" can take place. Perhaps. On one hand names are limiting, on the other, they clue us into the individual. I've noticed that ED's poems with the word Key in them give us a clue to a key to unlock the poem. Something definitely unlocks the narrator in this poem, and it appears to be a rebirth into spirit, or other, or God, or reader. <br /><br />Also, it bears repeating, the exhilaration in these lines,<br /><br />How good -- to be alive!<br />How infinite -- to be<br /><br />Trot these lines out for all those that think of ED as a death-obsessed depressive. d scribehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08242682202760522439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-557617420847586202023-11-11T09:25:53.227-08:002023-11-11T09:25:53.227-08:00"fully alive and flowered"
"I hav..."fully alive and flowered" <br /><br />"I have no doubt Dickinson wrote with this ambiguity firmly in her own heart. It is a version of the "infinite" that she has become." Well said. <br /><br />The infinite that she has become. There is something interesting going on in those last two stanzas. The name on the gravestone becomes synonymous with "cold" encapsulation. You need the right "key" to find it. But being alive is beyond the name, beyond the key, infinite.<br /><br />How good — to be alive!<br />How infinite — to be<br /><br />(perfect line break)<br /><br />Alive — two-fold — The Birth I had —<br />And this — besides, in — Thee!<br /><br />I think part of the two-fold birth here can also be seen in the intended reader. Through the poem (and any communication of the "heart's extent") you are born again in other, and infinitely expanding. The thee at the end the poem is every reader, me, we. <br />d scribehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08242682202760522439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-74783951910587041832020-10-30T21:30:10.904-07:002020-10-30T21:30:10.904-07:00Interesting -- I think it works both ways very wel...Interesting -- I think it works both ways very well. Thanks!Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-62630481399084475442020-10-30T11:39:18.297-07:002020-10-30T11:39:18.297-07:00I read the “morning glories” that branch on her ha...I read the “morning glories” that branch on her hands as veins, referring to their blue color... picks up the carmine/blood reference of the finger tips later - FWIWUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04859909243364489189noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-58124315664587825762017-03-22T13:50:33.238-07:002017-03-22T13:50:33.238-07:00I am confident that the rebirth suggested here is ...I am confident that the rebirth suggested here is not religious. ED's opinions on that subject were (surprisingly) unambiguous.jackdarrowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04375964003194073033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-70328114804746862032015-06-16T14:27:56.596-07:002015-06-16T14:27:56.596-07:00Beautiful poem; insightful analysis.
I don&#... Beautiful poem; insightful analysis.<br /><br /> I don't think it necessary to pin down the two-fold birth to a specific meaning. ED in different poems joins images of morning, marriage, sexual maturity, death and spiritual revelation. In "A wife -- at Daybreak I shall be --", ED powerfully evokes a spiritual and sexual union with Christ in a meditation on death. In this poem too, ED refers to her "Girlhood's name", with images of morning ("Morning Glory"), death and rebirth. <br /><br /> It is a very powerful poem beginning with beautiful, hesitant, prose like rhythms. Rhymes in the first stanzas of the poem (guess, Glass, Breath, because, is, sidewise, conscious, because, house, precise, else) tie the poem together. The poem ends with exact rhymes ("Key", "be", "thee") -- almost like the end of a scene from Shakespeare where exact rhymes signal the transition to a new scene. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-30482652888004108732015-06-10T13:54:16.016-07:002015-06-10T13:54:16.016-07:00So insightful the part where you say, "She lo...So insightful the part where you say, "She looks around to see if she has died." As if she had found herself out of time––Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08961001706149019039noreply@blogger.com