tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post7900354698465151318..comments2024-03-29T00:07:13.458-07:00Comments on the prowling Bee: Rehearsal to OurselvesSusan Kornfeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-86830482966170891642024-02-10T14:58:54.976-08:002024-02-10T14:58:54.976-08:00Can you imagine another 19th century poet who woul...Can you imagine another 19th century poet who would write such an honest description of the universal urge to murder that so-and-so who hurt our feelings? Even more unimaginable, and honest, would be to admit the urge to kill and, in the next stanza, admit we love the wound that caused our death because it reminds us we were alive, if only for one brief shining moment.<br /><br />In combination, don’t those two urges define masochism or are they just an ordinary failed romantic fantasy, or are those two things the same? At any rate, it sure seems unladylike for ED to leave written evidence she had those thoughts in 1863. <br /><br />For a specific example of ED’s mysterious “Bliss like Murder” in ‘Rehearsal to Ourselves’ (F664), see Comment 4 (Feb 8, 2024) and poem interpretation following ‘'Tis true—They shut me in the Cold’ (F658).<br />Larry Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02810899482852120751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-41046189629782938022020-09-19T11:18:41.753-07:002020-09-19T11:18:41.753-07:00OOps, oh yeah. I'm correcting. THANK YOU!OOps, oh yeah. I'm correcting. THANK YOU! Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-60618690639614116992020-09-18T20:38:33.653-07:002020-09-18T20:38:33.653-07:00WE and US. First person plural?
WE and US. First person plural?<br />Minna Humblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16109132254440563420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-20233976713484253572020-04-23T18:32:50.590-07:002020-04-23T18:32:50.590-07:00Thank you for the thoughtful commentary. I hadn...Thank you for the thoughtful commentary. I hadn't read 'Grief is a Mouse until sparked by this. <br />The more thought about this current poem the more I felt convinced about the literary angle of nightingales -- how Dickinson might have been struck by the imagery and then let it percolate in her imagination until the thorn became a dirk and so on. <br /><br />I certainly tried to put something of a positive spin on the poem, but I think you have the right of it.Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-88157627661271166262020-04-23T11:31:51.136-07:002020-04-23T11:31:51.136-07:00Thanks -- for this. "Affords a Bliss like Mu...Thanks -- for this. "Affords a Bliss like Murder" is a line that will blow anyone's socks off.<br /><br />I read this poem as an expansion of the line from Grief is a Mouse: "Grief is a gourmand, spare his luxury." But the gourmand here is unapologetic. <br /><br />The grief described in this poem is self-absorbed, self-indulgent. You are right to contrast it to the experience of grief in the poem After Great Pain -- because, in that poem, the poet is describing step by step the passive and immediate experience of grief. Here, the poet is describing an act of manipulation -- a "rehearsal" or retelling. The grieving person is omnipotent in the way that a murderer is omnipotent -- uncaring for others -- free and powerful in a perverse sense. The object of grief isn't even the focus -- just the power and seductive quality of the emotion. <br /><br />Where in Grief is a Mouse the poet is discriminating and allows herself to judge -- "spare his luxury" and "Best Grief is Tongueless" -- here, she allows herself to indulge. The third person plural in the last stanza sounds, to me, like a rationale being given by a person who understands what they are doing and that doing it is wrong -- but does it anyway. The use of "we" is like taking refuge in a crowd -- justifying abhorrent behavior as if it were a collective act. I can almost hear in it the voice of the serial killer in the movie Silence of the Lambs: "We begin by coveting what we see everyday." <br /><br />There is no getting over this grief -- because it is relived compulsively -- over and over again. It is like being dead (as the last line reminds us) -- because the grasping and wallowing in the "bliss" of the emotion admits no freshness, no immediacy -- no contact. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com