tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post9137810640507075303..comments2024-03-27T11:02:20.107-07:00Comments on the prowling Bee: For Death – or ratherSusan Kornfeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-77740181720979635412024-02-01T09:59:03.984-08:002024-02-01T09:59:03.984-08:00An interpretation and a legal no-no:
For Death, o...An interpretation and a legal no-no:<br /><br />For Death, or rather <br />for the Things Death would buy, <br />Dying would put away <br />any Opportunities Life might offer - <br /><br />Death would buy <br />a casket <br />and freedom from Life’s pains, and, most importantly, <br />Heaven’s new Name for me: Mrs. Charles Wadsworth.<br /><br />How Gifts of Life <br />and Gifts of Death may compare, <br />we know not – <br />for that Ratio depends on what happens during Life’s remainder.<br /><br />Any academic court would call this poem blatant plagiarism, ED of Shakespeare.<br /><br />Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 56-69):<br /><br />To be, or not to be: that is the question:<br />Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer<br />The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,<br />Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,<br />And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;<br />No more; and by a sleep to say we end<br />The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks<br />That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation<br />Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;<br />To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;<br />For in that sleep of death what dreams may come<br />When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,<br />Must give us pause: there's the respect<br />That makes calamity of so long life. <br />Larry Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02810899482852120751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-58669319491903021682021-12-08T15:16:36.507-08:002021-12-08T15:16:36.507-08:00Here's an interpretation (one of 7) of the wor...Here's an interpretation (one of 7) of the word "room" in the Emily Dickinson Lexicon: https://edl.byu.edu/lexicon/term/575840<br /><br />Unoccupied opportunities.<br />J382/Fr644 The Things that Death will buy / Are Room – / Escape … And a Name<br />I read, "Put away life's opportunity for the things that Death will buy."<br /><br /><br />Greg Mattinglyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05992933717468579465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-33625538312311127282020-12-09T18:54:44.397-08:002020-12-09T18:54:44.397-08:00Okay, now it's confusing. I would tend towards...Okay, now it's confusing. I would tend towards the 'interchangeable' end of the meaning spectrum here. You're buying a little cramped room but perhaps the space as Jackson (above) parses it, is really a gift. There's no knowing as long as we live. It might also be that the Gifts of Life is meant rather ironically: gift of constraint, penury, etc.Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-85452899525728647162020-12-09T05:47:05.093-08:002020-12-09T05:47:05.093-08:00I wonder if there is significance in the space bet...I wonder if there is significance in the space between “gifts” as discussed in stanza 3 and the objects of purchase, which, paid for, would not be gifts. Are they 2 distinct categories? Or is she using them interchangeably? It seems that she is sure of what exactly can be purchased, but foggy about the gifts, since the rates - the valuation can only be determined by the one who “lie[s] here.” <br />Thank you, Susan, as always. Pphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01023162636086533197noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-79025046742017652842019-08-07T18:05:55.694-07:002019-08-07T18:05:55.694-07:00I think I agree: You get the solidness and longevi...I think I agree: You get the solidness and longevity of your own name carved into the tombstone. It implies some sort of presence both of life and, now, in death.Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-39077719644803089592019-05-07T02:28:25.809-07:002019-05-07T02:28:25.809-07:00I think if Dickinson had meant an escape from name...I think if Dickinson had meant an escape from name together with the circumstances, she would have used the definite article with the word "name", because you escape your own name, and nobody else's. Therefore, I think what she meant was that you acquire a name that can be read on your tombstone by everyone. Or am I mistaken?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-422506984878889152018-11-11T17:25:51.657-08:002018-11-11T17:25:51.657-08:00I really like your reading of 'room': it c...I really like your reading of 'room': it completely alters my reading to think about how death offers limitless space - room - in contrast to the circumscribed lives too many people are channeled into -- particularly women in Dickinson's Victorian and Calvinist milieu.Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-72515435397667873342018-11-11T14:09:50.685-08:002018-11-11T14:09:50.685-08:00Thank you for this. And thank Jackson -- I like h... Thank you for this. And thank Jackson -- I like her view of escape being from circumstances and a name. <br /><br /> I love the methodical categorizing in the second stanza. There is a sense of humor here in the precision of counting "things" that Death will buy. And there is a play between openness and limitation --- Life offers opportunity, what my dictionary defines as "a favorable juncture of circumstances". Life is separation, the possibility of improvement and progress, measured in the currency of the living (friendships, wealth, success). But opportunity is limitation, it is in the realm of what can be measured.<br /><br /> Death offers room. In other poems, ED talks about the narrow room of the grave, a swelling in the ground. But here, room (I think) is open ended. Death is not limited by the physical, it is the letting go of limits -- a transcending of separation -- to something beyond measure. <br /><br /> Likewise, escape from circumstances and name is a transition from the particular to something beyond limits. <br /><br /> There is no comparison between the gifts of Life and the gifts of Death because the very idea of comparison -- the idea of rates and exchange -- are on Life's side of the grave. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-53803174692889432672018-07-16T20:02:55.852-07:002018-07-16T20:02:55.852-07:00I love both your wordplay comments. Neither had oc...I love both your wordplay comments. Neither had occurred to me but now they seem obvious and resonant. I think they are shadow meanings, lightly dangled.<br />Susan Kornfeldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-90989987534644046732018-07-16T18:17:37.819-07:002018-07-16T18:17:37.819-07:00Thanks for such a clear and cogent explication! I...Thanks for such a clear and cogent explication! It's a bit bold to suggest Dickinson is looking so seriously at the "transaction" (great word to describe it, by the way) of suicide, but you make a convincing case. Besides, Dickinson was not one to back down from speaking the truth as she saw it. I love your connection to F238, too, which casts the poem in a whole new light.<br /><br />I hear some meaningful wordplay in two places. In the second stanza, the last two lines suggest not only that death will give her a name, as on a tombstone, but also that it will allow her to "escape" a name along with circumstances. (I always love these possibilities with Dickinson's dashes: the lines work both ways at once.) The idea of escaping a name makes even more sense if she is a married woman who has taken her husband's name, but of course it applies to anyone who dies.<br /><br />Also, the last line of the poem sounds like a pun on "lie," which would support your already strong argument. It would also help explain why the speaker doesn't mention hell; the afterlife is just a lie that people "here" in this world tell each other instead acknowledging real "exchange rate" of death.<br /><br />(Weird sidenote: according to the Lexicon and the Archive, this is the one and only time Dickinson uses the word "rate" in her poems. Don't know what to do with that exactly except the one time she uses it, she makes the most of it.)<br /><br />Thanks for your wonderful blog!Jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00740428749859847217noreply@blogger.com