Author: Kathleen Deedy

Loading Likes... One idea that came up twice in the readings for this class is immortality. Considering Dickinson’s close relationship with religion, it seems very likely that the immortality she refers to is in a religious sense. However, I still think the poems she refers to immortality in are a little odd. Poem 479 real stands out to me for its characterization of immortality and death. From the. opening lines, “Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me -” there is already an implied difference in power between death and the speaker, but it seems to be the speaker that has more power. I would imagine some of the characters power over death comes from their lack of fear of it. The lines “And I had put away / My labor and my leisure too, / For His Civility” suggest that level of comfort just mentioned as there is no rush from either death or the speaker, both seem content to sit and watch. It seems like through this calm acceptance of death the character achieves some sort of peace, or perhaps immortality?

The idea of immortality comes up again in poem 764. again, I found this to be a somewhat strange poem that isn’t particularly straightforward. What caught my eye the most were the final lines “For I have but the power to kill, / Without – the power to die -“. Ideas of life and death are at play throughout the poem. I thought her comparison to life as a loaded gun was very different as I feel loaded guns are more often closely associated with death. I think these poems present two very different presentations of the ideas of life, death, and immortality and I find it interesting how such similar themes can be presented in such different ways by the same poet.

Loading Likes... one of the things I’ve found most interesting while reading Incidents is the way Jacobs describes characters as both kind and cruel within the same breath. Often times she’ll describe the apparent “kindness” of slaveowners, while still describing them as slaveowners. This really contributes to the irony in the book.There were a few times I found myself scoffing out loud at something I read. Another example would be her description of the jailor as a good man who lets her and family see her brother, however while he is helping them, he only does so much, letting them see him for a very short period of time and doing nothing to actually help.

It becomes very easy to draw connections between Jacobs’s argument here and Douglass’s argument in his own narrative. I think the common notion that slavery was damaging to the moral character of everyone involved. (particularly white people) is really interesting and likely a good argument if one were appealing to a white reader who didn’t want to be corrupted by slavery or perhaps didn’t see the truth of the evils being committed. I know I’ve mentioned this argument before in my blog posts but it always stands out to me for some reason. I think because its a point that is relatable to readers, most everyone has witnessed someone become power hungry in some way. But at the same time it’s almost depressing that an argument like that every had to be made. The fact that the argument must be framed as trying to save potential slaveowners from the damage of slavery instead of for rescuing the people who are actually suffering is incredibly sad.

Loading Likes... Right from the get-go the narrative style of incidents is a lot closer to Douglass’s writing than Stowe’s. Obviously this is in part due to the autobiographical nature of the novels, but it is also due to the writing style. Jacobs is far less verbose than Stowe while still managing to describe each event and feeling in detail. There is also far less use of dialect in Jacobs and Douglass than Stowe. This helps craft a different narrative of slaves by portraying them already as more educated and realistic figures that the occasionally cartoonish characters in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Again, obviously this comes from the fact that it is a memoir, but it is also a stylistic choice made by the author. A lot of the impact and emotion comes from the matter of fat descriptions of a lot of the experiences she had paired with simple thoughts from the author. Whereas Stowe had more big emotional scenes, Jacobs relies (very effectively) on a more simple style that is still very impactful.

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When talking about Song of Myself in class the other day, I kept recalling how sensual and erotic much of his language was. Section 5 stands out with its descriptions of an apparent old lover. Whitman recalls “how you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me, / And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunge your tongue to my bare-striped chest” (87-89). Although we discussed in class how this would have been at least somewhat uncommon at the time, and was another thing that set him apart from other poets at the time, I kept thinking of far earlier poets who went beyond what Whitman describes and more fully embrace the erotic. The Earl of Rochester, John Donne, and Katherine Philips all leap to mind.

Although Whitman uses this erotic or sensual language to further distinguish himself from the typical conventions of poetry, it is at the same time calling back to earlier poets. I find this a really interesting example of originality, because where he does break with his lack of form or rhythm, he still remains connected to the larger history of poetry. I just thought this was an interesting connection.

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I will be the first to say poetry is an area I struggle in, and I almost always find myself stressing over uncovering the meanings of poems. That being said, there are two lines that I feel best represent the poem as a whole.

The first section is lines 36 and 37 “you shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, / You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.” the description of filtering things from yourself caught me off guard. I couldn’t tell if he intended it as a person should also separate themselves from what they are seeing/experiencing and be objective, or (probably more likely) if they should filter these things through themself to create a subjective experience. Poetry tends to favor a subjective approach to the world, so I’m more inclined to go with the latter. If it is intentionally vague and not just my own failure to understand, I think its interesting that he sets it up as the “origin of all poems” (lines 33-34). It also potentially supports the emphasis of the individual in the process of creating a poem. the ideas of unity and the individual are heavily present throughout the poem.

The second line I found interesting is in the final stanza of section 15, “And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, / And such as it is to be of these more or less I am, / And of these one and all I weave the song of myself” (Lines 327-329). These lines stuck out to be as capable of encapsulating a lot of the message of the poem. The idea that he weaves this representation of himself not just from the things he experiences, but of the experiences of others he might interact with or see or never know exist. even though they are not necessarily his experiences, they make up the human experience which unites all humans together.

Loading Likes... To be completely honest I was a little disappointed with how heavy the foreshadowing was that Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father. To be completely fair, I was keeping an eye out for it since we had mentioned heavy foreshadowing during class on Tuesday, however I wasn’t expecting to figure it out about three pages into the next section. From the moment the narrator discussed Chillingworth’s determination to figure out Dimmesdale’s secret, I had a feeling that he was the father. In terms of the plot, the biggest (and only) secret to uncover was the mystery of the father. Furthermore, calling Chillingworth the leech as he leeches the life out of Dimmesdale wasn’t particularly subtle either.

I think it’s really interesting that the foreshadowing is so heavy handed given Hawthorne’s dedication to symbols and creating a literary novel. Thinking about it though, I’m not entirely sure most of his symbols are particularly subtle either.

Loading Likes... From the very first pages of The Scarlett Letter, there is an interesting discussion that emerges around the justice system and whether or not it is effective. In Chapter 2, Hawthorne explains that culprits of crimes often face a legal tribunal that only “confirmed the verdict of the public sentiment” (pg 452). He almost immediately criticizes the spectators of the event as “people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical” (pg 453). Through the narration and portrayal of the spectators, Hawthorne already suggests that religion and the law should not mix.

The quote that the tribunal only confirms the public sentiment stuck out to me because I feel as if it is a critique that could be made of the modern day justice system as well. While we may have advanced technologically since The Scarlett Letter was written, justice seems to be a difficult topic to tackle. There are still complaints about the separation of religion from the justice system as well as how various laws treat with women and childbirth. Even outside of the legal system, there is still the court of public opinion that people must face if they, like Hester, have done something that goes against community values.

Loading Likes... In the section of Douglass’s Narrative we read for Tuesday’s class, Douglass’s writing style is on full display. I find it interesting how matter-of-fact he is about many of the horrors of slavery without ever allowing the reader to lose sight of how horrible the things he is describing are. One incident in particular I found striking was when he described the overseer whipping Aunt Hester for seeing Lloyd. Douglass explains how he hid in a closet because he was so horrified and states, “I expected it would be my turn next.” He had never seen anything like that before, having lived on the outskirts of the plantation previously, so with typical child-like naivety he expects he will be next, not knowing what truly prompted the overseer to whip Aunt Hester. He combines the childish innocence with the harsh reality that he actually could be next if he displeased the overseers. His frank detailing of the horrors of his life are part of what give his writing so much power. He neither overstates not understates the events he witnessed, and doesn’t attempt to over-dramatize them for the sake of a story. I think this is what makes his writing so engaging because he never minces words and tells things very plainly, but quickly, never spending too long on one tale and always keeping the narrative moving forward. Cooper could learn from that.

Loading Likes... I found Poe’s description of creating The Raven in The Philosophy of Composition to be surprisingly entertaining. I thought it was interesting how he broke down the creative process, which is often placed on a pedestal, into something almost banal and routine. He almost describes it as creating a how-to manual. The format of the essay seeming more or less to instruct the reader was also interesting when considered with his emphasis on originality. It made me question if something (even a process) is copied by someone else, would it still be original? Furthermore, would his own stories be considered to have originality at the heart of them? As discussed in class, his short stories have several repeating elements, although each does have a certain amount of originality to it.

Overall I found it to be an interesting read, particularly after reading The Raven. I found it a refreshing break from the poets who describe their creative process as “sparked by the divine” or “unable to be contained”. Maybe that’s just because I spent the last semester reading poetry from the middle ages.

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There were two quotes that stuck out to me while I was reading “The American Scholar.” The first relates to the question of what Emerson argued for and what he argued against. As we discussed in class, Emerson was critical of capitalism which I found very apparent in a quote on page 211 where he stated, “But unfortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that is is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, –a good ginger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.” I find this quote extremely interesting because it argues that capitalism doesn’t just detract from someone, it actually makes them not a whole man by boiling down their entire being into a trait or job. As if it is cutting a person up until they are no longer recognizable as a whole person and become something else entirely. 

The second quote I find interesting more because I am a lit major than anything else. As someone who studies books from other ages his comment that “each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this” stuck out to me (Emerson, 213). I think as a lit major I spend a lot of time with the so-called “books of an older period” and I feel as if a lot of emphasis is placed on them and their value to us as a society, but there is significantly less focus on the books from our generation that will be passed down. Maybe that is a thought that might appear more in a creative writing class, rather than a lit class, but I still find it interesting that we spend so little time comparatively on contemporary novels. There are often few courses offered on present-day novels and its something I’d never really thought much about before.