DICKINSON

Response Questions on Dickinson

January 20: Dickinson and Syntax

Dickinson’s poems use syntax and punctuation in unconventional ways. Select one of this week’s poems to discuss in detail, focusing on how the poem breaks with conventions of syntax and punctuation. How do these breaks contribute to the poem’s meaning or message?

January 24: Dickinson and Hymn Form

The vast majority of Dickinson's poems follow a specific metrical pattern known as the hymn meter; this gives them their sing-song or nursery rhyme quality. The most prominent hymn writer known to her generation was Isaac Watts; scholars have long known that Dickinson was familiar with Watts. (A sample of a Watts hymn, and some other  samples) Most commonly, these hymns follow an octosyllabic pattern, 8686, called "ballad meter" or "common meter" (though sometimes they follow a 6464), alternating stressed and unstressed syllables in sets of 8 and 6. Ordinarily the stanzas are four lines per stanza, but sometimes they are extended to six or eight lines.

Select one of the poems for this week, and discuss how Dickinson employs a devotional, hymnal meter and form, but quite often to discuss secular subjects. Some critics have noted that we may see the use of devotional meter as subversive, ironic, or satirical; you may want to explore this idea in  your response.

January 27: Dickinson and Scenelessness

Dickinson observed that the place of her poems was “illocality,” and critics have noted that her poems seem unmoored or orphaned from any specific place or location. Discuss the place or lack of place in one of the poems for this class. What function does “scenelessness,” as critic Robert Weisbuch calls it, play in creating a meaning in the poem? What kind of meaning can a void create?

January 30: Dickinson and Temporality

All literature organizes chronology. Analyze Dickinson's poem 591, "I heard a Fly buzz--when I died," in terms of the poem's temporal movement and structure. What is the temporal perspective or experience of the speaker? What is her vantage point with respect to the death that occurs in the poem's first line?  How is the deathbed scene represented in the poem? What conceptions of death and its significance are implied by this representation? How does the poem imagine an ending? How does it conceive of the relationship between past, present, and future? What is the relation between subjective or interior (private) time and objective or exterior (social) time? What temporal state is characteristic of death in Dickinson's poetry (you may mention other poems we have read)? Use these questions to develop a comprehensive analysis of temporality in Dickinson's poem 591. 

February 3: Dickinson Domestication of Death  

For the response, discuss the use of post-humous union, or the conventions of the 'heavenly home,' in poem 431 (“If I may have it when it's dead,” also on the handout with alternate words).

February 7: Dickinson and Death

Analyze Dickinson's poem #706, "I cannot live with you--", in terms of the specific historical context of the nineteenth century's conventions of consolation.  How does the poem adapt the conventional notion of heaven-as-home (as well as the notion that the dead pass to heaven through a door or gate)?  What scenario does the poem elaborate?  Pay careful attention to the temporal structure surrounding death and mourning, as well as the relation between earthly and heavenly, moral and immortal spheres.  What is the poem's relation to the conventions it references?  Is the poem accepting, or critical, of those conventions?  How do you explain the poem's strange ending?  What kind of consolation does the speaker describe? You may also select another poem from the syllabus and adapt these questions to a poem of your choice, focusing in particular on how the poem adapts, and also departs from, contemporary rituals surrounding death.

February 10: Dickinson and Nature

In our recent reading we have examined some of the ways in which Dickinson and her Victorian contemporaries often domesticate death, creating elaborate analogies between the unknown beyond, and life on earth. These analogies served to console the living in the face of frequent losses of loved ones, and also provided a language and imagery for understanding great escatological and theological issues. This week we’ll be looking at Victorian nature poetry, which also tends to domesticate the wild and wilderness, as a way of representing the great unknown Nature. (Perhaps the most familiar such domestication is anthropomorphism, the representation of animals or plants as resembling humans; these techniques are familiar to anyone who has read a children’s book). Your task in this assignment is to select one of the Dickinson nature poems and discuss the domestication of nature in the poem. What is being domesticated, and to what end?

February 13: Dickinson and Agriculture

The Dickinson family was highly active in agriculture in New England. Even though they lived in a bustling town, they owned a 14 acre meadow, horses, and cattle. Dickinson writes that she dreamt that she mowed the family’s field; she took a blue ribbon at the county agricultural fair and was a life long member of the agricultural society. Her father spearheaded efforts to bring an agricultural college to Amherst (it later became University of Massachusetts, but was first known as Massachusetts Agricultural College). He also worked to bring the railroad to town, because it was seen as a way to bring agricultural products to market. Select one of the farming poems and discuss how the poem depicts agriculture. Does it favor a simpler mode of subsistence agriculture, in which smallholders grow what the family needs; or a more capitalist, market-driven form of agriculture geared around profit and expansion beyond the household?

Feb 20/24: Dickinson and Fascicles 16 & 20

In looking at the fascicles, consider the theme of choice.  How do the speaker's individual decisions or criteria for choosing come into conflict with theological or social criteria for decision-making? Select one or two poems from the grouping that seem to raise the issue of personal choice. Along with the number of the poem, provide a brief explanation of the way in which the issue of choice (election, decision, freedom, individuality) is raised in the poem.

Addendum for second fascicles responses:  I am asking you to pick one of the following poems: 303 "The Soul Selects Her Own Society"; 528 "Mine By the Right of White Election"; 365 "Dare you See a Soul By the White Heat" (I have added one poem to those I posed on the board). I suggest focusing on a single poem; if you see chances to explore links to other poems in Fascicle 20, great, but you can do the assignment successfully with a single poem, too.