Guillaume Apollinaire

Now I know that reading this weekend was probably hard. Good thing I don't really have a life and was stuck in school all weekend or I probably would be up all night trying to read the whole assignment. Yet when I read it, I found my favorite character of the book so far. Guillaume Apollinaire, to me, was one of the greatest guys there. He was the friend you wanted in your crew or circle because he brought the entertainment, as shown when Picasso was laughing to hard to tell the story about the non existent duel. At the same time, he was the sweetheart you needed if the day wasn't going as planned or the man to buy you a beer if you had a rough day. Yet I'm upset because Stein brings him in page 58 to kill him in 59 and 60-62 makes only small references to him. It's sad because he should be the good guy that we hear adventures about and lives, instead he is made to be the man who loses the love of his life all of a sudden and dies from fighting a war he wasn't suppose to fight. Nicholas Sparks couldn't have written a worse ending if he tried. I know this is based on true events and that he really did have a bad last few days but was it really necessary to build up my hopes and dreams only to crush them the next page, Ms. Gertrude? Goodness, its already bad enough that I find out he is dead but then she has the nerve to tell me since his death no one remains friends. What incentive do I have to keep reading? Only to keep going and see how all their friendships blow in their faces. If it wasn't for the assignment I would probably light the book on fire from frustration and just go on with my life. Now that was just my rant on my deep emotional trauma from this reading. I apologize if I offended any one but it needed to be said. Thank you, and good night.

Reading assignments for Stein

For Tuesday: Ch. 3-4
For Wednesday: Ch. 5
For Thursday: Ch. 6
For Friday: Ch. 7

I checked with the bookstore and you should be able to return your copy of Invisible Man for a full refund. Let me know if you have any trouble. I'll post the short stories for next week on Blackboard by Friday.

Hope you're all enjoying the holiday!

Henry Adams Summary

If there is one thing Henry Adams wants to tell you in his daftly classified autobiography, its that education is a constant habit of life. All through life, humans' main goal is to learn and transcend their current state of being. Man seeks to understand nature not only for that purpose, but to make life more convenient in general. The rate at which we are learning is accelerating, which makes it a metaphor for force. F = ma, if you don't remember.

Henry Adams seemed to favor education through life experience over the conventional process of schooling. There are a few different ways Adams conveyed his life and views to us: through historical evidence , images, and anecdotes.

In class we came to the conclusion that technology and religion could cooperate with each other, however those holding power in the church were corrupt and persecuted scientist unfairly even though they were not irreligious. Adams likes using images to describe the mind. There was no ah hah moment because there are no end all-be all discoveries in knowledge, just continual growth.

Adams Conclusion

True to form, the last three chapters of The Education of Henry Adams were difficult to follow. Best I could tell, Adams continued the theme of telling the reader about his education by industrialization. He talks a lot about progress, force and energy, all in some sort of metaphorical sense, and seems to suggest that the Church is losing energy while industry and technology are gaining it. With all this going on, Adams seems unsure about the future. As far as what he means by the gravitational attraction of an entity, I find that difficult to understand even having done research on the Internet about it. This whole human/nature interaction makes it unclear, to me, what he's really getting at, but it seems to suggest that Adams is talking about humans' interaction with nature from the standpoint of trying to learn and experiment with it. That is, figuring out ways to survive, then, having pretty much figured that out, moved on to try and learn things to make life more convenient as the 20th century approaches. But again Adams seems to be suggesting that he's unsure whether human's have the capacity to handle to much more advancement.

Why Adams' "Education" motivates and inspires us.

When Henry Adams decided to write his own biography, "The Education of Henry Adams," he used the third person perspective. It was a revolutionary concept at the time, since the "usual" standard of an autobiography was focused on what was perceived the author had done "right" throughout their life, versus the struggle Adams had seen in retrospect or "wrongs." He takes the reader on his journey in the quest for not only knowledge, but the understanding why he decided to ignore the standard of following the expectations of his famous family while questioning his own motives and expectations.

Adams recognizes his status in the beginning of his life, which is one of privilege due to his family's background. He consistently rebels against what is perceived as the correct way for his life to unfold to experience life on his own terms. Adams openly does the one thing that terrifies people by the admission that he was wrong in some areas and the consequences of the decision as being a life-long question of what motivates people to achieve greatness on their own standards. He uses this fact to motivate and inspire himself to look beyond what is usually offered to a person and sees the potential of enlightenment. That potential, Adams believes, is achieved though self-education and is a life long endeavor that has to be pursued until he has the answer.

Why did Henry Adams write this book? Adams gives the reader a look into the intellectual and political life of the late 19th century and the impact of the "dynamo and the virgin" on his modern world. It helps us all to be Henry Adams and see what we can achieve instead of looking back on our own life without regrets and endless "What if" scenarios by continuing our own education as he did. It also helps us to understand the questions we ask ourselves and how Adams had similar questions that we ultimately find our own resolutions in our continuing education.

Michael

Nan Thinks Therefore She Is

"There is no limit to the power of the thought current you can attract to you nor limit to the things that can be done through the individual by it. In the future some people will draw so much of the higher quality of thought to them, that by it they will accomplish what some would call miracles. In this capacity... lies the secret of what has been called 'magic."

~ Prentice Mulford (1834-1891)

_____________________________________

By George, I think I’ve got it! Err…maybe. I think.

In Chapter 33 of “The Education of Henry Adams,” I begin to comprehend the conclusion of Adams’ “education.” Much like the film “The Secret” and top-selling book “The Attractor Factor,” it appears that Adams stumbled across the “meaning of all existence” during his life’s education. A couple of doctrines similarly parallel Adam’s theory: “I think, therefore I am” and “mind over matter,” meaning essentially “he [man] is the sum of the forces that attract him” (Adams 358).

Man serves as the attracting force of nature, drawing every nuance of life to him like a magnet. We are each comprised of a series of compounding moments involving people, places, things, thoughts – each having an integral role in shaping the very core of who we are right down to the tiniest of particles, dictating the very life we live, shaping our next step, forming our next thought. According to Adams, “…all these forces formed his thought, induced his action, and even shaped his figure” (358).

Thus solves the mystery of Adams’ dynamic theory. I hope.

The Meaning of Education

It took me awhile to figure out how to post, everything is in Spanish and my knowledge of Spanish verbs is extremely rusty.
Because I haven’t been in class for the discussions this book has been a little bit more difficult for me to grasp. One thing that I did notice was the importance of education in the book. Education appears to mean different things and doesn’t necessarily mean formalized education. It seems to mark chapters in Adams’ life. The first chapter in his life seemed to be marked by the times he spent with this grandfather and the education that he received from him. That chapter in his life ended when his grandfather died. The Free Soil Party was the next major Influence on Henry’s education and helped to prepare him later in life. One thing I found that was interesting was the overall tone of Chapter3; I found it interesting that Adam’s felt that he hadn’t really been educated. I felt his thoughts may have been due to the end result of the snowball fight and the deal that the members of the Free Soil Party made to support a pro-slavery candidate. When Henry finally receives formalized education he rejects it and finds it intolerable. His descriptions of Harvard were hard for me to believe because we hold Harvard to such high standards now. It also seems as though the narrators standards are extremely high stating that what they completed in four years he could have done in one month. After finishing this chapter and reading that Henry still claimed not to know anything I realized that education stood for something more and that it didn’t necessarily mean “education” in the traditional sense but instead referred to life lessons which is also seen in the later chapters. After coming to that realization the beginning chapters made more sense, now I believe that when he was talking about Harvard he meant that it wasn’t preparing him for the real world.

Henry Adams

The Law of Acceleration was a hard chapter for me to understand. I don't really understand the relevance of this section, maybe I missed it. Also, I noticed that he never seems to have a smooth transitions from one idea to the next. He starts out the chapter talks about images, then switches to motions, coal output and it goes on. I think this sort of speaks to the stream of conscience we talked about in class. Something that just caught my eye from this chapter was the first sentence. I hope we can try and talk through this. Adams writes, "Images are not arguments, rarely even lead to proof, but the mind craves them, and, of late more than ever, the keenest experimenters find twenty images better than one, especially if contradictory; since the human mind has already learned to deal in contradictions." I never thought of images as arguments, I wonder what makes him say this right off? Also, I think it is important to develop a sound definition of what images are. An image could be as simple a symbol for something just how someone views something. With that said, images can help enhance your argument. The mind craves images because it brings their thoughts into perspective. I wonder why Adams brings this up because I do not really understand what he means by the image needed is a new centre. Does this mean that he is now needs an image to prove his point contradicting his first statement?

Education of the future

Well, I want to start out by saying that I was somewhat disappointed by the ending. I was waiting for this big "ah hah" moment to occur with regards to Henry Adams' education, yet their wasn't one. Or maybe their was, I just missed it between the science and history lesson he provided within his last chapters. I think the "education" that he speaks of throughout this book is not what I perceived in the beginning. It's not the education that he learned as a boy or at Harvard, but the education he is discussing means a lot more. One thing I understood is that this education is a constant thing. It is lifes lessons as well as the history that we, and those that have lived before us have been through. His ending was quite blurry to me and he made a bunch of references to various individuals and time periods- yet I didn't fully understand the relevenace of his ramblings. I thought it was interesting how a lot of the predictions he made, looking back from our generation, proved to be true. In order to understand the force, and dynamic he speaks of, we need to take our minds outside of our current time period and understand the period he was living in. I do believe that man and nature work together and have for centuries, something that he touches upon. Without this force, where would we be today? We would not have progressed what so ever, and he incorporated those examples of Rome as well as the other time periods as an example (also- mentions scientific advancement as another example). He was living during an era that was flourishing with a bunch of technological advancements as well as scientific. Furthermore, he touches upon the future. I found this somewhat of a surprise because in the beginning of the book, he is so drawn by the 18th century and he thinks of himself as a boy from that time period; evrything that appealed to him was from that era. However, in the end he is more focused on the future. He doesn't seem to be stuck in that old century anymore- I could be wrong though because we did not read other parts. However, this future that he speaks of - he speaks of it in a historical context. He wishes he could live one day in the future with some of his fellow friends that have passed, possibly to see the advancements that that generation would have produced. In sum, I think he was presenting a message that each generation advances, and he speculates what will happen in the future, and if those in the future will be able to keep up on the same level. Meanwhile, will the future generation make the same mistakes? History does have a way of repeating itself, and can we truly go forward without looking back? (After trying to re-read these final chapters, I am still completely and utterly baffled).

Religion vs Science?

To be honest, I was reading on autopilot for most of the chapters and sadly didn't look into as many of his points as I should have. I happened to finish our reading yesterday so I wouldn't have to read anything tonight. Yet, from our class discussion and fear of failing another reading quiz, I realized the value of looking deeper into this book and decided to reread the last two chapters. In the previous few chapters, Adams seems to be pinning the new world's point of view through science versus the old one, mostly seen as the Church. Yesterday, I first thought him to stating that to be religious was in a way to be ignorant. As if, there was no use for religion in this new century for it was outdated and one must look for new education in the world of science. Though, some may view religion as a way of ignorance that is not Adams' point.
On page 359 he writes "Man always made, and still makes, grotesque blunders in selecting and measuring forces, taken at random from the heap, but he never made a mistake in the value he set on the whole, which he symbolized as God". He reminds me of my mom who when she was in her early teens went to church because it was what you did if you lived in Hollywood, SC and came from the Green family. Yet when she began to question God and her parents, they had no idea how to answer. They just said Church was important because that's what they were told to do and she just had to do it. She soon rebelled and refused to go to church all together since they couldn't give her a legitimate reason to go, also because the church was basically the town's Moulin Rouge. Later, she discovered the Church again but because of how she felt it was important to her and for her own reasons not "just because".
I feel this is Adams' point. He is not bashing religion, the belief in science, or evolution but stating that the mistake is to hold those things high without knowing what is holding it up. No man or woman can make a mistake if he or she knows the value and the reason behind their support or belief in something. He, in a way, implies not all men will have the same education because all will have different life experiences as well as different values and reasons for the way they live their lives.

For me, the Education of Henry Adams has been quite the journey - the first reading assignment we had was painful (no offense), but as we have proceed further into the autobiography, it has become more clear that his intentions were to reveal the different stages and experiences of his life, and his "education" is way of saying "life events." He also used humor in the book that we can now appreciate more that wasn't too noticeable earlier on. The book is unlike anything I've ever read because of the perspective of his autobiography. As we discussed in class, he doesn't use the first person point of view, rather he uses third person to get his point across. This, we concluded, was to retract himself from the situations and this outlook makes his opinions seem not so bias. It also makes it seem more like a story than an autobiography - this also makes it seem like he's telling the story about different people. For example, he calls himself "Henry," "The boy," "the Student," etc, so it creates a different feeling, like a tale, rather than a timeline of events. This completely alters the perspective because it makes the reader not feel as if they are reading a boring summary of someone's life, rather there is a plot. Overall, I've gained more respect /enjoyed it more the further we get into it.

Adams reading assignments

Sorry again about class today. Here are the reading assignments for Adams:

Wednesday: Ch. 4; pg. 157-159 of Ch. 14; Ch. 25 (these were originally assigned for today); Ch. 29, Ch. 31

Thursday: Chs. 33-35

See you tomorrow!

The Adams Family (snap snap)

The following quote caught my eye on pg 28 "From women the boy got the domestic virtues and nothing else. He might not even catch the idea that women had more to give." Sexist a little? I suppose growing up in the world of politics during this time period when women couldn't vote or be elected to office has a deplorable effect on your perception of their capabilities.

I find it odd that he would describe or compare time periods that are not his own. for instance "...that he might meet some personal difficulties in trying to reconcile sixteenth century principles and eighteenth century statesmanship with late nineteenth century party organization." You never see people today saying that they have this new plan, but their going to have to mesh together 3 different ideologies from 3 different eras. As a statistics major, I'm never going to solve a problem by using out dated technology or methods, Henry Adams should think more in the present if he ever wants to make something of his life, which he won't.

With todays discussion in mind, I Haven't seen anything comical, except the sexist thing but I'm sure everybody wouldn't find that funny. I suppose it was a little funny when he said that the proudest moment in his life was telling Sumner that he got elected(p 36). Not a very successful life if that is the case.

Henry Adams

I really enjoyed our discussion today on Henry Adams, because it gave me a new way of reading the book. Maybe I was too overwhelmed by the metaphors and contrasts in the beginning, but now that I look back, a few parts were actually quite funny. For example, on page 27, Adams talks about how he thinks that only learning math, Spanish, German, and French is good enough for him to live through life. This is hilarious yet ridiculous, because I can't imagine how our lives would be if we only learned these four subjects.

Other than that, I find it really interesting how Adams takes "education" at a whole new level. Education to me has always been about going to shool and mainly learning from textbooks and research. Adams, however, seems to see education more as knowledge learned from life experience. For example, one of his first "lessons" in life was learning the color yellow from sitting on the kitchen floor in sunlight, and he "learns" about slavery by visitng a slave state (Washington). There, he physically sees acutal slavery and experiences what it's like to be in a world with slaves, and I personally think that learning like this is very effective.

Midterm question

I'm going to e-mail Kelly about this, but figured someone might have the same question and/or the answer, so I'll share it here.

Does the concluding section about Melville or Dickinson go at the end of essay two, or is it separate altogether?

Melville Poetry Discussion

I was going to post this Wednesday night but I wanted to wait for everyone to post on the poems and I’m glad that I did because it helped add to the summary.

“The Portent”, of the two poems this one seemed to be more poetic. The use of a more apparent rhyme scheme (“The Victor of Antietam” seemed to have more of a slant rhyme and less structure). Although “The Portent” was more poetic it still managed to sound like a war chant. The use of “Shenandoah!” in each of the two stanzas added to this feeling. Other aspects of the style of the poem were significant as well; the use of the parenthesis around “(Lo, John Brown)” and “(Weird John Brown)”. In class we agreed that “(Lo, John Brown) meant ‘And thus John Brown’ was foreshadowing the events to come. Line 13 ”(Weird John Brown”) was significant as well referring to how the general public as well as the president viewed Brown. The use of ‘weird’ also had more than one meaning; it can be used to mean out of orbit, kilter or out of a predicted pattern. ‘Weird’ helps to emphasize that Brown was different from other abolitionist and everyone else. One interesting thing that Melville used was his reference to Christ lines 5-7, comparing John Brown to Christ hanging from the cross. This was a radical comparison for that time period because most believed that John Brown was crazy because of his actions and Southerners hated him. These lines really helped to establish Melville’s feelings about the entire situation as well as his feelings toward John Brown. One interesting aspect that was pointed one in class was his reference to Shenandoah, lines 3-4 and lines 10-11. Line three “Gaunt the shadow on your green” represented the shadow of John Brown being cast down on the Shenandoah Valley ultimately foreshadowing the death that would there. Finally line 14 “The meter of the war” we determined could have multiple meanings referring to Brown’s capped head with his beard flowing below or meteor could be a signal to change or an omen.

“The Victor of Antietam”-

The poem starts off telling of a man that was called to duty because he stood out from the rest; we learn that the man is Gen. McClellan. Melville later goes not to praise McClellan and this praise can be argued to be sarcastic at times but is not an outright dismissal of McClellan. Melville writes: “Your tent was choked with captured flags”, Choked does not have a heroic connotation. Also “meet round the board, and sadly view”, this is a reminder that everyone is dead but is also saying ‘good job’. The style that this poem was written in is very unusual it seems closer to prose than poetry. The poem doesn’t seem to have a clear rhythm making it difficult to read aloud. Melville does add strength to the piece through his use of noise and visual imagery. Most of the visual imagery is found in the second stanza: “Though storm-cloud and eclipse must most”, “A pall-cloth on the Seven Days fell”. While most of the noise is found in the fourth and fifth stanzas through his use of ‘drum’, ‘boom’ and “Hearing the far Manassas gun!” Melville poetry is different when compared to the other pieces that we have read. It isn’t abstract, Melville means exactly what he writes and no further analysis is needed. Also like “The Portent” Melville makes a series of historical references that require background knowledge of the time period in order to understand the poem. Melville also makes religious references in this poem, showing how much religion was a part of their everyday lives as well as the lives of others. Finally we found that the poem was circular in nature both ending and beginning with cheers; first with the public cheering and ending with the soldiers cheering.

Repeating History

I know this post is incredibly late; My mind and body are both still getting used to being in school and working at the same time and I've been a little under the weather. But I guess it's better late than never...

So excuses aside, I found it very interesting that in class on Tuesday, most people enjoyed Dickinson's "They Fall like Flakes" as opposed to "It Feels a Shame..." I was on the opposite side; I really enjoyed the latter. I don't know, I guess I felt more emotion and connection on Dickinson's end. I'm a poetry writer as well as a poetry lover, and I tend to lean more toward those pieces that evoke and/or relay more emotion than not. I'm generally not a Dickinson fan but I must say that I liked this poem of hers particularly.

After reading and re-reading this piece, talking about it in class, and then thinking about it afterwards, I got a bit of a revelation: "It Feels a Shame" can easily be applied to present day, and a little bit of my own personal feelings. Now I know this is not a place for political soapboxes or anything like that, but I kind of see a parallel to Dickinson's feelings toward The Civil War and my own personal feelings toward The Iraq War that's going on now. Like Dickinson, I don't know that I am content with knowing that there are soldiers dying "in pawn for Liberty" while we sit here and wait for the war to end. I watch the news and wonder, is it all worth it? Just as Dickinson probably thought as she read the newspapers during her own time. I find it amazing how history repeats itself and that a crazy recluse (as I tend to look at Dickinson) would have shared similar sentiments about a similar situation as I do.

2 Poets, 1 Topic

I was really worried when we began reading and analyzing poetry in class because I have never truly been able to grasp it; at least, that is what I thought before this week. I really enjoyed reading the poems and listening to how everyone analyzed them in various and similar ways. One thing I found interesting was how people had gathered completely different thoughts or meanings from the poems, and that just goes to show that poetry can be interpreted several different ways. With that being said, I really enjoyed reading Emily Dickinson's poetry far more than I did Melville. Both of their poems covered the same time period and topic- but I feel like they were completely different. Dickinson's poetry spoke out to me more and I believe that is because of the amazing vivid imagery she places within her poems. My two favorite were Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers and The Name of it is Autumn. Immediately, I got the sense of calm and peacefulness in Alabaster Chambers, even if it was about a dreary subject such as death. I truly felt that she was trying to portray that in death individuals have peace. While her other poems dealt with the war, the first time I read the poem, I didn't beleive it was about dead soldiers who were burried. I took it as a poem that was speaking of death in general. This poem was a huge contrast from the others to me, not just because of the message, but because of the way it was written. Her other poem, The Name of it is Autumn, really spoke out to me as well. The imagery in that poem is fascinating, as gory (due to the blood imagery) as it was. Her poetry tried to send out a message- she was obviously against the war. As I was reading it, I imagined the soldiers dying and bleeding to death as their blood was trickling down the road. I appreciated the fact that her style was different from other poets, and the fact that her poems didn't necessarily rhyme.

Melville's Poems

Funny thing is I hated Melville, almost more than I do the Red Sox or the Colts. I will tell you that is a feat in itself to accomplish. The only book I disliked more than Benito Cereno was Plato's Republic. Now to understand my dislike for Plato, I always told others if I had to go back in time for only one mission my one mission would be to set Plato or Socrates, whoever I found first, on fire. Graphic I know but I guess it shows Melville and I have kindred hearts for gory violence. An exaggeration, of course, don't think I'm some Rhoda from the Bad Seed. I would never kill a 10 year old with my tap show just because he won the penmanship pin. Now that I have probably thoroughly confused you with my random tidbits of information let us go back to the matter at hand of discussing Melville's Poems.It was probably easy to notice me bubbling up in class discussion about his poems. I enjoyed them a lot and that came as a surprise in itself considering I didn't like his book. His poems added history and interesting facts and details don't. Yet, he maintained a way of having hidden emotions and complex undertone many poets have. His merely was hidden under history and bloodshed.

As I had mentioned in class, I feel Melville was more on McClellan's side than on Grant's. "The helmed dilated Lucifer--Honor to Grant the brave", the sarcasm of honoring Grant is quite hard to miss. He, obviously, was not Grant's biggest supporters. Why else say that Grant was basically the Antichrist leading the devil into Richmond if you did not have some kind of animosity towards the person? This makes me question back to Melville's thought behind slavery. If he did support McClellan then he probably would have been one of the men to side with McClellan's Presidential campaign. In McClellan's stance, he stated he wanted to end the war and compromise the South back into the Union. The only way to have this accomplished would mean McClellan was aware the slaves would more than likely not be free. Ever since reading Benito Cereno, I have questioned whether Melville truly supported slavery or not. This connection may merely be something I randomly put together but it may be something to consider. Maybe Melville truly was against abolition. He may not have been outright saying he hated blacks but maybe he felt the way many felt; blacks were ignorant savages that had way to act if given freedom. His writing may have changed and so did my opinion of his writing but the true underlying message may have stayed the same. It would put pieces together of the puzzle to state why he wrote what he did. Yet, no one can probably know for sure except Melville himself.

Religious References

I found it interesting the amount of religious references present in the poetry that we have been reading. In “The Portent” lines 5-7 “The cut is on the crown/ (lo, John Brown)/And the stabs shall heal no more”. “The Victor if Antietam” Line 8 “Each Cause and Man, dear to the stars and Jove” and the third to last line “The one-armed lift the wine to you”; that one may be a stretch. But I felt that it could be a reference to McClellan being the country’s/soldiers’ savior because at the last supper the disciples raised their wine to Christ. In “The Fall of Richmond. The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis” lines 5-6: “A city in flags for a city in Flames, Richmond goes Babylon’s way-“ and in “It feels a shame to be Alive-” “I think the Man who die ’Those unsustained –saviors-Present Divinity-“ to name a few.

I felt that all of these references where important because they show how much religion was a part of their everyday lives as well as the lives of others. And that through religious references the authors are able to portray their points more effectively to the audience of that time period. I also felt that the use of these references added drama to the pieces. In “It feels a shame to be Alive-“ by comparing the soldiers to saviors they are given more recognition, they are greater than Heroes in Dickinson’s eyes, instead she considers them Christ-like; giving their lives for their love of their country and mankind. In “The Portent” lines 5-7: “the cut is on the crown (Lo, John Brown), And the stabs shall heal no more” helps to better identify Melville’s position on John Brown. Finally in “The Fall of Richmond. The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis” Melville states “Richmond goes Babylon’s way”, I found that extremely significant because in the Bible Babylon (is referred to as the city of Babel) tells the tale of a city that is very powerful that eventually meets its end as does Richmond.

Emily Dickinson

I could definitely see Dickinson being emo if she lived in this day and age. She has all the eccentric traits and the emotional tendencies to be one, at least thats what I take away from the way we described her on the whiteboard in class on Monday and her obsession with death in her poems.

My intial responses to the poem "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" were not of death. I did fathom the notion that the alabaster chambers were coffins, but that led to a series of questions: Why would the coffins be untouched by Morning or Noon as opposed to Evening? Were funerals only held in the evening back then? Is the Resurrection alluding to Christ or zombies? Why is there an exclamation mark after Roof of Stone? It would seem that the tomb at the grave would be the roof of stone, but why is that exclaimed? Maybe its for fear of the zombies.

The 2nd stanza of the 1st version is ultimately what led me astray from the theme of death. The imagery of nature and spring made me think of just the opposite - that of life. But then Dickinson throws a curve ball at you when she uses words like stolid, ignorant and perished. I thought with her being a recluse, she was criticizing the outdoors because she preferred a life of solidarity. I know I'm not the first person to be annoyed by birds waking me up in the morning with their "ignorant cadences." But continued analysis reveals that this intepretation is completely wrong and that death is indeed the theme that can link all the components of this poem together.

Melville discussion

I thought Marissa brought up some really good points about Melville's intention with "The Victor of Antietam" and I hope I didn't rub anyone the wrong way when I brought up the point about people who serve in war. Marissa, if I understood you correctly (and I apologize in advance if I didn't), you seemed to think that Melville was more on the side of McClellan than he was sarcastic towards his accomplishments. The historical references that you used to support your point of view were great. I definitely learned things that legitimately swayed my opinion.

That said, I don't think it swayed it enough for me to get over what, in my opinion, are blatant instances of sarcasm in the poem. It does seem a bit out of place when, at one point, Melville seems to be commending McClellan for a job well done, but the point I was trying to make with my war reference wound up being a weak attempt to defend my reading of the poem, which I'll try to supplement here. We could have a semester-long discussion on the pros and cons of war, I'm sure, but I'll do my best to stay out of any grey areas.

I think that the excerpt where it appears that Melville may be commending McClellan is nothing more than an admission (perhaps declaration is a better word) that sure, there were people who supported McClellan, but given the context of the situation, that's not all that implausible. Throughout history, there have been great examples of people who followed a leader or fought for a cause that, in hindsight, they probably wouldn't have had they able to see the big picture. Nazis are the best example that come to mind. I think drug dealers and kooks from some of these religious cults serve as good examples as well. Surely there are others that came before the Civil War.

Anyway, I don't want to wander off of the point, but I think that the rather lengthy passage that most of us took to be some sort of credit to McClellan, could be read as nothing more than a break in the sarcasm for what Melville perceived as literal rationale in opposition of anyone who thought McClellan a competent general.

Dickinson Poetry

This week, we began our discussion on Emily Dickinson. There was a variety of poems that we were to read, including “Safe in their alabaster chambers,” “They dropped like flakes,” “It feels a shame to be alive,” and “The name of it – is ‘Autumn.’” Personally, poetry is difficult for me (and I’m sure for a lot of people in the class) to comprehend and understand it’s message at first, but as I learned in class this week, taking a poem line by line makes unraveling it’s meaning easier. These three poems we read and analyzed this week had common themes: death and war. Many of Dickinson’s poems reflected on these themes, and many of them had historical meanings. For example, “The name of it - is ‘Autumn,’” as we decided as a class, represented a battle from the Civil War. Also, “Safe in their alabaster chambers” reflected the soldiers who were now laid to rest in their “alabaster chambers” (coffins).

Different from these two mentioned above were “They dropped like flakes” and “It feels a shame to be alive.” “They dropped like flakes” was a poem about the numerous deaths of the soldiers. The poem gives the idea that there are so many deaths at such a quick pace that its difficult to recognize them (lines 7 and 8 show that it is difficult to identify and keep up with all of the casualties). “It feels a shame to be alive” presents Dickinson’s (or anyone’s) “survivors guilt,” while brave and loyal soldiers are out fighting for their country and losing their lives for freedom and liberty. The poem also shows that people are torn as to what is actually important enough that it would cost a life (is liberty priced higher than human life?). Overall, I really enjoyed reflecting on the meanings of Dickinson’s poetry and appreciated poetry more, having been able to dissect the true representations and messages behind them.