I must say that i am not a fam of poetry. I have never been intersted in it , thus making the task of performing poetry even more difficult. Despite my disinterest in poetry i selected two poems to present in class, by Emily Dickinson. There were so many to choose from, some which i did not understand.
I picked two which pertain to nature because somehow i think that poetry should be about nature? the first is "The wind begun to rock the grass", by Emily Dickinson. While reading this poem i could see the scene being described. I thought it was very intersting how Dickinson gave nature human characterstics. Also the way she used the word He to imply God. God and nature somehow are always related. I looked up a few words to clarify the meaning such as livid, which means angry and describeds the lightning. I also looked up the word quartering, used in this last line, " The waters wrecked the sky, but overlooked my father's house-- just quartering a tree-" I think this could be interpreted two different ways. Either the rain missed her fathers house and split the tree into four pieces? (far stretch i know!) or that her fathers house only has a tree which lives on his property.
The second poem which i chose is " A fuzzy fellow, without feet", by Emily Dickinson. I chose this poem because i thought it was cute , and also because it tells about the amazing process of a caterpillar going through the cycle of becoming a butterfly. She could be relating this to herself also, sometimes as humans we feel like we go through a phase untill we have reached our true beauty. One word which i wasnt sure how to even pronouce was yclept, which i never really heard before. It actually is a middle english word that means called, or to call out.
Overall reading the poetry wasnt too bad, but hopefully the presentations of them will be successful!
I as many people have read The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in high school. I remembered the gist of the story but definatly did not remember what the custom house referred to. It took me a really long time to read it because i couldnt quite catch what the point of it was. After finally finishing it i am still a quite bit confused what it was really about.
Once i started reading into the story though it became much easier to read. So far, i have noticed one major thing in Hawthornes writing. He uses color to describe everything from moods, to characteristics, to setting. The most obvious being the Scarlet Letter A , embroidered in gold. This is suppose to be something hurtful yet it is described as something so beautiful. This horrible letter that Hester must wear upon her breast also has the ability to " come to life". As Hawthorne describes, "... and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit..." i found this interesting because he gave this inanimate object realistic charasteristics that really brings its significance to life.
Within the first few chapters, another thing really caught my attention. Hawthorne says, " the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary to grow more sensitive with daily torture." This i think could be related to present day movie stars. If someone famous does something wrong, such as have an affair, it is in the tabloids and no one EVER forgets what that person did regaurdless of the circumstances. It is something that will haunt them forever.
This is my first experience in blogging, so im sure this won't be too thrilling for anyone. In response to the two readings I was required to read for today i was less than thrilled to read Poe's, "The Raven." I've read it in high school but it never seemed to interesting to me. Maybe its because i don't quite get it. Is the Raven really his "Lost Lenore?", or is he just making these things up in his mind and its simply a bird.
I was a bit more interested in reading Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street, by Herman Melville. The story pretty much flowed along, except for the rather descriptive pages of each character. When i first read of Bartleby's unique response of, " i'd prefer not", i was startled. My first reaction was he could not read because he refused to reread his work he had typed. I give props to the narrator for being so patient with him, because this is one trait i lack! The fact that i kept trying to guess what was wrong with Bartleby made me want to keep reading so i was getting more excited for the ending, and then only to find out he died and we dont know why he acted the way he was! What a way to end a story..