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October 25, 2005
Poetry Slam
The Poetry Slam was actually interesting. I did think that this was going to be very exciting or interesting but it was. Although, we never did get out of class early. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN! Well, anyway although i thought that I kind of messed up my reading of Anabelle Lee everyone else enjoyed it, according to their little notes they left me. I do like the positive notes but i didnt get any criticisms or "critiques" to put it nicely. I know mine wasnt even close to being perfect, but i guess everyone else could have judged me better if they had actually had a good understanding of the poem. It was interesting that Lou had also choosen the same poem and we had somewhat of the same interpretation of the poem, which may be the first and last time that will ever occur. Lou's reading was definitely a little different than mine, but I'm not saying his was wrong or right, we just stressed different things and spoke in a different tone. His was a much more quiet and laid back tone whereas i think mine was a little more powerful, i tried to be kind of laid back but also expressing the fact that Anabelle Lee and her love were going to reunite and that their love was forever. I dont know if that actually worked out though.
Posted by MeredithBenson at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2005
In a Library
"A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,"
I dont know if i am really reading this wrong or not but this is what i think of this poem. I just think that she is talking about how when you go into a library you can totally lose yourself. You lose yourself in books. Books can take you anywhere you go, they can make your dreams come true. It seems as if she has no one but her books which make her feel not as alone.
Posted by MeredithBenson at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)
The TASTE of Liquor
"Inebriate of air am I, And debauchee of dew, Reeling, through endless summer days, From inns of molten blue."
I thought that this poem was really interesting and happy! I like happy things. Alcohol makes you feel great (most of the time), unless you drink a little too much. It makes you so happy, why do you think the irish drink when someone dies? Good ol' Irish wakes. But, Emily Dickinson isnt really drinking. The first line tells us that because the liquor that was never brewed. She seems to be drunk off of life. Which is a great feeling unless she is bipolar and this is her "happy stage", but otherwise this is a great feeling. There has to be something that makes her so happy. What is it?
Posted by MeredithBenson at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2005
Silence
"No power hath he of evil in himself"
I think that this is a great sentence in this poem. I think this is where Poe definitely strengthens his point in the poem. He is saying to take control of your life and face death head on. Basically, live your life and dont care about dying. Death cant control your life. Its death the last you're going to do in life so who cares! People get so scared of life that they dont live their lives.
Posted by MeredithBenson at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)
Epigram for Wall Street
I thought that this poem was very amusing because everything the speaker said he was being clever. It was mocking wall street which was definitely a change from the Poe that i've read so far, with the crazy depressive stuff. The best parts of the poem were the italisized parts creases! and double!. I thought that they were the best becauses you're taking the bank not and folding it and it gets creases in it but it also may increase and when you fold it in half then you are double your money. I think that he is saying that wall street is just about as good as putting your bank note in your pocket.
Posted by MeredithBenson at 10:15 PM | Comments (1)
The Raven
"'Till I scarcely more than Muttered " Other friends have flown before -- On the morrow he will leave me, as my hope have flown." Then the bird said "Nevermore.'"
I was drawn to this quote for many reasons, but the first one being because he said other friends. It would not have been such a big deal but before that he said "till I scarcely more than muttered", which makes the "other friends" part different. This time it is different for the speaker because "scarcely more than muttered" seems like there is uncertainty in the speakers words. His friend that he all thinks of now is Lenore and in the beginning of the poem the speaker was in his room reading his books which seems to be his way of covering up his sorrows for Lenore.
Posted by MeredithBenson at 07:36 PM | Comments (3)
October 05, 2005
Walden Chapters 4, 13, and 18
"What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate see what is before you, and walk on into futurity. "
"If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends! If the cloud that hangs over the engine were the servants were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that which floats over the farmer's field, then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their escort."
"Each morning, when they were numbed with cold, I swept some of them out, but I did not trouble myself much to get rid of them; I even felt complimented by their regarding my house as a desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, though they bedded with me; and they gradually disappeared, into what crevices I do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold. "
"I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread work, which shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one's head — useful to keep off rain and snow, where the king and queen posts stand out to receive your homage, when you have done reverence to the prostrate Saturn (7) of an older dynasty on stepping over the sill; a cavernous house, wherein you must reach up a torch upon a pole to see the roof; where some may live in the fireplace, some in the recess of a window, and some on settles, some at one end of the hall, some at another, and some aloft on rafters with the spiders, if they choose; a house which you have got into when you have opened the outside door, and the ceremony is over; where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping; where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg, that a man should use; at once kitchen, pantry, parlor, chamber, storehouse, and garret; where you can see so necessary a thing, as a barrel or a ladder, so convenient a thing as a cupboard, and hear the pot boil, and pay your respects to the fire that cooks your dinner, and the oven that bakes your bread, and the necessary furniture and utensils are the chief ornaments; where the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes requested to move from off the trap-door, when the cook would descend into the cellar, and so learn whether the ground is solid or hollow beneath you without stamping. A house whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest, and you cannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some of its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there — in solitary confinement. "
"If you examine it closely the morning after it freezes, you find that the greater part of the bubbles, which at first appeared to be within it, are against its under surface, and that more are continually rising from the bottom; while the ice is as yet comparatively solid and dark, that is, you see the water through it. These bubbles are from an eightieth to an eighth of an inch in diameter, very clear and beautiful, and you see your face reflected in them through the ice. There may be thirty or forty of them to a square inch..."
Out of all the chapters these are the sections/quotes that I was most fascinated by. This story was very interesting and made me think a lot. I think that these were interesting parts in the story because they show this man's outlook on life. He loves the simplicities of life. Like wasps and bubbles, the everyday things that people take advantage of or overlook. Most people sees wasps as pests, they are annoying, but it is quite fascinating that he feels blessed by the presence of them. He is the lucky one because they choose his place to nestle down in. Day after day he studied the bubbles, the size, the amount, the color and so on. The simple things in life are what he really enjoys. He doesn't seem to let things bug him. He has everything he wants right in front of him. His one room house which he adores. He also seems like when he does something he doesn't do it because he has to do it but because he wants to do it. He takes real pleasure out of everything he does.
"It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now."
"As if there were safety in stupidity alone. I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extra-vagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced. Extra vagance! it depends on how you are yarded. The migrating buffalo, which seeks new pastures in another latitude, is not extravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail, leaps the cowyard fence, and runs after her calf, in milking time. I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man in a waking moment, to men in their waking moments; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true expression."
There are so many different parts that I like in chapter 18, like section 7, 8, 9, 10, and so on.
In the conclusion, I really thought that he was becoming upset with the fact that people could not really appreciate everything around them. But after reading the rest it was apparent that he was not getting mad he was just telling everything that people get mad at and why they shouldn't be getting mad. It was also intereting to see in the 9th section when it says "let every one mind his own business and endeavor to be what he was made." it really reminds me of voltaire's saying Il faut cultiver notre jardin. He is very inspirational in chapter 18 and he really talks life's simplest pleasures.
Posted by MeredithBenson at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2005
Walden - Chapter 2
"That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way."
I was most drawn to this part in the story because I felt like it was such a profound statement. He is a deep thinker and I think this really shows that he appreciates life and all of life's contents.
Posted by MeredithBenson at 11:58 PM | Comments (1)