I have to agree with of my other peers, that I'm not a huge fan of Dickinson. Honestly, I had no idea what her poems meant that we read in class until we talked them over for a while. Even then I was not completely sure what they meant.
I was looking at my notes from her poem about madness 620 [435], and I'm still confused. She did compare madness with sense, but I'm unsure as to what point she was making. Is she exclaiming that no one can really make sense, or that someone sould make sense of madness? Either way, I think she is talking about individual over society.
Along with that, her lifes seems very quiet and sad. She mentions in one of her poems how she has church at home. I want to push her into community with other believers. I know that sometimes it's good for one to step back and dwell on their own thoughts and life, but it's also very important to stay connected with life and society. I don't agree with everything she has to say, or even understand it, but that's okay.
I wrote this on Julia's blog as well, but I may be one of the few that liked Dickinson. Yes, she may not have always made sense, but I think that is what is so fascinating about her. I want to know what was going on in her life that compelled her to write the poems she did. The idea of sense and madness made sense to me after we talked about it. I like the idea of thinking about how maybe it is those of us who we would like to think are normal that are actually the crazy ones. Maybe the crazy people are actually normal! Haha. Anyway, it is kind of fun to think about.
ReplyDeleteDickinson knew the Bible extremely well and I think that it might be part of the reason some may not understand, unless one also knows the Bible to the extent that Dickinson did. I think her poems are also more individual but I think that her poems show her struggle with her faith just like people today wrestle with it as well.
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