Download Dickinson Day1Em

Today:
Emily Dickinson!
Closer reading of
“I Started Early—
Took my Dog—”
How to read a
Dickinson poem
HW: Complete
Annotations of
520
Emily Dickinson
Schedule/Notes Assignment
You will be able to use your notes for
the final Passage Analysis test.
Ballad
“A simple narrative poem, often of folk origin, bearing
romantic and sentimental character, composed in short
stanzas.”
French origin, means: "dancing song".
Traditional ballads were stories and romantic tales set to
melody and rhyming, written to be sung to music.
Four-line stanzas (also known as a quatrain).
Normally, only the second and fourth lines rhyme in a Ballad
stanza.
There is usually a refrain (repeated line or verse) linking
everything together.
The tone of a Ballad is often tragic with the language being
simple and impassive.
Source: http://www.writeawriting.com/poetry/ballad-poems/
Syntax
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Definition: the way in which words and sentences
are placed together in the writing. Sentence
structure.
In English, syntax usually follows a pattern of
subject-verb-object agreement (ex: “Ms. Gerrity
spoke to us.”) but sometimes authors play
around with this to achieve a lyrical, rhythmic,
rhetoric or questioning effect (“To us spoke Ms.
Gerrity”).
Dickinson uses “inverted syntax” (ex. “No one he
seemed to know-”)
Diction
Definition: The choice of a particular word or words, as
opposed to others. The word choices a writer makes
contribute to the author's style and determine the reader's
reaction.
Ex.: a writer could call a rock formation by many words--a
stone, a boulder, an outcropping, a pile of rocks, a cairn, a
mound, or even an "anomalous geological feature."
When analyzing literature, we ask: Why that particular choice
of words? What is the effect of that diction?
Let’s just say Dickinson knew exactly what she was doing
with word choice- so THINK ABOUT THEM!
anaphora [a‐naf‐ŏ‐ră],
A literary device in which the same word or phrase
is repeated in (and usually at the beginning of)
successive lines, clauses, or sentences.
Example from Dickinson:
Mine—by the Right of the White Election!
Mine—by the Royal Seal!
Mine—by the Sign in the Scarlet prison Bars—cannot
conceal!
Types of Rhyme
SLANT RYHME/Off Rhyme
Identical Rhyme- sane/insane
Eye Rhyme- through/though
Vowel Rhyme- see/buy
Imperfect rhyme- time/thin
Suspended Rhyme- thing/along
Exact Rhyme- see/tree
Internal Rhyme vs External Rhyme
Dickinson’s rhymes are infrequent, she chooses to use types
of rhymes that were not accepted until the 19th century and
are now used readily by modern poets.
Rules as we know it…think again
Dickinson eliminated inessential
language and punctuation from her
poems; she disregarded grammar
rules thus creating incomprehensible
or riddle like poems.
Dash- may emphasis a missing word
or to replace a comma or a period; or
a pause
Capitalization- for no apparent reason
Enamored with language…
Some of her lines are definitions
Hope is the thing with feathers
Pain has an element of blank
Renunciation is a piercing virtue
Taking notes on “I Started Early”
Read through the poem, each time
focusing your notes on the specific
question
After reading it a few times, you will
have a wider grasp of the style,
themes, poetic choices and scope of
analysis needed to begin an analysis
of this poem
#520
“I started Early—Took my Dog—”
Generate two questions you have
about the poem.
Note any rhetorical devices we have
spoken about today: anaphora,
caesura, diction, syntax, etc.
Speaker
Who is the speaker?
What is the speaker’s attitude toward the sea in
the poem (identify where you see this)?
Does the attitude change (mark where)?
Which words or images suggest a shift in
her thinking (mark as ‘shift’ in margin next
to the shift)?
What makes the sea recede at the poem’s
end (find the motive and identify which
words, punctuation, theme, style, etc. aid in
this identification)?
Note Ballad Form
Dickinson’s poem loosely adapts the
ballad form. Like a song, it uses
rhythm, rhyme, and repetition to tell
its story. What effect do the rhymes
(and later on in the poem, the slant
rhymes) have on the story she tells
here (mark the poem up for rhyme:
both internal and end, and find the
slant rhyme)?
Punctuation
How does Dickinson’s use of dashes
and capitalization help to create a
sense of suspense in the sea’s
growing danger (find these and mark
them, then identify in margins the
effect)?
Artistic Representation
How did the visual help, distract,
change, or encourage your own
understanding of the poem?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsw
nl4_emily-dickinson-i-startedearly_creation
Does the poem have more
meaning, now, than when you
first read it?
Literal Meaning
Symbolic Meaning
Laws of Nature
Sexuality
Death
Something else???
Homework
Complete Annotations on #520
With Vendler’s Guide by your side, go down
the steps to annotate poem #510/#511
Be sure to annotate:
Speaker
Setting/Situation
Abstract/Real
Syntax
Meter
Rhyme Scheme
Imagery
Climactic moment
Rhetorical Devices