Week 9 Project Action Plan (Again)

Prompt: 
Pick a subject: love, work, freedom, etc. Then choose 2 selections and discuss how that subject is discussed in those selections. Use literary devices to help frame your discussion.
       - Subject: love and death

Material To Write About: 
Emily Dickinson
Pages 480 - 490

Poems to Compare/Contrast:
303 (love)
465 (death)

"303

The Could selects her own Society -
Then - shuts the Door -
To her divine Majority -
Present no more -

Unmoved - she notes the Chariots - pausing
At her low Gate -
Unmoved - an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat -

I've know her - from an ample nation -
Choose One -
Then - close the Valves of her attention -
Like Stone -" (Page 483)

"465

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed aFly -

With Blue - uncertain stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -" (Page 485)

Notes About Emily Dickinson:
- 1880s, she was "gossiped" about, "strange woman, dressed only in white gowns, who never left her father's house" (480)

- Only published 10 poems during her lifetime but were published anonymously

- "Begged those closest to her to burn her papers after her death. They refused, instead startling audiences by publishing [her] unusual lyrics, with their passionate intensity, broken meter, slant rhymes, and unconventional dashes and capitalizations." (480)

- After Dickinson passed away, her sister found almost 2000 poems stashed away in a box


My Notes About The Two Poems
- 303 seems to talk about love
- The narrator/character seems to be different from other women, like Emily Dickinson was different than women in her time; possibly related her own life experiences into her characters/poems
- The "Unmoved - an Emperor be kneeling" = her Prince Charming?

- 465 seems to be more dark, and death-like
- The buzzing fly; "when I died"
- Talking about stillness also seems to remind of being lonely
- "I willed my Keepsakes" = she is trying to will herself to remember her memories and good times before she passes; she wants to hold them close, one last time