Read poems 107, 187, 45, and 498. Poem 498 is long and challenging, and this poem will be the focus of your blog post. Your blog post should use one of the other poems to help figure out poem 498, and it should reference a previous post. I'm looking for half an hour of serious engagement.
107: “The nearest Dream recedes – unrealized”
187: “Except the Heaven had come so near
45: “Did the Harebell loose her girdle”
498: “What mystery pervades a well!”
In the beginning of this post, I was interested by Dickinson's interpretation of water. She describes it as "A neighbor from another world / Residing in a jar". I believe that Dickinson is explaining the diverseness of water. Being recycled all the time, water travels very easily. Dickinson uses the water to describe we think we know something as common as water but really we don't. Water is so much more then many assume it to be. She then broadens this idea to include all of nature ending with the idea that the closer we are to something, the more we don't understand it. Water is a perfect example for this because everyone is so close to it and yet we don't understand its complexity. This relates to poem 187. In 187, the idea that you lose something in the gain of something else arises which correlates to the water. The narrator of 187 states that she came hear to Heaven yet ended up losing something. Thus, as we get closer to things, even things we think we know well, we tend to lose it's meaning or something else.
ReplyDeleteLike Nicole, I see the meaning of poem 498 more clearly by looking at poem 187. In poem 498, the idea of the more you magnify an object or try to learn more about it the more complex it becomes. The metaphor that is used in this poem is the idea of water and the closer you become to water the less you understand. I believe the first line shows what the poem is really about "What mystery pervades a well" and this is saying that there is a mystery that goes through a well. When we think about a well we think of something that is being confined and that is definite and the we can figure out, but the more you look down the well the more it is confusing. When analyzing 187, the theme can be correlated to 498. This poem talks about how she wanted to become close with heaven, but as soon as she did she started to loose the things that matter most. This goes with 498 and the water theme as the closer we get to water, the less we are likely to know and we will start to loose focus of what we are looking at.
DeleteIn poem 498, I don't think Dickinson is referring to water specifically, but nature as a whole instead. In the first half of the poem she explains how the awe of God's works makes the understanding of nature nearly impossible. As a result we become closer to her (nature's) beauty. When we "simplify her ghost," however, we rationalize the works of God and end up with a lesser appreciation of nature's beauty. What Dickinson shows about her religious views in this poem may shed light on 187 where the speaker talks about having a "Double loss." This "Double loss" could be interpreted as the speaker losing faith in God and, in turn, losing an appreciation for nature. This would make the "Distance" even more hauntingly devastating.
ReplyDeletePoem 498 starts with water being something awe-inspiring and far away and then transitions to nature being something impossible to understand. She says that water has no "limit," so we can never see and comprehend all of it. While Dickinson is awed by the water, "grass...stand[s] so close" to it. She asserts that grass and water are somehow related, but she does not feel the same way toward grass that she does toward water. She describes the grass "next [to] the sea" as being "floorless" and showing "no timidity" ("sedge" means grass), but then she immediately goes on to say that no matter who you are, nature is a mystery. So she is making observations and speculating about water and grass, but she does not claim to know nature. She says that the closer you get to nature, the harder it gets to understand. That is because the closer you get to nature, the more you can see and the more you have to take in. This relates to what Nicole said about poem 187, where Dickinson says she got close to Heaven yet lost something- Dickinson describes hearing the "Grace depart" and then experiencing a "Double loss-" the Grace departing is Heaven leaving her door, but the second loss is the loss of her understanding of Heaven because of how close it came to her door. She said "I never thought to see," meaning that since she never looked closely at Heaven, she thought she understood it, but she didn't. She is making this same assertion with nature and water in 489, that looking very closely at something makes it muddier, not clearer.
ReplyDeleteIn poem 498, Dickinson begins the poem writing about water and the mystery that comes with it. Water comes from wells and is "a neighbor from another world" and you can never see the bottom of the well, or where is water comes from which creates a mystical experience. She goes on to talk about how the water is mysterious and that you can never see the end of nature. She then discusses grass and, I think begins to talk about nature in general. She says in the stanza about grass that water "is awe to me." She begin to talk about nature in total, like Ashlee mentions, and describes the vastness and mysteriousness of it. She is unable to understand the strange aspects of nature. Like Lane describes, Dickinson is describing how all of nature is mysterious and there is no way for us to understand it all and comprehend why thing are as they are. I think that this relates in some ways to poem 45. In poem 45, Dickinson is describing nature and how after something has gotten pleasure it has no use of returning to that source. The "harebell loose[s] her girdle to the lover bee" and the bee wouldn't come back as much as it used to. At the end of poem 45, Dickinson begins to question whether the things that we know are true and as they say they are, or are they different. She says, "Would the Eden be an Eden,/ Or the Earl-- an Earl?" She is questioning the reality and whether or not the reality is true. I think that you can relate this to poem 498 because she is amazed by the mystery of nature and water, and she is confounded at the multitude that is there. She is looking at the reality, but it seems as though, at least the water, is "a neighbor from another world" and not a part of our reality. In the last two lines of 498, Dickinson writes, "That those who know her, know her less/ The nearer her they get." I think that this relates to the end of poem 45 because questions how much they know about "her" and whether or not what they know is the truth. I think that Dickinson is trying to get us to look at the mystical world of nature and try to comprehend it, but the closer we get, the less information we actually know.
ReplyDeletePoem 498 first beings by telling how mysteries spread quickly. It then dives into the mystery of water. This water is contained in a jar where it can only be seen. The odd thing is that as Dickinson describes the jar, she says "whose limit none have ever seen But just his lid of glass". It is very contradictory because she is describing a jar that has no limitations but the lid. The lid keeps everything inside the jar, so therefore, how can the water be limitless? The grass is not afraid of this mystery because the grass is near water when it is by the sea. So, the grass has nothing to be scared of. Dickinson then begins to describe how nature is strange almost like a mystery. I do not understand the line "have never passed her haunted house, nor simplified her ghost" but I do know that is has something to do with the objects in nature that are not afraid of water. Dickinson closes the poem by saying that we should not pity the ones who do not know the water because once you get you know something you lose its true meaning. I agree with Maddy about poem 498 connecting with poem 45. In poem 45, the plant "loose her girdle". I think is opening line is important. Just like girdles were used to give certain appearances to a women, it gives the plant a certain appearance. The water, in poem 498, also has a certain type of awe inspiring appearance. At the end of poem 45, Dickinson says "Would the Eden be an Eden, or the Earl - an Earl?". I think she is wondering if everything will be as she expected. Poem 498 talks about how when you get to know something you lose it; Your expectations are shot and lost because the mystery of the water is known and there is nothing left to search for. Nothing is as it was expected.
DeletePoem 498 begins with the idea of water being spread so far away, which is like a neighbor living in another world completely trapped. The neighbor is the main set up for this poem. He has never tested his limits outside of what he knows, which is in the jar. He seems to know that there are infinite possibilities out there, but there is some type of fear instilled in him, and this prevents him from taking the chance of the experience. The neighbor is compared to a piece of grass by the ocean in that they are both close to freedom, but there is something holding them back. His fear comes out of the idea of getting too close to nature and freedom because that is what will cause him to be haunted by his conscious. The last stanza talks about those who are pitied for not getting close enough to nature and freedom, but at the same time, to those who have gotten close, they are envious of the neighbor because they have spent their lives searching for an answer only to get further away from it. I related this poem to 187. In poem 187, Dickinson talks about the idea of heaven coming close to her and realizing how close death could be to her. However, all this time she spent trying to get close to heaven as been playing with her because heaven came close only to slowly drift away. This causes her to lose both conscious and her soul. Poem 498 can relate to this in the sense that the neighbor realized getting closer to the truth is only going to make him experience even more loss in his life. I agreed with Nicole. We both compared it to the same poem and the same idea that as we become more attached to something, the pain of losing it is even greater, and therefore we suffer more.
ReplyDeleteIn poem 498, Dickinson starts off the poem talking about the mysteriousness of water. This is seen in the first 2 lines where she says, "What mystery pervades a well! That water lives so far". When you look at a well you cant see where the water comes from, but you know it comes from somewhere, and this is the mystery of the water. These ideas are present in Maddy's post. I relate this poem to one of the poems we talked about in class, poem 196. In this poem it isnt that the guy just wants water, but he doesnt even know what water is. "To One denied to drink/To tell what water is/Would be acuter, would it not/Than letting Him surmise?" So this goes back to this idea of water, but I believe Dickinson is using water as a metaphor for religion. There is a lot of mystery in religion, and nobody really knows where exactly religion came from, but everyone believes what they want to believe, and everyone knows it came from somewhere.
ReplyDeleteDickinson starts off by saying that there are no mysteries farther than the water of the well. This is because the depth of the well is so vast enough mysteries exist already. This well however is a metaphor for another world, perhaps an after-life. THis is given by the limitless jar upon no one can see an end. THen she talks about this mysterious blade of grass which i beleive symbolizes a person inside this world. A person who isnt affriad of the light; courageous. This a person who is a mystery to the world unknown to the outside trapt in this world. Here i beleive Dickinson is writing in her own respects to her own lifestyle of solidtude. There is so much mystery behind this intelligent womn inside her own house. 196 relates her realm to the idea of letting another prescense in, yet she is affraid of that which she doesnt know perhaps that is the key to her own mystery here.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is very profound, and this profundity is actually the main theme of the poem. I agree with Ashlee and Nicole. I think that water is being used in its literal sense, which coincides with what Nicole thinks. However, I could also see water as representing something deeper. It is as if water is has some depth I think the water that this jar contains is a metaphor for the Earth. It reminds me of the poem that closes with the lines “finite infinity”. It is as if the water can be contained, but there is some limitless aspect that will never be able to be measured. There is some great mystery about this contained substance. Although I find the second to last paragraph very puzzling, I would like to skip to the last stanza. The line “those who know her, know her less the nearer they get” reminds me of many of the other poems. It reminds me of poem 107 and the idea of a Dream receding. There is this impossible dream that recedes. Receding reminds me of a wave receding that is being drawn back into this bigger mass, this bigger picture. The last two lines also remind me of poem 187 and “Heaven being so near”. There is an implied notion that Heaven, which is victory, pleasure, divine, and the ultimate goal in life, being so near yet so far away. There is some distance that separates Dickinson from what she wants in life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Katie, and by extent Ashlee and Nicole, that the water is being used in its original form as part of nature, but Emily Dickinson is again talking about the trauma that the soul and mind experiences when in contact with the visceral torrent that is nature. Dickinson says that looking into water is like looking into an abyss’s face. I took face not to mean the front or wall of a cliff, but to mean looking down into an abyss. In the next stanza Dickinson questions why if grass can stand so tall overlooking the abyss, why we cannot do the same. Dickinson goes on to say that nature is still a stranger, and that the one who writes the most about her has not experienced the haunted house that is nature. Again she brings up specters and ghosts. The last stanza is very important, but confusing in the manner of its presentation. Dickinson is saying in a complicated fashion that we must experience nature, and not “cite” her. That is all we can do to understand nature. This relates to poem 187 because of the relationships that Dickinson has between herself and nature and between herself and her dreams. The relationship in 187 is simple because Dickinson points to that losing a dream and seeing it fade away is worse than it fading unacknowledged. Her opinion of nature would be the same. The trauma of nature provides an experience that Dickinson would not want to live without. Her trauma forces her to live.
ReplyDeletePoem 498 explains how those who seek the "water" can never get any closer. The water contains a whole new world unimaginable outside of the fact that the world merely exists. This means that no one knows what the new world entails, and the more people look into the "abyss" of the glass jar containing the world, the less they actually know about the world. This Idea relates to analogy of the pollinating bee in poem 107. In this poem, the bee mettles around with small flowers that it understands; however, the bee then wants to pursue the sky. The bee starts out knowing nothing of the sky and it remains this way; however, the rare bee that does not explore the sky understands more of his world because he does not attempt to reach the new world. I agree with Alex because his post exhibits the same theme as mine. As he says in his post, the new world is like a well and that although one cannot see the bottom of the well, one knows there is water in there. I agree with this because Dickenson explains her idea in a similar way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Nicole said in poem 498 about how Dickinson shows how diverse the human beings of the world are. She uses water as an example and says that water isn't exactly what everyone thinks it is. People drink water in order to survive and believe they know it like one of their friends. Once they go see a well, for example, they realize it is much more complex than it comes off to be and it puts some people off because they see it comes from the ground. Dickinson is shpwing that the closer you become to someone the less you realize that you actually know them. The person you believed was fun and friendly is actually a secret CIA agent. Just kidding, but you get the gist. Like Nicole, I also believe you can relate this to poem 187 because she talks about how "Heaven had come so near" and that you think heaven will be great, but you really end up losing something along the way. Dickinson mentions that "I" is afflicted with a "double loss". This double loss is probably that she has lost her connection with the living and that the living has lost connection with her. Essentially, Dickinson is trying to explain that you don't really know something until you are really upclose and personal with it and that thing can have negative complexities that might surprise you.
ReplyDeleteI, too, agree with Nicole about the 498 poem. We think we know water because it is used in our every day life. But, the closer we get to it, we lose our understanding of it because we do not understand the diversity that water holds. Water is endless like the sea, but it is also limited to a well's walls. The mystery of water is how far it can go. The mystery of what is deep in that well. I think it also as a sense of opportunity that is so close, but it is taken from you. "he never passed her haunted house, nor simplified her ghost." We use water so often, but we can't past the walls that holds water within. We cannot solve the mystery of what is behind the glass in the well. That lid of glass stops us from discovering that pleasure of knowing. This connects to the poem 187. In this poem, the subject is so close to heaven and the "my door". I think of it as the door of knowledge. But when the subject realizes the distance, it becomes a loss. The distance is equivalent to the lid of glass. The subject cannot reach heaven because of the distance from here to there. It shows a desire to know what is behind it when you are already so close to it in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Logan that in poem 498, Dickinson, once again battles with the unknowable force of nature. The poem beings with concrete thoughts, like general words about nature and then it speaks of the nature of knowledge and goes way in depth, like the abyss. Poem 187 more clearly shows the more you magnify an object, the more intricate and complex it appears. Dickinson is overwhelmed by its complexity. She compares "a stranger yet" to a "haunted house" or a "ghost". Nature seems so serene and the grass has no fear. The entire poem has a theme of to those who look for the "water" will never get it. It will always be something so inexplicable, yet so breath-taking and serene. At the end of the poem, Dickinson is more like the grass, so is part of nature, yet feels that she knows little about it.
ReplyDeleteI think water is that familiar thing that you want to reach, but it's just past your fingertips. Then it's saying that there is no limit. It is possible to reach the water because you have the whole world by your sie. I'm not quite sure what she means when she says, "in an abyss's face!" In stanza three I think it's saying that the world is bold and fearlesss so why can't we be? there is so much to discover that we can't be afraid of it. Maybe stanza four is saying that we are so close to the sea. So we can't be afraid. We just have to jump right in it and not be scared to take our feet off the floor. I'm a little confused about stanza five, but maybe it's saying that the world and nature will always be strange to us because there is always something new to explore. the world isn't simple. And the last stanza is saying that to feel sorry for those who don't know the world is to feel regret in yourself. Those who think they understand something an are connecting with it are really getting further and further away. I feel like after reading several other blogs I feel this poem may have to do with getting closer to and understanding religion and god, but I also agree with Nicole that this poem is similar to poem 187 where it's saying that when you lose something, you may gain something else in return.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nicole about poem 498. The description of the water as diverse indicates that the world itself as well as the people in in are diverse. she says that the limits are not seen, meaning that there is no limit to thw world that one can venture out into. Humans must take the opportunity to live life to its fullest extent by interacting with other humans. Human existance requires one to be dependent on other humans. Poem 187 refers to a double loss. This refers to death as well as the failure to acheive complete relationships with other humans. All human being have a connection that they may or may not take advantage of, and they lose this chance when they die.
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