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!”
Poem #498 compares a well with original sources of water such as nature. The well is "so far," so deep that no one has ever seen. It is even an "abyss." No one can understand either this or nature. Nature is a "stranger." The closer you get to nature, the less you know. However, the water from the well seems like it has much more potential to be dangerous. Whereas water is perceived as limitless and looking into an abyss, the grass is not afraid of being betrayed.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is similar to poem #411 from class today. It says, "Perception of an object costs/ Precise the Object's loss." This is just like poem #498 that says "That those who know her, know her less/ The nearer they get." The closer you get to something, the less you know. The more you investigate nature, the more questions you have. One will regret getting too close to nature becuase they will lose its true meaning.
This poem is not as confusing at first, but towards the end it gets really confusing. The poem begins with talking about water in different settings-- in a well, in a jar, an abyss-- but then changes the subject to grass. Both of these topics have to do with nature, which is what the second half of the poem is talking about. Dickinson personifies Nature as something or someone that you will not ever be able to fully understand, saying that nature is a "stranger" and "the ones that cite her most have never passed her haunted house, nor simplified her ghost." This reminds me of poem #187 that we also had to read tonight. In that poem, Heaven is described as coming "so near" and had chosen the narrators door to come to, it was as if it was in her grasp. In the second stanza, the narrator says "but just to hear the Grace depart," implying that heaven was getting further and further from her reach. This is just like Nature in poem #498-- so close but you can never really grasp it.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways, I agree with Leon in that the well is a mystery because of its dangerous potential "who's limit none have ever seen." Nature is similar in that it too is also incomprehensible and mysterious as those closest to it are beset by its difficulty. In analyzing this poem along with poem 411, I observed a similar paradox in that those who live close to nature are as mystified by it as those who are separated and detached from it. And the same idea crawled into my brain which was that the closer you get to something, the more complicated it can be to actually appreciate and understand.
ReplyDeleteI would hope I'm not simplifying this task too much to the point of missing the entire meaning, but after reading poem #498 with help from #187, I feel it follows that same theme of something being lost and that much more worth becoming conscious of - like in poem #411. Dickinson says, "what mystery pervades a well!", so we're talking about something we don't quite know. Using poem #411, I'll say this mysterious thing is God. Saying, "That water that lives so far" is really saying that God lives so far. Or in other terms, spirituality is really far away and hard to grasp. I'm not using the term religion, for that is only the institution, whereas if we're talking about man being with God, this is spirituality. He is a neighbor from another world - Heaven (#187)- residing in a jar. Note He's residing in a jar, but His limit has not been seen. It is reminiscent of that idea of being limitless yet limited. She says, "The grass does not appear to be afraid", but the grass are inanimate, they have no consciousness. "That those who know her, know her less The nearer they get". Dickinson gives the idea that the human consciousness makes us go toward things so far away like God, which is why He's so mysterious. The great Distance in #187 would seem so close to one's Door, but it's not. It's stranger than nature and can't be touched or seen. It's timid and intangible.
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ReplyDeleteI have read over his poem several times an still remain a bit confused about it. The message of the first stanza seems to be that the water inside the well is separated by a great distance from the sea. “A neighbor from another world Residing in a jar” creates the image of a great dividing distance, almost to the point that it seems other worldly. This same theme seems to carry on throughout the entire poem, a sense of a great divide between to objects which are otherwise very similar. This could also be a contrast between things that reside in nature and things that are man-made. The sea being natural, the well being man-made. As I get deeper and deeper into the poem, things begin to become more and more abstract. A very important quote I feel is “Related somehow they may be the sedge stands next the sea” this rhyme scheme is strong and I believe has a deeper meaning.
I feel that the poem 187 helps understand some of the themes in the poem of 498 because it emphasizes distance and division.
I agree with Parker, whom agrees with Lee. I feel too that maybe this poem is saying the "the closer you get to nature, the less you know."
187
ReplyDeleteI feel that in her poems Emily often presents the same themes and ideas. It was really difficult to make small connections between the poems because sometimes words kind of form their own meaning and connect to each other. I have to say that I agree with much of what Antonio says. 187 is the best to connect to 498 because it talks about the idea of loosing something and being lost, connects you to whatever you are separated from. "You don’t know what you have until it's gone" they both connect to this quote. She is also saying that the need to know and understand something creates the mystery.
In the context of this poem, there is a great deal of mystery involved as to the in depth meaning behind the poem. The last few lines of poem #498 there is a slight relation to the idea of it is better to learn through the experience as she states "to pity those that know her not is helped by the regret that those who know her, know her less the nearer her they get." Like the man unable and unaware of the ability to drink, Dickinson uses this poem similarly to continue her idea of learning through experience is greater than to be all knowing. She also continues this idea in poem #187, as she describes "...afflicts me with a Double loss- 'tis lost- And lost to me-." I believe, that essentially through both of these poems she is expanding her idea of learning through experience is the utmost of all lessens in life.
ReplyDeleteI dont understand this poem at all. It mentions water again like the other poem. She says that it is a neighbor from another world. She is using the theme of distance here by saying that something is a neighbor, so it is next to us, but it is from anothetr world, which is far away. This distance helps to understand the relationship with water. Later she says that "nature is a stranger yet; the ones who cite her most". This means that people who talk about nature the most dont know it well at all. She then says that those who know her,know her less the nearer her they get. The closer one gets to nature, the less they know her. This distance perception is saying that the farther you are, the more understanding you have.
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