Hey,
I was just wonderin if any one had any views on the idea that emily dickinson uses self abnegation as an attempt to place her self in the readers center of attention? iv got an essay question that basically asks if she uses self abnegation as an illusion, a dramatic attempt to force herself into the center of our attentions. Iv done some research on the meaning of self abnegation - the setting aside of self interest for the sake of others, or for a belief, and is kind of like a denial of the self. I was thinking that maybe her proccupation with death is a example of this, as death is like the ultimate in abnegation, as its the ultimate disapperance?? have any of you got any other ideas? the poems i was thinkin of using were Hope, If i should die, It was not death and maybe I could not stop for death. (iv included them on here for reference).
If any one could help id realy appreciate it!
Thank you, Lyndsey
Hope
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
If i should die
F I should die,
And you should live,
And time should gurgle on,
And morn should beam,
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done;
If birds should build as early,
And bees as bustling go,--
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with daisies lie,
That commerce will continue,
And trades as briskly fly.
It make the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene,
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!
It was not death
It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down;
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues, for noon.
It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl, -
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.
And yet it tasted like them all;
The figures I have seen
Set orderly, for burial,
Reminded me of mine,
As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame,
And could not breathe without a key;
And 'twas like midnight, some,
When everything that ticked has stopped,
And space stares, all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns
Repeal the beating ground.
But most like chaos - stopless, cool, -
Without a chance or spar,
Or even a report of land
To justify despair was not death
Im sorry this post is so long!