Song of myself (The Yankee…to her feet)
1.The theme of the poem
In this part, at first, the poet catches a beautiful scene of a “Yankee clipper”, and then interrupted by boatman to go and “have a good time” around “chowder-kettle”. At last, people’s happiness, casualty and beauty in a wedding is vividly described. Based on the context and our group discussion, we believe the theme of this poem lies in its positive attitude towards life and appreciation life’s beauty.
2.The poet’s attitude and feeling and ours
After the group talk we agree that the poem is in a happy ,joyous and leisure mood, and the poet is full of passion and happiness in terms of human life and harmonious relationships.
We are impressed by the poet’s active and passionate attitude. The word “sparkle and scud” jump into our eyes, by which we almost hear the crisp cut sound and see the shinning of the scissors. These two words make this line alive by offering us a sensible picture.
3.Social reference
we think this poem mainly based on Whitman’s own experience in the wild vast West frontier of America. From this poem’s contest it’s not hard to find that Whitman’s witness of the free and casual way of people’s life contributed to this poem.
4.Language
This poem is written in bank verse, the unique form of Whitman’s poem. It’s free form pulsing the plain words make this poem easy to understand. Whitman also employs a factual tone, a straight forward way when he describes the “Yankee clipper”, the party, and people who are going to have a wedding.
I heard a fly buzz---when I die---
1. Theme of the poem
The poet described what I’ll go through “when I die”. The poet “heard a fly buzz”, wondering she is seeing God, flashing back what she had been through and gradually dying.
2. Attitude and feeling
In term of facing death, the poet stays sober and calm and treats death as something trivial. A still and silent environment is created .we can feel this from “hear a buzz” and “breaths were gathering firm”. The poet dies without any company suggesting a lonely atmosphere.
The line “The Eyes around---had wrung them dry ---And Breaths were gathering firm” impress me the most. It gives me detailed description on the poet’s death slowly and surely. The process from live to death seems being stretched, which made me terrified and sad in a way.
3 Rhythm
This poem has 4 stanzas and each stanza has 4 lines. The rhyme scheme is A BCB, with trimester and tetrameter iambic lines.
4 language
The poem is written in unique Emily Dickinson’s style: frequent use of dash, Capitalization and off-rhymes that could be found everywhere in the poem. The dash is the only punctuation used, which save time for readers to pause, feel and think. Capitalization obviously stressed the importance and feeling of the words like “Fly” “Heaves” “Keepsakes” and “Windows”. Onomatopoeia could also be found. The “buzz” is the sound of “a fly I heard when I died”. The poet employs religious language when she said “the King”, who is God. She also uses symbolic language. The fly is a symbol of her trivial death. And as she mentioned “my Keepsakes”, what she had been through in her whole life flash back in front of her eyes.
