Three Words on Emily Dickinson

It’s not a word but the use of the hyphen in Emily Dickinson’s writing is very significant, important, and intriguing. “They” is an important word in all of Dickinson’s writing, the connection she makes to the outside world even though she spends most of her adult life in seclusion is interesting. And “Me”.
The use of the hyphen is interesting in Dickinson’s writing because it adds so much emphasis to certain words, it adds voice to her writing, and it makes you notice the parts of her writing she wants noticed. It makes her point so much stronger, as she details her life and her feelings, her thoughts and her dreams, we are instructed to pause and digest as we read by each and every hyphen.
Every time she uses the word “They” it intrigues me based on the fact that Emily Dickinson spent her adult life as a recluse. After caring for her sick mother for the majority of her life before connecting to the outside world only through correspondence, she had to have experienced a good amount of life in order to connect so well with what everyone thinks. So many people consider her one of the greatest writers of all time, and most of her writing was done from memory, from vicarious living, from pretend. In her mind, she came up with these poems about herself and others, watching others live their lives.
The use of “Me” is interesting as an opposite to the word “They”. In her reclusive life, she has to keep inside her own head. Thinking about herself in terms of herself is really what her world must revolve around. Her poems become very introverted as time goes on, and you can see the change readily as her writing goes from reaching out to the outside world to reaching within herself alone.

Textual Studies and Emily

After working in the AML this week, I decided that what we are studying, and the connection to the internet is very interesting. Textual Studies is really cool. I have always been interested in the original writing of writers and comparing it to the finished product. I do the same thing with my own writing, going back and seeing what I changed, trying to remember why. It gives me a great deal of insight into what I was thinking at different times, something you can see when you go look at these writings online. In looking at different examples of the development of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickenson’s writing, I was excited to see that Emily would ask her sister about her writing. It makes her so much more real to know that she didn’t just come up with the amazing writing that we see today, and not only through her own revision did she come up with it, but also by asking others.
After reading some of Emily Dickinson’s writing, I found it so interesting that her lifestyle so goes against what her writing portrays. Her life as a recluse really makes her writing seem even better. The fact that she can connect to the outside world so well and describe feelings she may have never felt in her life. Everything that she wrote really touches some part of every reader. The fact that she connects to so many people, becoming probably one of the best writers of her and our time, makes her writing so much easier to appreciate. Her understanding of the world around her is so deep; her interpretation of the events going on around her is amazing.

Current Connections

After reading “A March in the Ranks Hard-prest and the Road Unknown” I felt a strong connection to today’s events with the many conflicts occurring all over the world, concerning the United States and many other countries.
Many of these countries are unknown to the people being sent to them to fight. They have never had to live in that type of climate and all of the sudden they are trained to live there for years at a time, following many “roads unknown”. Along with the unknown aspect, the fact that this narrator is observing crowds, people, all injured and fighting, trying to sleep when they can, dying all around him, its all very reminiscent of what’s going on, soldiers are dying everyday in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other places. Soldiers are also watching their comrades die, watching the enemy die, not knowing if they deserved to die or not, watching people they don’t even know die, and just continuing on. There is hardly a break for fighting soldiers, whenever they find a moment of rest, the time comes again to “fall in” and march out again, fighting the “good fight” and defending their country. There are also many soldiers fighting who have just barely reached the age where they are able to fight, or maybe even younger, “mere lads” in the warrior world and they are out fighting and dying. They fight their ways through, “wild red flame, and clouds of smoke” fighting to see each other and the people they are fighting. They are “ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks” on and on everyday, waiting for the conflict to end. They are on the “unknown road still marching”.

The Beginning

Test Blog for all those out there who are going to read this, I don't count this as my first, but now I know how!

~Sam