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!”
When Dickinson talks about a well, she is talking about a literal well. This well is never ending and is dark. The only thing visible is the water at the top. The grass surrounding the well is "floorless" just like the well that it surrounds. This relates to the poem 187. The Heaven is so close, yet so far. This is like the well in that the well is right next Dickinson, but still so mysterious. Heaven came so close to the door, but it left making it even more mysterious. The fact that the well is right next to Dickinson makes it more mysterious to her and us.
ReplyDeleteMuch like we have discussed in class, poem 498 also deals with the water and how it is too big to understand it or make meaning of it. However in this case, she is using the water of a well to prove her point. Dickinson says, "That water lives so far/ A neighbor from another world/ Residing in a jar". You cannot see the bottom of the well, so you are not able to understand what is down there. This concept is similar to poem 187 when Dickinson talks about "distance". She says, "The Distance would not haunt me so-/ I had not hoped-before-". In this case, she is not scared of what is between her and Heaven where as in the other poems, she seems to be worried about things bigger than herself.
ReplyDeletePoem 498 includes the idea we have discussed in class that things appear limitless. In this poem specifially, the well seems never ending. The well relates to oceans in previous poems that appear so big, yet they are actually such a small part of the whole world. The narrator is so close, yet so far to the bottom of the well, which relates to poem 187. When in a dream, you feel so close to heaven, until you wake up.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is talking about the idea that we have talked about about in class about how things dont have a limit to them. She talks about a well that is neverending and the grass around the well is not afraid of the dark and gloomy well. This can link back to poem 187 when it talks about being so close to heaven but far away at the same time. In 498 is also says, "That those who know her, know her less". This is similar to the idea we had in class when we said that we know someone better once we lose them.
ReplyDeleteThis poem is talking about nature. In life, there are people who are far away from it, as well as close to it. Regardless of this position, each and every human being is simply baffled by nature. Essentially, the closer you get to it, the more difficult it becomes to understand. Sometimes, we need to insert distance in between us and nature in order to understand it better. Although Dickinson is close to nature, she doesn't know much about it. This relates to poem 187 when they idea of heaven being so close yet so far away. In order to understand different people and things, we must distance ourselves from them.
ReplyDeletePoem 498 and 187 are very much alike. I believe in order to understand and grasp the full meaning of 498, you must read and understand poem 187 because they seem to have the same concept as Margaret said. "The water lives so far" meaning it really has no limit; its endless. A well seems to be endless also. Dickinson also mentions grass or “sedge” and says it is “floorless” and it is not really as fearful as water. Dickinson goes on to say that “nature is a stranger yet;/ She is basically saying here that nature is strange, it is different, we don’t really know what it is. In 187, Dickinson talks about heaven and says “But just to hear the grace depart/ I never thought to see.” She thought she had an understanding of heaven since “it had come so near” but really she doesn’t understand heaven at all. She keeps trying to find the complexity in things, like heaven, but as she keeps looking at it, she seems to be straying farther away from her understanding. This relates back to poem 498 with the grass and the water. The longer she tries to understand the complexity of nature, the more it haunts her. Those who know nature less, are those who get closer and closer to the meaning of it. Dickinson uses ghosts and haunting to show how she is traumatized by these experiences. She tried to figure out the meaning of things, but never understands because those who try to hard will never understand.
ReplyDeletePoem 498 is about the well being seemingly infinite when it is just a small part of the world. This relates to what whitman said about how each person is almost infinitely unique yet people share this uniqueness and they are all part of a much bigger world. Although Dickenson is close to nature she doesn't know much about it cause she spent much of her life in her room, this can be compared to how people are a part of the world but it is so vast that they can't begin to comprehend it
ReplyDeletePoem 187 and poem 498 are similar. In both poems Dickinson seems to be feeling a kind of spirit or force that is close to her. These forces are almost like an abyss as well. In poem 187 heaven seems to be close to her door. Heaven is never ending, it can be like an abyss because heaven is unknown, no one can ever tell of their experiences of heaven. The more you try to explore this abyss the farther it goes away. At the end of poem 498, the more you try to understand the ghost that is in the haunted house, the more it fades away from you.
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ReplyDeletePoem 498 begins with water being at a distance. It goes on to say that the ultimate transition into nature is something a person can’t understand. If something has no limit, such as a body of water, you can only understand as far as you venture. Although, water is limitless, so you can’t understand the entire thing. Dickinson goes on to describe grass. She admires it, and is fascinated by grass, although not as much as she is with water. Nature is a mystery to everyone. It is something no man can truly understand, because it is bigger than any man. Dickinson, like many other people, claims to know parts of nature such as grass and water, although they can’t know every blade of grass or body of water in the world. The closer one gets to nature, and more obsessive one becomes with it, the harder it is to grasp and understand. It is too much for man to comprehend the whole thing. In poem 187, this relates getting to heaven but losing something. If you come close to the afterlife, and realize what it is, it takes you away from it because the afterlife is unknown, just like nature. She is having the same connection with nature in 489. Coming so close with things makes you realize what they are, but also brings you farther apart from them.
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ReplyDeleteOriginally I thought that when Dickinson was talking about society she literally meant society but towards the end of the poem I ended up thinking that it wasn’t about society as a whole but rather about an individual finding some sort of identity through love or something. The poem describes several different things trying to block the entrance of something foreign into the heart because these things would not create any effect on the persons. In the last stanza it talks about how the heart chooses something that it wants within intself and then closes itself off to any other outside influences. This poem seems to be about someone falling in love and not letting anything else effect their love but the tone of the poem is much more harsh than one would think about love. The society described in the beginning of the poem I interpreted to be the outside influences on the individuals hea
Poem 45 relates to Poem 498 because they both discuss whether the appearance of things actually represent their true realities. 45 repeatedly discussed different things and whether they actually are what they claim to be, and whether the Harebell will still love the Bee after the true nature of the bee is revealed. 498 discusses a similar topic, in which the water at the bottom of a well appears different than the same water in a class somewhere else. Although the water is the same in both places, they do not resemble each other when they are in a different location. Nature is described as the greatest enigma in the world, and nothing will ever reflect what it once appeared to reflect, similarly to the the way in which the Harebell will not recognize the Bee once it has given itself up to it. Appearances are merely mirages that are incapable of truly identifying what exists underneath the facades.
ReplyDeleteThe wonderful well as a metaphore for another dimension is used and compared with the bottomless jar. The blade of grass to me represents a person within this seperate world. The water in this well is a far reach. Dickinson says that all water is far away. I thought of this like the horizon. No matter how close you are to ocean water there is always the same water an enormeous distance away. In other words, the water is seemingly infinite. This relates back to some of Whitmans ideas. Also sort of like the ghost at the end of 498. It has a sense of neverendingness.
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