I have chosen “How Do I Love Thee?” for two main reasons: I feel really identify with this love poem and it reminds me of one of the best teachers I have ever met during my teacher training course, Mrs. Liliana Magrassi. She passed away few years ago but I can still remember the first time I read this beautiful sonnet with her in a workshop called “Language Through Literature”.

In this sonnet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning shows the love and affection of one person to another in a beautiful and delicate way. She depicts a love which is to extend beyond this lifetime. She is able to take the meaning and value of love to a much higher, even spiritual, level. Throughout her words, she effectively warms up our hearts by showing her passion to her beloved husband and how openly and freely she trusts on him.

This poem can be related with “To The Lighthouse” since the kind of love depicted in this poem is similar to one that Mrs. Ramsay expresses to her husband and family.

Once you have read this poem, it is hard to forget it. It makes you feel completely alive. We are left with the enviable feeling of love, stuck deeply in our hearts. For me, it is a quite magical sonnet that explores the abstract power of love and helps us believe that true love can last forever. 

Old Maids by Sandra Cisneros

I have chosen this poem not only because I like the theme (marriage) but also because the author is clear with what she want to express. After doing some research, I found out that this poem is autobiographical. Cisneros and her cousins were born and raised in Mexico. They were 30 years old and they were consider to be spinsters for their community and family. The poem explains that their aunts asked them why they haven't got married yet.

After reading the poem several times, some strong feeling were evoked such as sadness, gloomy and sorry for them. But after some research, this feelings changed because Cisneros chose to remain single. She explains in an interview: "I've never seen a marriage that is as happy as my living alone," Cisneros replied. "My writing is my child and I don't want anything to come between us." (taken from Wikipedia)

I believe that I can relate this poem with "To the lighthouse" because it is strictly connected with Cisneros. Marriage and age are important themes in the novel, mainly when we are talking about Lili Bricoe. She was single and  everybody at the Ramsey's house were trying to find her a husband even though she wanted to remain single and to continue working with her paintings.

In the gloster, I included a picture of Sandra Cisneros, rings (which represents marriage), a Mexican family (because of what the poem says) and an interesting video.

TRAILER: NICE WORK 2012

We have chosen to create a trailer for an imaginary film version of “Nice Work” as we feel identified with the story itself,with Robyn and Vic’s relationship and with the way in which the author presents the two different worlds - the Industrial and the Academic. With this trailer, we are trying to portray the most important features and themes of the novel.

In order to create this trailer, we followed some production stages. First of all, we watched different kind of trailers so as to know what a trailer consists of and what we should bare in mind while doing it. Then, we made a list of important quotations and key words that should be included. And finally, we made an exhaustive web search looking for photographs (characters and objects) and songs mention throughout the novel.

The programme we use to create this trailer is "Ulead Video Studio 11". We found it very useful and appropriate to produce this work since as an editing tool it allows us to include photographs, videos and music. At first, we had some difficulties with learning how to use Ulead but after trying several times we cope with them. Moreover, we found really hard to learn about the different format video files that are used to make this kind of works. And finally, at the moment of publishing it in “youtube”, we encountered serious problems concerning copyright issues so we were not able to publish it as it was asked in the assignment. We just managed to  upload it in the Litin3blog.

For the analysis of Postmodernism, I have chosen the trailers of two of my favourite movies: “Adaptation” provided by Mariel and “Magnolia” from one of my favourite films directors, Paul Thomas Anderson.

This is the link for “Magnolia”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwXDHSrNFbQ

Features of Postmodernism present in “Magnolia”:

· Questioning the grand narratives: this film questions the concept of religion as it is an aesthetic movie.
· Lack of distinction between game and reality: The whole story goes around a game show.
· Subjectivity: Stream of consciousness. The director lets us get inside the characters’ minds and hearts with dazzling style.
· Mini narratives and Simultaneity: The film deals with different stories at the same time. It is a Rhizone story as it shows connections between events and people without any causative explanation.

Features of Postmodernism present in “Adaptation”:

· Simultaneity and simulacra: The film mixes the present with not only the past and future, but also with the imaginary. Adaptation is about a script writer's process of adapting a book to film and an author's process of writing a book about a real man and events in his life.
· Multiplicity and incompatibility: Time, place and people are constantly jumbled throughout the story. Lots of things existing at the same time but not forming any kind of pattern or unity (“Pastiche”)
· Subjectivity: Use of stream of consciousness to let the audience get inside the characters’ minds and feelings.
· Self-reflexivity: Characters do learn lessons, grown and change: “the only truth we can offer is the truth that's our own experience of the world" (Adaptation).

The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner

                THE LAMENTATION OF THE OLD PENSIONER

                     by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

ALTHOUGH I shelter from the rain

Under a broken tree

My chair was nearest to the fire

In every company

That talked of love or politics,

Ere Time transfigured me.

Though lads are making pikes again

For some conspiracy,

And crazy rascals rage their fill

At human tyranny,

My contemplations are of Time

That has transfigured me.

There's not a woman turns her face

Upon a broken tree,

And yet the beauties that I loved

Are in my memory;

I spit into the face of Time

That has transfigured me.

 I’ve chosen this poem because the title caught my attention. After reading the poem and after doing some research, I found that this is the story of an old man who remembers all the good moments he had when he was young, his friends, the talks about love and politics, the woman he loved. And now, he feels sad because time passes and he is left alone with his memories. Time has changed him and now he misses his youth.

 The first time I read the poem, it made me feel sad and think about my grandparents and about old people. Sometimes we think that they are fine but we don’t really know how they are.

The poem has evoked old, black and white images and pale colours such as yellow or white.

Trailer- Nice Work by David Lodge

For the execution of this Trailer of Nice Work, we´ve captured textual parts of the novel for us to reflect a faithful version of it. Taking into consideration that this novel has many aspects to be focused on, we´ve chosen to focus on Vic and Robyn´s love affair so as to make this story more appealing to the public.

The programmes we used for this trailer were xtranormal.com for the recreation of the scenes and VideoPad to put together all the scenes created by the previous software mentioned and to add some captions.

Due to the limitations of the programmes, we couldn't be as precise as we would have liked to be, but all the same we used this software because it is user friendly and it allows us to cause the effect we wanted.

The first scene that appears in the trailer was recreated by us, since we as readers only know about this event when Robyn tells her friend about the shadow scheme. However we thought it could be interesting to recreate the moment in which Swallow proposed this to Robyn. This scene was extracted from page 85 from the novel.

The following scene was extracted from page 144 when Vic and Robyn were complaining about the rights of Danny Ramm. We´ve thought that it would be interesting to show this part of the novel because it was the moment in which these two characters clashed the most.

The last scene was extracted from page 301. We´ve thought that this scene was fundamental in this trailer to show the turn of their story and to show Vic´s irrationality towards his feelings.

The scene of the plane flying was extracted from this link and the background song was extracted from this link.

I must say that, leaving all the difficulties that we´ve been through in this task behind, we think that this was a very interesting experience for us, not only because we got to know new softwares that we as teachers can use in the future with our students, but also because it helped us to be more immersed in this extraordinary novel.

By Marina Robledo, Sofia Piotto and Maria Isabel Trabaina

Postmodernism

I've chosen "The Final Cut" and "Jokaydia"

Both of them have postmodern characteristics. As regards the first one, the most important aspect is knowledge and the beginnings of technology- "The advent of electronic computer technologies has revolutionized the modes of knowledge production distribution and consumption in our society." In the movie, when a person is born, he /she can have a chip implanted that can record all the moments of his/her life. When this person die, that chip is taken off and cut to make a "memorial video" (something interesting to see) for their families. 

As regards Jokaydia, we can found what Baudrillard calls "simulacra". In this case, it is related to virtual reality- "The page was created to document the educational uses of virtual worlds and games"- and not to copies of originals  This wiki has useful information about virtual worlds, platforms, tools, social networking services and games. 

I believe that in the trailer and in the wiki, knowledge becomes functional because they learn things, not only to know them, but to use that knowledge. 

Words between inverted commas have been taken from Klages and Jokaydia Wiki
   

Critical reading and creative writing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVrnryNCxxg&feature=youtu.be

I have chosen to create a trailer for an imaginary film version of Nice Work because after reading a book I like to watch the film version if there is one, and also because I would really like to see a film version of Nice Work .  Before creating my own trailer I watched on YouTube some trailers of other films so as to see the way in which they were organized and to see the main characteristics that I had to include. In my trailer I included images and key words that aimed to describe the characters.

The tool I used to create the trailer was Movie Maker.  It was the first time I used it. I found it was not so difficult to use. I didn’t have big problems and I’m going to continue using it in the future because I really liked. 

Postmodern Culture

The videos I’ve chosen are War Games and Educational Uses of Second life.

Both of them have postmodern characteristics. In the case of War Games, which is a 1983 American film of a young hacker who thought he was playing with a computer game but in fact he was declaring a nuclear war by entering the United States military supercomputer, there are some postmodern features. For example, according to Frederic Jameson, capitalism has three stages in which the third one is “a multinational or consumer capitalism associated with nuclear and electronic technologies” and closely connected to postmodernism. The subject of War Games is nuclear and electronic technologies and their manipulation. Another feature is that “in postmodern society there are no originals, only copies” and simulations. “A reality created by simulation” especially in computer games like in this film where the protagonist creates his own reality and thinks to be simulating a war. Moreover, knowledge is another key feature of postmodernism where “the advent of electronic computer technologies (illustrated in the film) has revolutionized the modes of knowledge.” The film shows us how everything is stored in a computer and how an unknown person unwittingly can access to the information and cause chaos.

In the case of Educational Uses of second life, we can also find postmodern characteristics. It is amazing to see how a student can be exposed to different situations like being in a virtual museum and learning about paintings or in a virtual theatre and role play and interact with the characters of any play. The connection between this video and postmodernism is the technological and intellectual development of software that can provide students with knowledge and enjoyment. Moreover, as it is software there is no original, only copies and simulations. 

Words in italics taken from Klages' article.

Post modernism Johanna Vassallo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IxcJsXyWtQ&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HtZ2M4e_AM&feature=player_embedded

 I watched these videos as well as I visited other sites.

 The concept of postmodernism is not widely accepted or even understood today. It is inclusive of a wide variety of disciplines and areas of study including art, architecture, music, film, literature, sociology, etc, that’s why the term postmodernism refers to the idea of multiplicity and incompatibility, because lots of things exist together and may not be directly related one to each other or they may not be grouped under the same category, as a result of different particular processes, events or situations that give place to an interminable amount of changes among different disciplines.

As regards postmodernism in culture, it caused a complete change in productions such as contemporary vanguard film and video - but also a whole new style of commercial or fiction films. These commercial films were focused on every day families and advertised comics and consumer products, as regards fiction films a variety stories were mixed together to produce creative and imaginative films that were a revolution in cinema in those days, but all this wouldn’t have been possible without the invention of the first pictures in motion and animated films with synchronized sound.

Concerning art and education some postmodernism ideas are:

    

1.                           Violent reactions and sentimental world is reflected.
2.                         Moral relativism. People think of values to be based on feelings
3.             Emphasize story and personal discovery
4.                       The knowledge is fragmented. It is distributed and arranged in different ways thanks to modern technology’s inventions such as computers.
5.             The existence of virtual worlds that allows students and teachers to interact in a same virtual environment created by themselves but being each of them in a different physical one.
6.             You learn things not to know them, but to use them. This is called functional knowledge.
7.        Students become active participants in modifying knowledge that is at their hands. 

I believe Postmodernism is controversial reaction to all the things that modernism proposed departing primarily from the technological changes and revolutionary ideas that emerged from a post modern society.

"My November Guest"

http://www.glogster.com/meliribotta2012/poem/g-6l62lto1evurgf08vkiola0

This poem appeals to my visual sense; it also evokes mental images. I feel sad since I remember somebody who is no longer near me. I also picture a detailed description of the setting: I imagine a typical autumn day with cloudy skies, silver mist and bare trees.These look lonely and sad as the birds and the leaves are gone. This scenery is in pale colours: only different shades of gray.

The poet remembers a female guest who is still vivid in his mind although she is gone. It seems that she had a strong influence in their relationship because she recalls her attitude about autumn and, also, about him. Although he used to let her talk without answering her comments, he listened to her attentively. This makes me think that these two people have different personality traits; the woman may have been a lively, cheerful person with a strong admiration for nature while the poet appears to be more like an introvert.

I see some relations between the couple in the poem and Mr and Mrs Ramsay in To The Lighthouse. Mrs Ramsay also exerted a strong influence over her family and friends. After her death, she still controlled everybody because her memory was strong in their minds. Mr. Ramsay was similar to the poet in the sense that the two of them were interested in their own thoughts and feelings, both unwilling to engage in conversation.

Hypertextopia

We chose ‘Hypertextopia’ since we found it a practical tool to connect the dialogue between Robyn and Vic with elements outside the text and with part of the text itself as well. The tool allowed us to create a network of links which somehow illustrate he scope of the text. Clearly, it stretches beyond its borders and it is linked to other utterances (music, movies, books, etc.)

Hypertextopia also permitted us create visual and audio-visual support to certain features of the dialogue. Some examples are the cover of the book ‘Culture and Anarchy’ Robyn was reading at the beginning as well as Vivaldi’s masterpiece ‘Autumn’ in reference to the season when Robyn would leave for the US. This tool helped us give the reader an insight of how our metal schema triggered different images ideas and concepts in order to make sense of what we were reading . In addition to that, it allowed us, also, to include links with short appositions to clarify certain parts of the dialogue, without interrupting the flow of it.

In view of the fact that ‘Nice Work’ is a postmodern novel, we thought that the tool would be a suitable one. Up to certain extent it permitted us to “make tangible” or illustrate the different links that exist in the text, not only the intratextual ones but the intertextual too. We tried to illustrate graphically the connections that took place in our mind as the dialogue unfolded before our eyes. We add interpretations of important concepts such as love, knowledge and freedom, being subjectivity and concrete experiences main characteristics of postmodernism. As one's feelings and perceptions of the world are relative, we considered it necessary to portray the mismatch between Robyn's rational perception of love and Vic's passionate feelings about her.

(zalazar, Nardone, Ledesma) 

Embedding Hypertextopia work

Use this code on html view to embed Hypertextopia.

<iframe frameborder="0" height="1000" scrolling="yes" src="http://www.hypertextopia.com/library/read/2203" width="650"></iframe>

Check your own URL and use that instead of the number given.

 We are all indebted to Sue Waters, who tweeted the answer to Julieta https://twitter.com/suewaters/status/264569240722501632/photo/1/large

In case you don't remember, you had Sue's wiki listed as Useful Web 2.0 links. You should make a point of checking her blog, too!

Critical reading and Creative Writing

We selected an extract from one of the letter Charles wrote to Robyn in Nice Work (pg. 310), in which he explains his decision to change career. We thought the letter was an important medium to give straightforward information about some of the socio-economic problems England faced during Margaret Thatcher's government in the 80s' and which deeply affected Higher Education. In this novel, Charles represents one of the many professionals who were demoralized and depressed by such a crisis and who had to make an important job decision in their lives to support themselves -even if it was at the cost of their academic careers. Being Robyn Penrose an extremely devoted teacher deeply stuck to her principles, we know that she would never think or even consider the possibility of abandoning her career for economic reasons. As she completely disapproves of Charles’ decision and regards him with a bit of contempt for that, we thought it fair to give him a voice and support him. His decision is simply based on real life grounds, he as any other worker at the time needed to earn a living to pay the rent, taxes, gas, bills, food, and many other daily expenses. As Vic says "there is nothing like a free lunch". Hypertextopia is an efficient tool to show some of the many mental images that came to our minds while reading the extract chosen. This website proves particularly advantageous because we as readers can interact with the text by not only adding background information, but also giving a personal touch to it. Being such an amazing tool available for free, we as teachers-to-be should bear it in mind, and offer our students the possibility of experiencing the satisfaction of creating an interecting with texts. http://hypertextopia.com/library/read/2198

CRITICAL READING AND CREATIVE WRITING - Nice Work

I’ve chosen option 1-C and I’ve used the Hypertextopia tool to do the assignment.  I’ve chosen David Lodge’s Nice Work because it contains plenty of instances of intertextuality and allusions (e.g. to trends in literary criticism). When reading it for the first time it triggered many associations. My intention was to show some of the associations (and research) I performed during the reading process. I divided the original paragraph into three main parts (they have a title) and I added a fragment with the explanation of the new theories at University because they needed a longer text. Then I used three types of links with different colours: blue for expansion (additional information connected to a specific word or phrase), green for the explanation of a specific word and red for personal associations. For example, there is a green link that connects Marxism with a definition of Marxist criticism. In the case of more personal associations (red links), they are pictures, ideas, or phrases I had heard or read before that came into my mind when reading certain words. To conclude, I used a Wordle cloud as the picture of the story.

As regards Hypertextopia, I found it really interesting to work with and very useful for educational purposes (the possibility of a collaborative writing is great!).  This tool allows you to experiment with language and meaning in a new way that is meaningful to students in this high tech society. It took me a short time to learn how to use it as it is quite simple. However, I spent a considerable time trying to discover how to delete a link (I couldn´t find a good tutorial). I’ve also found the “shards” a bit limited as they can only be connected to fragments and cannot be connected to other shards. On the whole, experimenting with Hypertextopia was an enriching experience and I had a great time using it.

This is the link to the story, I couldn´t find an embed code.
http://www.hypertextopia.com/library/stories/2038

How do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee?

I´ve chosen this poem because I really enjoyed reading it. I could really visualize the writer feelings towards his husband-to-be. Her love towards him is so intense that she mentions she will love him, even after death. By mentioning love after death, readers may infer that this pure and unconditional love will continue in heaven, and that it will be even better there. Readers may also infer that the writer believes in God. And when she mentions the lost saints, she means that she loves him in the way she loved saints as a child, refering to the blind faith of children.
For me, love poems are really fascinating, And this is no the exception, Love can change everything; it can change negative aspects of one´s personality, it can make one appreciate life, and it may even save one´s life. Love is everything!!!  And I´m not only talking about couples´ love, I also talk about Love in all forms, family, friends, pets, etc. I believe that Love is the only way to achieve happiness.

My glogster shows what I felt while reading the poem. I have included two videos one of No Doubt another of Sahnia Twain and the BSB. The second video mentioned is really special for me. I hope you enjoy my Glogster!

http://www.glogster.com/mariaisabeltrabaina07/-mariaisabeltrabaina07/g-6l6hpt9rol26fi5ulstasa0

IN MEMORIAM

 IN MEMORIAM (sections 54-56)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

After some research I’ve discovered that this poem is part of a very long poem which is a requiem for Tennyson’s friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died in 1833. I was amazed to learn this poem was written over a period of 17 years. According to Bradley and Johnson we can distinguish four different themes throughout its sections: despair (1-27), doubt (28-77), faith (78-102), and hope (103-131) .

In the sections selected (54-56) the poet fluctuates between faith and doubt. He presents humanity as God’s most beloved creation but at the same time wonders whether there is a purpose, a goal in human existence. Tennyson also portrays Nature at strife with God, Nature does not care about human being’s needs and desires, and suggests the human race might disappear as many other species have extinguished. That’s why I’ve included the pictures of natural disasters. The lines quoted below express human being´s insignificance in comparison to the vast universe.

“But what am I?

an infant crying in the night:

 an infant crying for the light:

and with no language but a cry.

I think everybody has felt like this at least once in their life.

Tennyson also challenges religious certainties. He questions the existence of eternal life, and debates with himself whether we should believe that God is love and that everything happens for a reason, or believing that faith and the pursuit of truth and justice is in vain.

I’ve chosen this poem because I was deeply touched by it when I read it and felt identified with the questions posed by the author. It’s simply marvelous how the poet can express our human uncertainties so beautifully! I found the poem so thought provoking, it reminded me of those moments I find myself daydreaming, wondering about the meaning of life, asking myself what is the purpose of everything I do…

I’ve chosen different sounds for the two feelings the author expresses: “Tristeza de un doble A” (Piazzolla) for sadness and despair, and “Innuendo” (Queen) for a more optimistic view. And I’ve included a beautiful poem that came into my mind when reading In Memoriam: “Adam cast forth” (Borges). In this poem the author also challenges the existence of the Garden of Eden. I’ve posted two versions, the original in Spanish and a translation (I don´t know whether this is the best translation).

In my opinion the reflective tone of the poem can be related to the novel “To the Lighthouse”, especially to Lily Briscoe’s constant considerations about the meaning of life. What’s more, as some critics believe the whole poem “In Memoriam” is an account of Tennyson’s thoughts and feelings as he copes with his grief throughout the years, we can relate it to the different stages of mourning that Lily Briscoe undergoes in Woolf´s novel.

How do I Love Thee?

I have chosen this poem not only because of the beautiful way this writer talks about her love towards his couple, but also, because of the story which lies behind it. After doing some research, I found that Elizabeth Barret Browning suffered from a strange illness which caused her an incapacitating weakness. When she published a volume of her poems, Robert Browing sent her letters telling her that he loved her poems. After a long time of communicating through letters, they were arranged to meet each other in person. When they met, they instantly fell in love. They eloped to Italy because her father didn´t approve of their union. Elizabeth claimed that her health improved greatly because of the happiness and love that her couple gave her. Some fifteen years later, she died in her couple´s arms.

This is my favourite part of the poem:


"...I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death. "

What I very much liked about this poem is the fact that she expresses her love, not an earthly love, with a more eternal perspective, the fact that she will love him even after her death. She also expresses the way she loves him, with all her human attributes. I could really feel her love is sincere and pure.

When reading this poem, I couldn´t help thinking of The Ramones´song " Baby I love you" and of many images related to my favourite love moviy that I´ve seen, such as Noha´s Diary.

i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your is a poem by e e cummings.

After reading all the poems, this was chosen for two main reasons: the lowercase letter i and what it made me feel.

To understand why he used lowercase, I did some research and I found this excerpt that explains his peculiar style:

 ¨... In his poems, he didn't use punctuation or capitalization.  Capitals were used only for special emphasis.  Punctuation marks were used only for a shock effect.  He was also noted for the use of the lowercase letter "i" in his poems. [...]   His work looks like random words and phrases thrown together, and the reader must stop and think beyond the written text.  E.E. Cummings was a different breed of poet.  He used his unconventional, yet brilliant style to send a message to the reader.  In his work, E.E. Cummings didn't use capital letters, proper punctuation, or proper grammar.  He used this to his advantage in mixing the message into the poem. He deliberatley [sic] confused the reader by having them follow the winding paths of words he had created because he felt that a straight one would narrow the reader's mind."

Taken from: http://english11poets.pbworks.com/w/page/19005388/ee%20cummings
(I decided to write in bold the main concepts)

After reading the poem several times, I experienced strong feelings like love, passion, desire, longing... 

This poem is about the physicality of a new loving relationship (concept taken from this webpage). It stimulated my creativity and, therefore, this was the result.




It was easy for me to visualize the story that was told in these stanzas. 

I imagined these lovers could have felt that they were flying into the heavens, that's the reason why the wall of my Glogster is a sky. Besides, I found another relation with the Passion this couple could have felt in the extract of a lecture that was given by the character of Barbara Streisand in the film The Mirror Has Two Faces.

I associated each image with a different moment in the poem.

The image of the couple that is hugging with the lines:

" i like its hows. I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones"

and the image of the couple kissing with the following line:

"kiss, I like kissing this and that of you"

While I was reading it for the third or forth time, I found myself humming the song "Loving you" and I decided to included it as well. I embedded this video that is not the original version, but it was made of lovely pictures of couples, which I found pretty appropriate.

This was the analysis and the Glogster of the beautiful poem: i like my body when it is with your by e e cummings made by Marina Robledo.

Because I could not stop for Death (Emily Dickinson)

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH 

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste, 

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove

At recess, in the ring;

We passed the fields of gazing grain,

We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;

The dews grew quivering and chill,

For only gossamer my gown,

My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;

The roof was scarcely visible,

The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses' heads

Were toward eternity.

Having read all the poems provided, I’ve chosen “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson because the fact that death is the main theme of this poem caught my interest.  In my opinion its protagonist must be a woman for the words she chooses to describe how she is dying.  To be honest, I couldn’t help feeling identified with her.  The first stanza clearly states that she seemed to be “busy” to realize that she was about to die. She must have been so immersed in her duties that she couldn’t even stop for death. In this trip, she is the only person travelling with Death. This idea is emphasized throughout the poem by  interchanging the first person singular and plural. Dickinson uses the third person singular just once to introduce Death.

 The fact that death is personified as a man also called my attention.  Generally, the writers who portray death as a human being tend to depict it as an evil woman who outrageously takes people’s lives.  In this poem, Death is pictured differently. He is not described as a frightening man, but as a kind one who took the time to do what the victim couldn’t.  

In the second stanza, she regrets leaving her labor and leisure but not people. Dickinson describes the trip in which the speaker is embarked on as a pleasant one. Although she knows that she has died, she’s neither terrified nor worried. On the contrary, she seems to go through this new experience in a relaxed mood.

In the third stanza, the world the speaker is passing from is described. In the following stanza, she corrects herself by stating “or rather –he passed us”. It’s now when she realizes that she is no longer a human being, but a soul travelling to the great beyond. In this stanza Death is shown in a more conventional form. The protagonist faces the coldness that is said to be experienced when dying. However, she knows that this part of death leads her to eternity, the ultimate goal.

This poem can be related with some of the works we dealt with in class. In The Lagoon, the Turn of the Screw and To the Lighthouse, death is one of the main themes.

In the post I’ve prepared, I’ve included pictures connected to death. The colours that prevail are black and white, except for the shadow around the two phrases, which represent the light that is said to be seen once we’re dead.  I’ve chosen a young woman as the speaker of the poem because, while reading it, I imagined her as a lady in his early thirties.  There are two pictures depicting what eternity represents and in the central image Death is portrayed. There are two phrases: the first line of the poem and one which reflects how many people conceive death. I also included a video with the poem read and the story performed. The background music is ideal because it shows the feeling of peacefulness the speaker is experiencing. As regards the wall chosen, I wanted to highlight how Death must have stopped the young woman's life.