10/29/14

So, Emily Dickinson. We've touched on her in American Literature and I just wanted to address the question that I included in my Poetry presentation. My question being, "Since Emily's poems were mostly published after her death, and that's when her fame occurred, did she intend for this poem's meaning to describe her life?" The poem I chose was poem 816 which talked about a person not becoming "alive" until after their death. Going with the literal meaning of death and the metaphorical meaning for life. Where life is a new beginning, or the start of your legacy. Basically Anne Frank. She wasn't important until she died. So, did Emily intend for this poem to be about her? Did she somehow know that her poems were going to be published? Could she predict the future? I am honestly thinking she could. Call me crazy but I believe something that I learned from a television series I watched bunch of summers ago called Ancient Aliens. The thing that was said is that people (Jesus for example) from the past, usually with great importance, could possibly be someone from the future who went back in time to tell us something. Was Emily a person who is from the future? Maybe this is a weird, disorganized topic, but my question made me think about a lot.

Earlier Discussion

Wednesday in Lit (3B) our class had a discussion on whether it is possible to over analyze a text or not. I wasn’t in Mr. Hoffman’s group so I don’t have an idea of what their discussion lead to but my group’s discussion lead to the idea that “over analyzing” will take away the author’s intended message from the reader’s interpretation of the text. Not having an enough time for everyone to fully speak their mind guided me to save what I wanted to say for a blog entry.

                Do I believe that “over analyzing” a text will take away from the intended message you receive when reading a text? Maybe. It’s possible, yes. Do I think it matters and shouldn’t happen? No. When we indulge or take part in reading a text for our own enjoyment or as a requirement it doesn’t matter what we take in as the final message or meaning of what we read. All that matters is that we took it in, we processed it, and we have our own ideas about it. Our interpretation doesn’t HAVE to be the same as anyone else’s. It’s ours and only ours.

                Finally, this leads to a journal we had in class about a week ago that I’ll just answer here. “Does it matter if the author meant to do that?” Answering this, no. It does not matter if the author meant to do something. All that matters is they simply did it, and it caught your attention and it was significant to your overall reading of the text.