EN232 Test #2 Quotes
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 drew 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 - in the Ground - Since then - 'tis Centuries - and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity -
Emily Dickinson, "Because I Could Not Stop For Death" 1) death is personified- he is kind and polite 2) headed to after life and the grave 3) passing children the express life 4)juxtapose the beginning to the end 5) "swelling of the ground" = grave 6) trip to eternity Death, in the form of a gentleman suitor, stops to pick up the speaker and take her on a ride in his horse-drawn carriage. They move along at a pretty relaxed pace and the speaker seems completely at ease with the gentleman. As they pass through the town, she sees children at play, fields of grain, and the setting sun. Pretty peaceful, right? As dusk sets in our speaker gets a little chilly, as she is completely under-dressed - only wearing a thin silk shawl for a coat. She was unprepared for her impromptu date with Death when she got dressed that morning. They stop at what will be her burial ground, marked with a small headstone. In the final stanza, we find out the speaker's ride with Death took place centuries ago (so she's been dead for a long time). But it seems like just yesterday when she first got the feeling that horse heads (like those of the horses that drew the "death carriage") pointed toward "Eternity"; or, in other words, signaled the passage from life to death to an afterlife. stating that she could not stop for death means that the speaker didn't have a choice about when she was to die. this particular case she means to personify Death as a gentleman suitor who drives a horse-drawn carriage. 2-This line establishes the tone that most of the poem follows: one of calm acceptance about death. She's even going to enjoy the ride!
Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? 5 "For beauty," I replied. "And I for truth,—the two are one; We brethren are," he said. And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms, 10 Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.
Emily Dickinson, "I Died for Beauty-But was Scarce" 1) reference to John Keats 2) Emily Dickinson not wanting to always be lonely 3) They both died for the same thing 4) one died for the cause of truth and one for the cause of beauty 5) Failed is synonym for died 6) failed at their causes 7) you cannot continue in death the speaker says that she died for Beauty, but she was hardly adjusted to her tomb before a man who died for Truth was laid in a tomb next to her. When the two softly told each other why they died, the man declared that Truth and Beauty are the same, so that he and the speaker were "Brethren." The speaker says that they met at night, "as Kinsmen," and talked between their tombs until the moss reached their lips and covered up the names on their tombstones. As the poem progresses, the high idealism and yearning for companionship gradually give way to mute, cold death, as the moss creeps up the speaker's corpse and her headstone, obliterating both her capacity to speak (covering her lips) and her identity (covering her name). The ultimate effect of this poem is to show that every aspect of human life—ideals, human feelings, identity itself—is erased by death. But by making the erasure gradual—something to be "adjusted" to in the tomb—and by portraying a speaker who is untroubled by her own grim state,
The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air - Between the Heaves of Storm - The Eyes around - had wrung them dry - And Breaths were gathering firm For that last Onset - when the King Be witnessed - in the Room - I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away What portion of me be Assignable - and then it was There interposed a Fly - With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz - Between the light - and me - And then the Windows failed - and then I could not see to see -
Emily Dickinson, "I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died" 1) She was a realist to accept death 2) "heaves of storm- life calm before the storm 3) she cannot die in peace because of the fly 4) "The King" = God 5) "light and me"- death 6) windows all the eyelids closing and her dying Then, all of a sudden, we move away from the fly, and the speaker starts to tell us a little bit more about the scene of her death. What she sets up for us in these few lines is the atmosphere of the room. She really wants us to feel how heavy and quiet and almost thick the air in the room feels. The lack of sound in the room is the exact opposite of the harsh, annoying buzz of the fly. She emphasizes this with a simile, comparing the stillness of the room to the stillness during a lull in a storm.We are in a lull, between the "heaves." What are those heaves that happened in this room? She leaves that up to us. They might be the rush and bustle of life followed by the mysterious journey of death. Or they might be the literal heaves of a dying person, as their body goes through the final spasms of life. When she tells us that these eyes are dry, we also learn a lot about the particular moment of this poem. People have been crying, their eyes were wet, but now they are not. Maybe they feel exhausted, or resigned, or even at peace. We are in an emotional lull, too, between all of the crying that comes before death, and all that will come after. Even the breathing of the watchers (and maybe of the speaker?) has evened out, as they prepare themselves quietly for what is to come. (line 7). What actually happens at this moment? You might have an image in your head of what this looks like. But Dickinson is always a little sneaky about these things, and wraps up her images in mystery. She tells us that what we, and the family, and the dying patient are waiting for is the moment when "the King be witnessed in the Room." Who the heck is this king? Again, we can't be absolutely sure. It would be hard for a 19th century American reader to see this capital-K king here without thinking about God. Then, all of a sudden, the fly is back. It breaks into the poem, interrupting the quaint little deathbed scene. Dickinson tells us that this little fly "interposed." That means, "came between two things." It's an important word. It tips us off that this fly is an intruder. By interrupting the calm of the moment, it changes the course of the poem. Before we were thinking about calm, spiritual, somber things. Now we have to think about a grubby little fly. On the other hand, she's been talking about some pretty spiritual stuff, like that King who's supposed to show up. So we suspect that the light is also a metaphor for what comes after death, the thing that we approach and enter when we die. It's hard for us not to imagine some little kid shouting, "Walk toward the light, Emily!" Then again, Dickinson never got to see a cheesy TV movie about near-death experiences. In any case, this fly has messed things up. We were all moving quietly toward the light, and this poem was moving toward a normal ending. Then this stupid fly showed up, and pretty much wrecked the whole thing.
Are you - Nobody - too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise - you know! How dreary - to be - Somebody! How public - like a Frog - To tell one's name - the livelong June - To an admiring Bog
Emily Dickinson, "Im nobody! Who are you?" 1) Dont tell anyone and draw attention to ourselves, or then we will end up being somebody. 2) "How public-like a frog"-Frogs have no place to go, who would want to be like that? (frogs are "public" like public figures—or Somebodies—because they are constantly "telling their name"— croaking—to the swamp, reminding all the other frogs of their identities). Implying that to be a Nobody is a luxury incomprehensible to the dreary Somebodies—for they are too busy keeping their names in circulation, croaking like frogs in a swamp in the summertime.
To a discerning Eye - Much Sense - the starkest Madness - 'Tis the Majority In this, as all, prevail - Assent - and you are sane - Demur - you're straightway dangerous - And handled with a Chain -
Emily Dickinson, "Much Madness in Divine Sense" 1) Her response to society that there is nothing wrong with her. She isnt apart of the majority and that is okay. 2) "much sense- that starkest madness"- She is turning her finger on society and telling society is something is wrong with it. She has freedom. The speaker drops a mind-bomb on us, saying that crazy people are sane and sane people are crazy. Next thing you know, she's going after the Majority who cracks down on anybody who dares to go against the mainstream. It's the people on the outside, claims the speaker, who see it all for what it really is.
In Corners - till a Day The Owner passed - identified - And carried Me away - And now We roam in Sovereign Woods - And now We hunt the Doe - And every time I speak for Him The Mountains straight reply - And do I smile, such cordial light Opon the Valley glow - It is as a Vesuvian face Had let it's pleasure through - And when at Night - Our good Day done - I guard My Master's Head - 'Tis better than the Eider Duck's Deep Pillow - to have shared - To foe of His - I'm deadly foe - None stir the second time - On whom I lay a Yellow Eye - Or an emphatic Thumb - Though I than He - may longer live He longer must - than I - For I have but the power to kill, Without - the power to die -
Emily Dickinson, "My Life had Stood- A Loaded Gun" 1)extended metaphor-comparison of two unlike thing continued through many lives in a poem 2) she is unstable 3) change things in an instant- badly 4) control 5) the monster is God or loner 6) doc-girl-deer- compared to female writer that was suppressed This poem is written as a riddle that challenges the reader to identify the speaker. On the literal level the speaker is a gun, loaded to do its owner's bidding. Its "smile" is like a Vesuvian eruption, laying low its master's enemies. None survive "On whom I lay a Yellow Eye—/ Or an emphatic Thumb—." Though the master must live longer than the gun, the gun may also live longer than its master. Critics have given this poem every variety of interpretation, almost none of them totally satisfactory. Most common (and least satisfying) is the argument that the poet is herself the loaded gun, waiting to be called by her master, the Lord, ready to fight her Lord's battles, willing to make his enemies hers. Yet how can one reconcile this with the possibility of the gun's outliving her master, except by admitting the possibility of a mortal deity? Though Dickinson doubts and even despairs in some of her poems concerning matters of election and redemption, she never denies that a deity exists. In fact, poem 338 explicitly records her certainty that there is a divine presence. Similarly, it does no good to see this poem merely as an emblem of the poet's personal, creative, or sexual frustration, as some critics have done. Were one to have asked residents of Dickinson's Amherst the solution to the final riddle stanza, however, it is likely that they would have answered that the master was Christ and the gun was death. Christ has authority over life and death as Son of the Father; even so, Christ died before death disappeared from the world of the living, and in this sense death outlived him. Another interpretation embraces a more classical alternative. Myth traditionally pictures deities dealing out death with weapons: Zeus uses thunderbolts, Apollo and Artemis bows and arrows, Wotan a spear fashioned from the great ash tree which underpins creation. Seen in this way, death is both master and means. It uses whatever tool stands at the ready and creates opponents even as it destroys creation. The single consolation to universal creation, which will one day encounter death, is that neither death nor the tools it uses has eternal life.
But Chief Clerk, Gregor exclaimed, in his excitement forgetting everything else, "I'l let you in right away. A light indisposition, a fit of giddiness, have prevented me from getting up. I'm still lying in bed. But I feel almost restored. Im much improved as I'd hoped. But I feel better just the same. How is it some confirm to it you, or rather, last night I had a little inkling already of what lay ahead. It probably showed in my appearance somewhere. Why did I not think to inform work! It's just that one always imagines that one wil get over an illness without having to take time off.
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Oh my lord! He thought. If only I didnt have to follow such an exhausting profession! On the road, day in, day out. The work is so much more strenuous than it would be in head office, and then theirs the additional ordeal of traveling, worries about train connections, the irregular, bad meals, new people all the time, no continuity, no affection. Devil take it! He felt a light itch at the top of his belly, slid a little closer to the bedpost, so as to be able to raise his head a little more effectively; found the itchy place, which was covered with a sprinkling of white dots the significance of which he was unable to interpret; assayed the place with one of his legs, but hurriedly withdrew it, because the touch caused him to shudder involuntarily.
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis 1) He is complaining about his job 2) It is argued hes getting what he deserves because he is ungrateful.
As he hurriedly thinking this, still no nearer to getting out of bed-the alarm clock was just striking a quarter till seven-there was a cautious knock on the door behind him. "Gregor came the call-it was his mother- its a quarter to seven. Shouldn't you ought to be gone by now? The mild voice. Gregor was dismayed when he heard his own response. It was still without a doubt his own voice from before, but with a little admixture of an irresponsible squeaking that left the words only briefly recognizable at the first instant of their sounding, only to set about them afterwards so destructively that one couldn't be all sure what one had heard. Gregor had wanted to offer a full explanation of everything, but in these circumstances, kept himself to "alright thank you mother"
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis 1) He is doubting the acceptance of being a roach 2) Doesnt think he is one because his mom recognized his voice.
As Gregor was already half-clear of the bed-this latest method felt more lie play than serious exertion, requiring him only to rock himself from side to side-he thought how simple everything would be if he had some help. Two strong people-he thought of his father and the servant girl- would easily suffice; they needed only to push their arms under his curved back, peel him out of bed, need on to the floor, where his legs would hopefully come into their own. But then, for help? Even in his extremity, he couldn't repress a smile at the thought.
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis 1) Why is he smiling? Hes not getting upset. Possibly in a state of denial. He is still not accepting he is a roach.
"What is the matter with me?" he thought. It was no dream. There, quietly between the four familiar walls, was his room, a normal human room, if always a little on the small side. Over the table, on which an array of cloth samples was spread out- Samsa was a traveling salesman-hung the picture he had recently clipped from a magazine, and set in an attractive gilt frame. It was a picture of a lady in a fur hat and stole, sitting bolt upright, holding in the direction of the onlooker a heavy fur muff into which she had thrust the whole of her forearm.
Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis 1) small room- He complained it was a small room them, why now? 2) Thought he was having a dream, but he is living a nightmare- that is the irony
Casting off the blanket proved to be straightforward indeed, all he needed to do was inflate himself a little, and it fell off by itself. But further tasks were more problematical, not least because of his great breadth. He would have needed arms and hands with which to get up; instead of which all he had were those numerous little legs, forever in varied movement, and evidently not under his control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then it was certain that that was the one that was next fully extended; and once he finally succeeded in performing whatever task he had set himself with that leg, then all its neglected fellows would be in a turmoil of painful agitation. "Whatever I do, I mustn't loaf around in bed, Gregor said to himself.
Franz, Kafka, The Metamorphosis 1) Having a hard time getting out of his bed. He was working for the family and woke up a roach. 2) He feels isolated and rejected. 3) Talk about him becoming a roach
Was that what women hummed at luncheon parties before the war? There was something so ludicrous in thinking of people humming such things even under their breath at luncheon parties before the war that I burst out laughing, and had to explain my laughter by pointing at the Manx cat, who did look a little absurd, poor beast, without a tail, in the middle of the lawn. Was he really born so, or had he lost his tail in an accident? The tailless cat, though some are said to exist in the Isle of Man, is rarer than one thinks. It is a queer animal, quaint rather than beautiful. It is strange what a difference a tail makes—you know the sort of things one says as a lunch party breaks up and people are finding their coats and hats.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own 1) Cat tail= Froyd's penis envy. What difference does 1 part make? 2) penis envy 3) The lunch parties represent leisure, prestige, and status. To be invited to a luncheon, men were mostly invited. Women were seen as outsiders. They didn't get to be in that circle. 4) The Minx Cat=highly intelligent, very active, get along well with other cats. Fun loving, form bond with human owner, tailless. She is comparing women to cats. Sigman Froyd said just like the mink cats miss a part (tail). Women have penis envy against men. Women are envious of men because of the opportunities men have.
Certainly, as I watched the Manx cat pause in the middle of the lawn as if it too questioned the universe, something seemed lacking, something seemed different. But what was lacking, what was different, I asked myself, listening to the talk? And to answer that question I had to think myself out of the room, back into the past, before the war indeed, and to set before my eyes the model of another luncheon party held in rooms not very far distant from these; but different. Everything was different.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own 1) Manx Cat= women 2) missing tail=missing rights of women, not just WWI 3) the war=the war on equality for women 4) The bond between men and women is not broken, they are just mad. 5) The Minx Cat=highly intelligent, very active, get along well with other cats. Fun loving, form bond with human owner, tailless. She is comparing women to cats. Sigman Froyd said just like the mink cats miss a part (tail). Women have penis envy against men. Women are envious of men because of the opportunities men have.
For it is a perennial puzzle why no woman wrote a word of that extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of song or sonnet. What were the conditions in which women lived? I asked myself; for fiction, imaginative work that is, is not dropped like a pebble upon the ground, as science may be; fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible; Shakespeare's plays, for instance, seem to hang there complete by themselves. But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own 1) Women are like Spider and the web- They are trapped 2) If Shakespeare was a women, it would be different
At the thought of all those women working year after year and finding it hard to get two thousand pounds together, and as much as they could do to get thirty thousand pounds, we burst out in scorn at the reprehensible poverty of our sex. What had our mothers been doing then that they had no wealth to leave us? Powdering their noses? Looking in at shop windows? Flaunting in the sun at Monte Carlo? There were some photographs on the mantelpiece.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own 1) Women have to work hard 2) nothing has changed over time 3) women are seen as eye candy for men 4) Woolf recognizes them as intellectual, unlike Mary Wollstonecraft 5) Society says women have to look a certain way
It was disappointing not to have brought back in the evening some important statement, some authentic fact. Women are poorer than men because—this or that. Perhaps now it would be better to give up seeking for the truth, and receiving on one's head an avalanche of opinion hot as lava, discolored as dish-water. It would be better to draw the curtains; to shut out distractions; to light the lamp; to narrow the inquiry and to ask the historian, who records not opinions but facts, to describe under what conditions women lived, not throughout the ages, but in England, say, in the time of Elizabeth.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own 1) Woolf is mad at her brothers and feel like she should get opportunities like they do
This may be true or it may be false—who can say?—but what is true in it, so it seemed to me, reviewing the story of Shakespeare's sister as I had made it, is that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty. No girl could have walked to London and stood at a stage door and forced her way into the presence of actor-managers without doing herself a violence and suffering an anguish which may have been irrational—for chastity may be a fetish invented by certain societies for unknown reasons—but were none the less inevitable. Chastity had then, it has even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest. To have lived a free life in London in the sixteenth century would have meant for a woman who was poet and playwright a nervous stress and dilemma which might well have killed her.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own 1) If women was born in the 1600, she would want to kill herself for not being able to express herself. She would have to keep it in.
They had no money evidently; according to Professor Trevelyan they were married whether they liked it or not before they were out of the nursery, at fifteen or sixteen very likely. It would have been extremely odd, even upon this showing, had one of them suddenly written the plays of Shakespeare, I concluded, and I thought of that old gentleman, who is dead now, but was a bishop, I think, who declared that it was impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come, to have the genius of Shakespeare. He wrote to the papers about it. He also told a lady who applied to him for information that cats do not as a matter of fact go to heaven, though they have, he added, souls of a sort. How much thinking those old gentlemen used to save one! How the borders of ignorance shrank back at their approach! Cats do not go to heaven. Women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own who cares prolly wont be on test
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. So they show their relations to me and I accept them, They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession. I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them? Myself moving forward then and now and forever, Gathering and showing more always and with velocity, Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them, Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers, Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms. A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses, Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving. His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return. I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion, Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them? Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.
Walt Whitman from Song of Myself, apart of Leaves of Grass 1) He can live with the animals because they don't wine and complain 2) Humans always want more than just the necessities. He doesn't like that and he is more simple. He is into nature. It shifts and turns sexual. He sexualizes horses but it falls back to a shock effect that he is trying to push. This section is dedicated to animals, and how animals have a healthy attitude toward life. They aren't distressed and don't feel religious guilt. Whitman begins to show his teeth regarding organized religion, particularly religions that focus on the ideas of guilt, shame, and hatred of the body. He is made "sick" by people "discussing their duty to God." He also attacks an obsession with owning things and property. The animals seem to bring him pieces of himself, little reminders of his own heritage and history. He shares a moment of connection with a majestic stallion, and then he lets the stallion go gallop about. In his imagination, he is galloping faster than the stallion.
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. I chant the chant of dilation or pride, We have had ducking and deprecating about enough, I show that size is only development. Have you outstript the rest? are you the President? It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on. I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. Press close bare-bosom'd night—press close magnetic nourishing night! Night of south winds—night of the large few stars! Still nodding night—mad naked summer night. Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt! Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue! Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake! Far-swooping elbow'd earth—rich apple-blossom'd earth! Smile, for your lover comes. Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love! O unspeakable passionate love.
Walt Whitman, From Song of Myself, Apart of Leaves of Grass 1) He is a universal poet and he is a poet for everybody. He is connecting young and old, women to men. 2) "And say there is nothing greater than the mother of men"-Mother of men have the best of both worlds. The mother can understand females, but if they have a son, they can understand them as well. 3) He is calling out to earth in a flattering way 4) "I show that size is only a development:-referring to age 5) "I am he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night"- He is courting the earth. Whitman says that he is the poet of both the body and the soul. He challenges the religious concepts of heaven and hell, saying that he has made heaven part of his present life, and that the idea of hell needs to be "retranslated." We get the sense that he's not very keen on traditional Christian notions of hell and punishment. Oh, and by the way, he loves women and mothers. Always nice to give props to the moms out there. He's tired of people being modest and insecure. His song is a song of "pride" and celebration. He recognizes that his attitude is new and unusual, but he thinks people need to get over their individual anxieties. Switching gears, he describes the night, the earth, and the sea in glowing and beautiful terms. The earth has shown him love, so he's going to love the earth right back. Now, this section changed between the1855 edition of Leaves of Grass and later versions. In the 1855 edition, the section ends with the lines: "Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight! We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other!" In other words, Whitman is having sex with the earth. No joke. It sounds pretty steamy, but also violent. These lines were majorly controversial in Whitman's day, and he eventually removed them. We think they belong in the poem. Nothin' wrong with a little love between man and the earth.
I celebrate myself, and I sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air, born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.
Walt Whitman, From Song of Myself, apart of Leaves of Grass. 1) He is celebrating himself. Connecting himself to the reader 2) We are more alike than we are different. 3) We all got here the same way and will continue to 4) He is putting hiself on paper and we are all connected 5) universal brotherhood.* We have the same overall desires regardless of race and gender 6) "I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard"- He is stating he isnt going to hold back on speaking. Ex. sex
Trippers and askers surround me, People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation, The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new, My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations, Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; These come to me days and nights and go from me again, But they are not the Me myself. Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders, I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
Walt Whitman, From Song of Myself, apart of Leaves of Grass. 1) Trippers are distractions such as the latest inventions and change. He is having a hard time accepting change. 2) Askers are people who are always asking questions. He doesn't like the distraction and he enjoys nature. Having disposed of the "talkers," Whitman moves on to the "trippers and askers." His days are filled with questions and other thoughts that "trip" him up. These are just normal social issues and worries, like the news and whether his friends like him. These things are part of his (and everyone's life), but "they are not the Me myself." "Me myself"? It seems we might have another character on our hands, like the "Soul." The Me Myself is Whitman's most inner nature. This guy doesn't care about all these worldly concerns. He stands apart from them, looking on with curiosity. Still, there were times when Whitman used to get involved in day-to-day concerns, when he used to argue and compete with people. But the Me Myself doesn't argue, he just observes.
