Reactions to Emily Dickinson

Reading through the packet on the Household Book of Poetry after looking at Dickinson's poems really accentuated for me how innovative and smart her work was.  Some of the criticisms we talked about in class mentioned that it didn't seem like Dickinson had fully mastered the art of rhyming, and that she needed more practice to achieve the level of work that was currently being published.  Meanwhile, the poems sampled in the Household Book seemed a little bit juvenile and almost trivial in comparison to what we've been reading for class.  The biggest impression I got from the poems was one of conformity.  They followed a strict rhyme scheme (which gave the poems their slightly elementary character), and didn't delve into any substantial issues.  The one poem that could have potentially explored a murky, volatile subject - the death of a child in Loss and Gain - instead takes a staunchly religious stance and merely states that people are subject to God's will and that a child dying in innocence can be viewed as a good thing.  Completely ignored are the emotions that a parent would experience after the loss of a child.  It would be a devastating and traumatic event, and the grieving process could span a wide expanse of time.  This fact gets merely a passing mention and the poem ultimately adheres to the Catholic doctrines of the time (something the editor mentions in the preface as one of the collection's goals).  Something also mentioned in the preface is the hope that the book will come off as aesthetically pleasing.  The result, in my opinion, is that the poems included seem insubstantial and lacking in any real message.  Dickinson explored the different possibilities for a poem, she expressed herself honestly and eloquently, and she didn't let outside forces influence her writing.  I think it's too bad that Dickinson wasn't more extensively published in her time and that the work that did get published wasn't widely appreciated.  She clearly had a  lot to say, and her supposedly more advanced contemporaries might have been able to learn something from her.

Mark Twain: The Original Roaster

Something that I found interesting when we were discussing Twain's Whittier Birthday Speech was the idea that this piece was basically an early appearance of a roast, before the tradition of roasting had even taken hold.  The kinds of roasts that I'm familiar with are the ones that air on Comedy Central and feature personalities like Charlie Sheen and Pamela Anderson as roastees.  The people being roasted are exactly the kind of people you would expect; they're over-the-top people whose actions are often viewed as vulgar, tasteless, or just stupid.  From the roasts that I've seen, I'm surprised that the targets don't take more offense; the roasters pull no punches and go right for the jugular, but even if the roastee is offended (which they seldom seem to ever seriously be), they have their chance to get their shots in at the end.  Perhaps it's because of the time period in which this speech took place, in addition to the reputations and demeanor of the "literary men" that appear in the story that it went over so poorly in comparison.  These were eminent writers who were revered and respected, and for good reason, but something that also seems apparent given their reactions to Twain's anecdote is that they lack senses of humor.  Twain's sharp wit and talent for satire was what made him a great writer, and even though his style differed from that of Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes, I think they reacted in an unnecessarily harsh fashion.  The speech was colorful, observant and clever, and if someone were  to give such a speech today, I would be impressed.  Twain had to be familiar with each of the poets to be able to create the kinds of caricatures that he did, which one would think would be flattering.  There were self-deprecating elements to Twain's speech as well, and to hear that none of the men could appreciate the speech for what it was - an innocent, playful ribbing - casts them in a pompous, stuffy light  that makes them seem not at all well-rounded and far less appealing.