For Pepper, Hayley, and Christian
In the beginning of our discussion of this poem, the three of us read it aloud a few times, and realized that we had quite a bit of difficulty summarizing it without using figurative language to aid our analysis. Our first thoughts were that she was slowly going in and out of lucidity in a way that actively resists and repels a surface interpretation.
As we broke it down line by line, we came to a clearer interpretation (not crystal, but definitely a helpful insight). Her usage of Felt ("I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain") immediately sets up a working dichotomy between the mental and physical states. The Feeling is an event, but it is happening within her own understanding of the nature of death. The second line has the Mourners going to and fro, which feels like a pacing procession, lending itself to the third line where they are treading, which reads as a cyclical and trudging slowness.
When Sense breaks through in the fourth line, we read it both as in conversation with line 3 as well as having a dual meaning. In this case, we interpreted Sense to mean both physical senses- this stark awakening- but also as a perception and reasoning.
In the second stanza, people are seated, yet there's still this motion and movement in a seamless weaving of the drumbeats/heartbeats connection. Even if there is a physical stillness, it's still repetitive and rhythmic motion. Line 8 appears to be the antithesis of line 4 as the mind goes numb with the repetition, making it seem like there is too much going on to begin to comprehend. We have moved on from this moment of perceived clarity.
In the third, they lifted a Box that sounded (phonaesthetically) to legs bending as well as the floor creaking and groaning under their weight. The pallbearers are treading this heaviness across the soul. It's the creakiness of both their mental states (when facing the gravity of the situation) as well as the physical (the actual sound and act of legs bending to support this weight). The Boots of Lead harken back to the purposeful stomp in the quiet ceremony of her mind. They are no longer lightly treading to and fro, but enacting a slow and steady procession.
Then we have a shift to the Heavens ringing a Bell. The silence takes a toll, and within the context of that time period and into the church that funerals were usually held, it recalls organ music. This opens it up from the Box and brings expansion into the mix. Bells are still repetitive, but they are also more open and freeing. The Boots from the last stanza keep the soul from resisting expansion, yet still keep it tethered to a patterned Sense (in this case meaning the first real musicality of the poem) in a rhythmic capacity. Bells are light and abundant, but they still follow the same pattern of back-and-forth, which speaks to both the treading and the drums. The Race seems like it's saying that the entirety of being is sound and vibration.
What got us was the dash following the last word (then-). We surmised that the pairing of the narrator and silence was the strange Race, oddly competing and working together; what we neglected to figure out (or, rather, fully flesh out) was the "Finished knowing" assertion in the last stanza.
We thought that perhaps figuratively the Brain was the fertile ground and the body was underneath it. We spoke about this for a while. We think that maybe the poem could act as the Brain, and the analysis its body. What really stuck out to us was the relationship between mind and body. I (Pepper) would like to explore that concept further, though we are now reading many more non-traditional elegies. From emilydickinsonmuseum.org: "While Dickinson was far from the only person to employ it, she may have been the only poet to depend upon it.
In the beginning of our discussion of this poem, the three of us read it aloud a few times, and realized that we had quite a bit of difficulty summarizing it without using figurative language to aid our analysis. Our first thoughts were that she was slowly going in and out of lucidity in a way that actively resists and repels a surface interpretation.
As we broke it down line by line, we came to a clearer interpretation (not crystal, but definitely a helpful insight). Her usage of Felt ("I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain") immediately sets up a working dichotomy between the mental and physical states. The Feeling is an event, but it is happening within her own understanding of the nature of death. The second line has the Mourners going to and fro, which feels like a pacing procession, lending itself to the third line where they are treading, which reads as a cyclical and trudging slowness.
When Sense breaks through in the fourth line, we read it both as in conversation with line 3 as well as having a dual meaning. In this case, we interpreted Sense to mean both physical senses- this stark awakening- but also as a perception and reasoning.
In the second stanza, people are seated, yet there's still this motion and movement in a seamless weaving of the drumbeats/heartbeats connection. Even if there is a physical stillness, it's still repetitive and rhythmic motion. Line 8 appears to be the antithesis of line 4 as the mind goes numb with the repetition, making it seem like there is too much going on to begin to comprehend. We have moved on from this moment of perceived clarity.
In the third, they lifted a Box that sounded (phonaesthetically) to legs bending as well as the floor creaking and groaning under their weight. The pallbearers are treading this heaviness across the soul. It's the creakiness of both their mental states (when facing the gravity of the situation) as well as the physical (the actual sound and act of legs bending to support this weight). The Boots of Lead harken back to the purposeful stomp in the quiet ceremony of her mind. They are no longer lightly treading to and fro, but enacting a slow and steady procession.
Then we have a shift to the Heavens ringing a Bell. The silence takes a toll, and within the context of that time period and into the church that funerals were usually held, it recalls organ music. This opens it up from the Box and brings expansion into the mix. Bells are still repetitive, but they are also more open and freeing. The Boots from the last stanza keep the soul from resisting expansion, yet still keep it tethered to a patterned Sense (in this case meaning the first real musicality of the poem) in a rhythmic capacity. Bells are light and abundant, but they still follow the same pattern of back-and-forth, which speaks to both the treading and the drums. The Race seems like it's saying that the entirety of being is sound and vibration.
What got us was the dash following the last word (then-). We surmised that the pairing of the narrator and silence was the strange Race, oddly competing and working together; what we neglected to figure out (or, rather, fully flesh out) was the "Finished knowing" assertion in the last stanza.
We thought that perhaps figuratively the Brain was the fertile ground and the body was underneath it. We spoke about this for a while. We think that maybe the poem could act as the Brain, and the analysis its body. What really stuck out to us was the relationship between mind and body. I (Pepper) would like to explore that concept further, though we are now reading many more non-traditional elegies. From emilydickinsonmuseum.org: "While Dickinson was far from the only person to employ it, she may have been the only poet to depend upon it.
While Dickinson's dashes often stand in for more varied punctuation, at other times they serve as bridges between sections of the poem—bridges that are not otherwise readily apparent. Dickinson may also have intended for the dashes to indicate pauses when reading the poem aloud."
This acknowledgement of the present caesura makes it seem even more like this poem is on this ominous precipice. Its dashes are definitely a stop-and-pause sign for the 21st-century reader. Additionally, the allegorical nature of the poem reflects the various stress factors that Dickinson felt in her own day-to-day life, regardless of whether it was Death or something like it. This is Emily's ultimate depression and fear of (im)mortality. With the inclusion of the other mourners, she is taking others' feelings into account, but with the personal language she is leading every member of her audience along with her on a path of desperation and pursuit of knowledge at any cost.
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