From the details, we can correctly conclude the speaker is in a coffin at his own funeral due to the abundance of senses provided, especially sound. Many times sound was conveyed through imagery like "A Service, like a Drum-/Kept beating - beating -", "And then I heard them life a Box....", "As all the Heavens were a Bell,/And Being, but an Ear/And I, and Silence, some strange Race...." What one may expect to be in a poem full of imagery though, is blatantly missing. Sight is such a strong sense that it is often taken for granted and dulls our other senses due to our heavy reliance on it. Because of its absence, one may assume the speaker is in his own coffin at his own "funeral." Naturally the funeral is not literal because the speaker still has abundant senses
(much unlike a corpse), so it is also appropriate to interpret a figurative meaning for the funeral. I tend to agree with the "insanity" interpretation due to the almost exasperated and excluding tone. An interpretation about a struggle with drugs may seem appropriate in a modern application; however, because both insanity and drugs have an outstanding effect mentally, they can be easily interchanged. Both interpretations, I feel, fall into our beloved "cone zone"; yet, I do not feel the "loss of religion/faith" interpretation is quite as conical. A person chooses to have faith and believe in God. One would not write about one's own absence of religion in such a negative light of it being the cause of their spiritual death, because if they do not believe in God, they don't have to worry about a spiritual death in the first place.
Natural and delicious. Who knew?
I am trying to decide whether or not your use of "his" in the first line is to show that you are not assuming the speaker is Emily Dickinson. If so, kuuuudos! I really do not like the word "kudos," but this is the second time I have used it in as many days. =|
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting way of looking at the loss of faith interpretation. That one felt sort of like a stretch to me, but I wasn't able to pinpoint exactly what seemed off, so... well done, sir.
I WAS using his to keep the speaker from not necessarily being E.D.! And everyone knows when you don't know the gender of something/someone it is by default male...which ain't so hot for you and your feelings, but the world is a very misogynistic place some days.
ReplyDeleteYeah, well, we'd get lazy without something to fight for. Or lazier.
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