Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is a song that has been popular for hundreds of years. The song has brought many people together in many ways because it is such a powerful song. This is one reason that this is significant to Emily because she like the idea of bringing people together. Although she was secluded from the world she found it important to bring us together through her works. The story talked about the Lord doing good and Emily being a Christian women find this very important. She believes very much in he Lord and that he is the only one and thing that can save her. This is significant because the song talks about the Lord doing good and promising hope. This hope is what keeps her going in her life of solitude. It talks about being saved which is important to her because she wanted to be saved from her past and the life she once lived before. The song touches a lot of people and can be considered one of the most powerful songs in America's history. The time that this was written was in a time of troubles in America when we needed inspiration and happiness to lift all of our spirits. This could also be significance in Emily Dickinson's life because of how uplifting it is. The idea of being saved and hope was something that everyone was searching for. This was something that many Christians believed in and found important because of the way of life at this time. The song brought them back to God and back to their faith because of the promises it proclaimed that the Lord had made. This could have contributed to Emily's coming back to her faith and to the Lord. The song does have a connection to many but I will personally say that I have little connection to it. The emotions are there but I am not really affected by it because I think the time period is different.

Emily Dickinson Writing Style

Emily Dickinson is one of the writers that died before she could truly see her work become popular. This was a choice made by Emily because she did not want her work to be published. She also was known for staying in her home and not leaving for days because she was not very social. This could be why her writing is like no other authors writing. This could also be where she got her ideas of individualism. The idea of independence and being able to do things on her own was very important seeming as that is how she lived her life. This is what led her into her writing a Modernism like style of writing. This is shown in her poem "This is my letter to the World" because it is about the world seeing her a for who she is and not taking her as a person for granted. This is when the ideas of equality also came into her writing style and made her writing very much modernistic. The literary critic Conrad Aiken said, " When we come to Emily Dickinson's poetry, we find the Emersonian individualism clear enough, but perfectly Miss Dickinson's." (Aiken) about Emily Dickinson's writing style. In the poem she says,' He Message is committed; To hands I cannot see--- For love of her----Sweet---countrymen---Judge tenderly---of Me" (Dickinson) This shows how she believed that people should give her a break for who she is because she is an individual person, and is great in her own way. This greatness also came into her writing style of Realism. Her realistic writing style is displayed very well in her poem "The Lighting is a yellow Fork". The poem displays the ideas of realistic meanings and leaves out literal psychological meanings. The poem says, "Of mansions never quite disclosed; and never quite concealed; The Apparatus of Dark; to ignorance revealed" (Dickinson) This shows how Emily also liked to write realistically instead of always making the reader decipher what the author is trying to say. This making reading a passage easier for everyone. Using both of these styles has lead her to be to be one of the greatest authors of all time. She is particularly interesting to me because although she was not a "normal" person in her time, she was still fantastic. She worked against all odds that she was faced with to make her writing better and more interesting for herself over anyone else. This is why most of her writings became popular after her death because she did not have most of them published. This would also explain why they have no actual titles to most of her poetry because she didn't feel the need to name things that were thought to be for her eyes only. She thought that she didn’t have to keep any titles in place because if they would not have been published it would not have mattered. This is what makes her writing so unique.


Dickinson, Emily "This is my letter to the World." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.
Dickinson, Emily "The lighting is a yellow Fork." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.



Aiken, Conrad. "Emily Dickinson." In A Reviewer's ABC. New York: Meridian Books, 1935. Quoted as "Emily Dickinson" in Harold Bloom, ed. Emily Dickinson, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1998. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPED04&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 19, 2012).

Walt Whitman Writing Style

The writing style of Walt Whitman is one that cannot be considered Realism nor can it be considered Modernism because his writing as a whole has a combination of both. The Realism period is considered looking at things as they are and not how they "could be". An example of this type of writing from Walt Whitman is "Calvary Crossing a Ford". This is a poem talking about how army men were in the time of war during the day when they were not fighting. The poem is poetic but is realism literacy because it still is very blunt and full of literal meaning. For example, "Behold the brown-faced, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles." (Whitman 1) shows that he is a realistic writer. This a realism literacy because it is a literal meaning and doesn't have a philosophical or symbolic purpose. It is saying that the men are brown faced and the negligent men sit upon their saddles. This is a very simple way of writing in because it doesn't mean that you as a person have to use much thought when reading it. The author though has to use a lot of thought so that they are able to keep the literal meaning while still making the story/poem interesting to the writer. The other type of writing is Modernism, which is about the modern growth in industry and many popular Modernism poems/stories were about the World War 1. Also a huge part of modernism was that the author will write a lot about individualism and the idea of equality. This was the path the Walt Whitman took over the industrial realism part. The story called "from Song of Myself" bleeds the ideas of individualism. The quote "I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (Whitman 2) represents the idea of individualism and of being oneself. The idea of celebrating oneself is something that has been carried into today's world a lot and I believe it came from this era of literacy. The literary critic Matt Longabucco has a huge article on Whitman's career in literature. He says, "Much has been made of this design choice of Whitman's, since it seems to announce two important thematic premises of the book: first, that the poet is not separable from his physical body (and therefore his portrait is as valid an identification as his name), and second, that the poet is "one of the roughs," as he puts it, "no stander above men and women or apart from them" (and therefore dressed like the mass of working men and women)." (Longabucca), which is explaining the author, set up his poetry writing style. Longabucca realized that Whitman did have a general set-up to his writings which I have also noticed when reading his poetry. The idea that he is a "tweener" shows that he can neither be considered a modernist or a realist writer.

Whitman, Walt. "Calvary Crossing a Ford." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.

Whitman, Walt. "from song of Myself." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.



Longabucco, Matt. "'The Proof of a Poet'—Walt Whitman and His Critics." In Bloom, Harold, ed. Walt Whitman, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BCWWh03&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 19, 2012).

"I heard a buzz.." Emily Dickinson

I will be doing a blog over "I heard a buzz" by Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson is known for hew great number of poems and their popularity that soured after her death. The poem is about how in the death of this person they see a fly. Emily gives a great amount of detail about those few seconds before death seeing the fly. "Talking about those few seconds of life that With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; the person had Emily says, " (Dickinson) This shows the how great of an author Emily was. She uses the least amount of actual story but with such great detail, those few seconds can have a thousand words. The author Ralph Waldo Emerson was also very well known for doing this because he would also write things with an exponential amount of detail. This makes both Emily Dickinson and Ralph Emerson some of the most well known authors still today because of how they write, no so much what they write. That is the key to being popular and legendary. Many people can write a great story, poem, or novel. It’s the people whose writing is amazing and legendary in all their works, not just one. I think these two are legendary because they are not popular for just a story or poem; they are legendary for just about all of them together. Another author who has achieved this legendary status is Mr. Henry David Thoreau. All three have made huge strides in literature that continue to be popular today. A literary critic by the name of Randall Huff, whom I have read criticisms before and found him very insightful, said this about her poem; “The startling premise of Emily Dickinson's opening line will not trouble those who believe that one's personality makes up a large part of the soul or is determined by it; thus the immortality promised the soul by church authority and tradition would extend to the personality and perhaps the memory as well. “(Huff) Here is where he explains why some would not find this poem to be troubling or hard for most to read because of how/who the people are reading it. It is almost a good idea to read his criticism before actually reading the poem because he allows the reader to know what mind set to read it from. This is key to reading the legendary Mrs. Emily Dickinson’s poetry.



Dickinson, Emily. "Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson." Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. .

Huff, Randall. "'I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0190&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 14, 2012).

To A Stranger

I am doing a reflection over the poem "To A Stranger" by Walt Whitman. First off I would like to start out by saying how truly and undeniably talented Walt Whitman was when it came to writing. His stories are still so popular today because of his way of making a connection with us as the the readers. This is very much so the truth in his poem "To A Stranger". He makes you feel like it truly is you passing this stranger on the street and thinking these things. For example Whitman says, "PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking" (Whitman) This makes the reader get into the story which is a technique that was used a lot by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which is why Whitman and Emerson's writings have been so closely compared, even in recent years. The poem is about how this person sees a stranger walking down the street but does not feel them to be a stranger. They feel as if they have known the person for forever and will know them forever more into the future. The author does not say a word to the stranger though and even says, "I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone" (Whitman) This gives the story a bit of a mysterious appeal to it. Having this mystery gives the story much more appeal. Although I myself very much enjoy the writing of Whitman, a man named Peter Bayne does not put him in such a fancy light as I would. Reading his criticism over Whitman's poetry, I found him to be rude and almost pushing vulgar brutality. He went as far as saying, "If I ever saw anything in print that deserved to be characterized as atrociously bad, it is the poetry of Walt Whitman" (Bayne) Although I do not share these views, it is important to show that not everyone feels as strongly towards Whitman's poetry as myself.



Bayne, Peter. "Walt Whitman's Poems." Contemporary Review, December 1875: 49–51, 68–69. Quoted as "Walt Whitman's Poems" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Walt Whitman, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCVWaW017&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 12, 2012).


Whitman, Walt. "To a Stranger, by Walt Whitman." Poetry Archive. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .

To Build a Fire

I will be doing a reflection over a story called "To Build Fire" by Jack London. The story was actually written twice by the same author. Each story was basically the same when it came to the plot and general moral. The difference was that the second one was written with nameless characters versus the first one which had names for the main characters. (D'Ammassa). The story is about a man and his dog who are traveling together. The man is inexperienced and not very in touch with nature which is why he himself is faced with so many people. The protagonist of the story made mistake after mistake which got him into situations he was no where near able to get out of. For example in the twelfth paragraph it says "That was why he had shied in such panic. He had felt the give under his feet and heard the crackle of a snow-hidden ice-skin. And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble and danger." (London) Here London shows how the protagonist isn't very smart about his surrounding and got himself into huge trouble. The idea that there was ice under the snow is something only known to people who are knowledgeable about nature. This is London's way of showing the importance of knowing nature. Thoreau had the same idea because he also wanted the world to know the importance of nature when he wrote "Nature". In the story he shows the beauty of the wild, which I believe is what London is trying to portray through his story as well. He says, "At twelve o'clock the day was at its brightest. Yet the sun was too far south on its winter journey to clear the horizon. The bulge of the earth intervened between it and Henderson Creek, where the man walked under a clear sky at noon and cast no shadow. At half-past twelve, to the minute, he arrived at the forks of the creek. He was pleased at the speed he had made." (London) which shows some of the beauties of nature as well as the struggles of the young man.


London, Jack. "To Build a Fire, by Jack London." The World of Jack London 2012®. The World of Jack London. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .



D'Ammassa, Don. "'To Build a Fire'." Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAdvF140&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 8, 2012)

Edwin Arlington Robinson

I am going to be doing a reflection over Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Miniver Cheevy". The poem itself has a lot of repetition and pattern to it. The poem continuously says repeats "Miniver" then explains him. They explain all the things he loved or disliked in a creative, yet very effective way. The straight forward writing style makes this author very much like Thoreau because he also like to write about things as straight forward as Edwin. Though Edwin does like to use what I would call secretive ways of writing in the poem. For example Edwin writes, "(Robinson) Minever loved the Medici, ;Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly ;Could he have been one." which is insisting that two contradicting this giving the story a lot of range and variety. The poem consistently goes through talking about this one person which insists that the author may have known the person very well, or made him up. This is a lot like Emerson's writings because Emerson was well known for his characters and how realistic and personal all of them were. They all seemed to display different lives and personalities as real people do, making many wonder if some of his characters were really based on real people. A literary critic said, "Like many of Robinson's poems, "Miniver Cheevy" is a character sketch of an emotionally tormented man, but Robinson's use of satire coupled with a playful meter lends the poem its comic effect." (Cusatis) about Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy". This is going back to what I said before about the character and the way he might have gone about writing the character’s personality. The writing of a character can be very difficult for many authors but Emerson and Robinson share a common trait that which neither of them have any problems with doing just that, and doing it very successfully. In my opinion, if an author can make up or even mock a person into

Cusatis, John. "'Miniver Cheevy'." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAmL1232&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 7, 2012).

Robinson, Edwin A. ""Miniver Cheevy" by E.A. Robinson." The Poem Tree: An Online Poetry Anthology. Web. 07 Mar. 2012. .