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1、I Felt a Funeral, in My BrainDickensonI Felt a Funeral, in My Brain The themes in Dickinsons poems Dickinsons poems are usually based on her experiences, her sorrows and joys. But within her little lyrics Dickinson addresses those issues that concern the whole human beings, which include religion, d
2、eath, immorality, love, and nature. 1. Religion In some of her poems she wrote about her doubt and belief about religious subjects. 2. Death and immortality Closely related to Dickinsons religious poetry are her poems concerning death and immortality, ranging over the physical as well as the psychol
3、ogical and emotional aspects of death. Dickinsons greatest rendering of the moment of death is to be found in “I heard a Fly buzz when I died ”, a poem universally considered one of her masterpieces. 3. Love Love is another subject Dickinson dwelt on. (1) One group of her love poems treats the suffe
4、ring and frustration love can cause. These poems are clearly the reflection of her own unhappy experience, closely related to her deepest and most private feelings. (2) The other group of love poems focuses on the physical aspect of desire, in which Dickinson dealt with, allegorically, the influence
5、 of the male authorities over the female, emphasizing the power of physical attraction and expressing a mixture of fear and fascination for the mysterious magnetism between sexes. 4. Nature In her poems Dickinsons skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well-expressed. (1) On the
6、 one hand, she shared with her romantic and transcendental predecessors who believed that a mythical 神话的, 虚构的 bond between man and nature existed, that nature revealed to man things about mankind and universe. (2) On the other hand, she felt strongly about natures inscrutability and indifference to
7、the life and interests of human beings. Dickinsons artistic characteristics Dicksons poetry is unique and unconventional in its own way. 1) no titles. 2) dashes are used as a musical device 3) capital letters as a means of emphasis. 3) The form of her poetry is familiar, communal , and sometimes, ir
8、regular. 4) short; a singly image or symbol ; one subject matter. 5) personal and meditative. 6) She often used persona人格面具 and personification拟人化 Dickinsons poetry, despite its ostensibleformal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness, and her limited private world has never
9、 confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination. personae I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, 我感到一场葬礼，在脑海里， And Mourners to and fro 悲伤的人们来来往往 Kept treading - treading - till it seemed 不停地践踏 践踏 直到看来 That Sense was breaking through - 神经被穿透 And when they all wer
10、e seated, 当他们全都落座， A Service, like a Drum - 一种仪式，象只鼓 Kept beating - beating - till I thought 不断敲打 敲打 直到我感觉 My Mind was going numb - 大脑越来越麻木 And then I heard them lift a Box 然后我听见他们抬起一口箱子 And creak across my Soul 吱吱嘎嘎地穿过我的灵魂 With those same Boots of Lead, again, 还是那些如灌满铅的靴子， Then Space - began to tol
11、l, 然后时空中 丧钟敲响， As all the Heavens were a Bell, 整个天空是一口钟， And Being, but an Ear, 生命，仅是一只耳朵， And I, and Silence, some strange Race 我，和沉默，某个陌生的族类 Wrecked, solitary, here - 毁灭，孤独，就在这里 And then a Plank in Reason, broke, 然后一块支撑的板子，破裂， And I dropped down, and down - 我向下坠落，坠落 And hit a World, at every plung
12、e, 每次跌落，都撞进一个世界， And Finished knowing - then - 什么都不再知道 然后 体裁：description 语言风格： The poem uses figurative language to create imagery associated with a funeral, suggesting that whatever pain the speaker is enduring in his or her head is so painful that he or she would rather die. The first line, I felt
13、 a Funeral, in my Brain, introduces us to the funeral metaphor, in preparation for the descriptions to follow. With the word funeral, immediately the readers head is filled with all of the images associated with a funeral, such as caskets and funeral dirges. In the last line of the second stanza, My
14、 Mind was going numb (8), is reminiscent of the dullness of feeling sometimes associated with grieving. Once more the reader is reminded of the funeral metaphor, yet, more literally, the speakers mind is going numb as a result of the pain. This pain is so great it has anesthetized the senses. Later
15、in the poem, she describes the church bells ringing distinctly for a funeral, Then Space began to toll/ As all the Heavens were a Bell (12-13), which could also be metaphoric for a ringing in the speakers ears, another symptom of the headache, one which can make the pain of the headache unbearable.
16、In the lines, And I and Silence some strange Race/ Wrecked, solitary, here (15-16), it describes the silence and solitude associated with the finality of death, which resonates with the image of a corpse lying still in a coffin. The concepts of silence and solitude suit the headache description well
17、, because of the need to be left alone in silence as one handles the pain of the headache. Sound is of particular importance in this poem, as the majority of the imagery used is aural. In the first stanza, the treading of the mourners could be visual imagery, but it is also aural imagery. This sugge
18、sts the grinding sound of heavy feet, which could be comparable to what every thump and noise feels like to a headache sufferer. The second stanza depicts a funeral dirge as part of this funeral with, A Service like a Drum, and the pounding rhythm of the drum (6-7), which could also be a pounding in
19、 the head, or a pulsating in the temples, due to a migraine. Dickinson noticeably points out the importance of the aural imagery in the poem as she starts the third stanza with the line, I heard them lift a Box (9). It is worth noting that she uses the word heard to describe the lifting of the box,
20、because the concept of lifting a box is more an occurrence that one would recall as a visual image, rather than as a distinct sound. The word heard is used to ensure that the reader senses the aural imagery. After comparing the heavens to a bell in the beginning of the fifth stanza, Dickinson contin
21、ue with And Being but an Ear (14), emphasizing that everything the speaker is experiencing in this metaphoric funeral is through her sense of hearing. It is as if the speaker in the poem is encountering everything about the funeral with his or her eyes closed. It is not common for a person to attend
22、 a funeral with his or her eyes shut. This does, although, make sense in the case of a migraine, as migraine sufferers often comment that they need to lie down in the dark, as light heightens the intensity of the pain. As the aural imagery in this poem exemplifies, sound is a crucial part of what ma
23、kes a poem come to life. The music of poetry is part of what makes it an art form. In this poem, Dickinson uses a variety of poetic devices associated with sound to describe the feeling of a headache in terms of a funeral. The rhythm of I felt a Funeral in my Brain, is consistent throughout the poem
24、, which is written mainly in iambs, with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. This form of poetic rhythm gives the poem the feel of a march, in this poem, the march of a funeral procession. It also mimics the pulsating of a severe headache. The only time that the poem varies from
25、the iambic rhythm is in the line, Wrecked, solitary, here (16), where the diversion from the iambic rhythm seems to serve as a way to add emphasis to this line, giving power to the words wrecked and solitary. Dickinson also used repetition of certain words in the poem to create alliteration. In the
26、first stanza, this is found in the line, Kept treading- treading (3), where the repetition of the word treading, because of the alliteration of the letter t, creates a sound associated with the marching or dragging of feet in the funeral procession. Here, it also adds to the description of the const
27、ant ache in the speakers head. In the second stanza, alliteration occurs again in a line that again begins with the word kept, hinting at the repetitiveness to follow, as it states Kept beating- beating (7), which is referring to the line before it which describes, A Service like a Drum (6). The all
28、iteration of the letter b seems to imitate the reverberations of the drum being played in the funeral march. In the other sense of this poem, this beating again adds to the pulsing in the head that is associated with a headache or migraine. The words beating is important to note because of the harsh
29、ness of the drum sound it seems to reproduce, but there are other examples in the poem, where the words seems to literally make the sounds they are describing, which is known as onomatopoeia. An obvious example of the onomatopoeia in this poem is found in the third stanza where it says, And creak ac
30、ross my Soul (10), describing when the speaker hears the lifting of the previously mentioned box. The word creak sounds like a creaking of a box, and works very effectively in describing a severe headache because every noise, every creak, is extreme and can feel like an excruciating pain. While it i
31、s possible that the pain Dickinson describes is not physical, but emotional, the poetic devices clearly paint a picture of a tangible pain, such as a migraine or severe headache. Through her descriptive writing, using the pulsing of the meter, the repetition of harsh sounds, and the discussion of th
32、e funeral, Dickinson makes it possible for us to feel the pain through words. This is the art of poetry, enabling a reader to feel and understand sensations through the use of language. 主题展现(或创造意图？)： Emily Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young c
33、hild, Emily proved to be a bright and meticulous student. She showed a sharp intelligence, and was able to create many original writings of rhyming stories, delighting her fellow classmates. She is regarded as one of Americas greatest poets and is well known for her unusual life of self obligatory s
34、ocial isolation. Though she lived a life of simplicity and seclusion, she yet wrote poetry of great power; questioning the nature of immortality and death. I felt a funeral in my brain also deals with the idea of death and fatality. It can be read two ways; either as a poem about a plunge into madne
35、ss or as a poem describing the stages of dying. She tells of the loss of her mind and that the normal function of her mind has ended, just as the normal function of a person ends when they die. The funeral in her brain is a metaphor for the death of the mind. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain explores t
36、he functioning of the human mind under strain and attempts to imitate the stages of a mental collapse through the overall metaphor of a funeral. She uses the common rituals of a funeral to mark the stages of her mental collapse until she faces a destruction that no words can express. It is not a lit
37、eral death or a death of the mind into a state of insanity, but rather a chosen separation from the things of the outside world. We might say that the poem is about transformation, moving from one state of existence to another; sanity to insanity, life to death, social to recluse. A nostalgic demons
38、tration, terrifying in its loneliness and the isolation of the speaker from others actually reveal Dickinsons own life spent is segregation. She gives a stark description of the funeral as if it were her owns, the vision of her in her coffin, alone, describing what it was like. This further compound
39、s the sense of her loneliness and isolation. Most people shudder to think of- the view from their own coffin and therefore it is surely very commendable on her behalf to take the step forward. It is strange to notice that although the poem begins with the feeling of a funeral in her brain, there is
40、no feeling on the part of the mourners. No individual is ever mentioned, no sentence is ever uttered, and no mourning attire is described. The mourners are faceless and devoid of feeling. They are just beings, and they are just there, as if callous and heartless. She is totally alone, distancing fro
41、m the real world, and more importantly, from any sort of feelings by people about her. She seems to have had a mounting frustration with people throughout the course of the poem. The image is one of being surrounded by people but never interacting with them, either in feeling or in action, except wh
42、en they carry out unpleasant actions that hurt her to the core. “A Service, like a Drum” is a reference to the normalcy of everyday life that people went on living while she was falling apart. Yet the blame is laid upon them with the metaphor of With those same Boots of Lead implying that even thoug
43、h the funeral is over as they take her to her grave, the torment is still prevalent. When the plank of reason breaks and she falls into worlds, we understand that the belief in heaven, hell, or any form of afterlife is not based on reason; with death, the realm of reason disappears and then she plun
44、ges into unknown worlds, whatever awaits us, finally knowing the truth of what awaits after death. The plank of reason breaks like rotting wood and she plunges deeper and deeper into insanity, allowing her to view the world anew multiple times through the eyes of madness. Her insanity allows her to
45、see multiple worlds, not visible to the sane. Dickinson twists our notions about insanity with her last line. Only through madness can we truly know the world as it is. However, since she is mad, there is no way to communicate this information understandably to others who arent mad. The implication
46、of the plunge ending with a Crash, a violent landing, and then got through could let us know that it was not necessarily the end of her existence. Perhaps a reference to the afterlife, implying that there is something 所属文学流派：Modernism 下面是赵老师PPT上的，记得不要照抄哦加油 “Brain”: usually refers to the physical mas
47、s inside our skulls: the grey matter. mind“: refers to the powers of intelligence, The speaker experiences the loss of self in the chaos of the unconscious, and the reader experiences the speakers descending madness and the horror most of us feel about going crazy. Her reason is being overwhelmed by
48、 the irrationality of the unconscious. Lack of control and the loss of rationality. The poet is not observing the funeral but is feeling it. She is both observer of the funeral and participant, indicating that the Self is divided. By the end of the poem, the Self will have shattered into pieces or chaos. Their treading (note the repetition of the word, which gives emphasis and suggests the action) indicates a pressure that is pushing her down. The speaker has a momentary impression that reason (sense) is escaping or being lost. The pressure of the treading is reasserted with the re
