Blog post 2

2. Poets often include in their poems places that evoke strong emotion. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, show how settings in poems have been connected to the presentation of feelings.

When I ask people to use one word to describe the famous American poet Emily Dickinson, there are plenty words can describe her: freedom, nature loving, loneliness, recluse. One word attracts my attention, “recluse”? A person who withdrawns from society and seeks solitude? Maybe, but if she really loves nature, she may escape from this flourishing and also chaos world to a place where is quiet, no chaos and she could even play with the insects to spend her time. From my perspective, a recluse should be solemn and speechless. When I read the Poem” A narrow Fellow in the Grass”, it immediately gets my attention, there is one element in the title attracted me “ A narrow Fellow”, what does the author want to descirbe, an insect? Maybe. If the author really used this “Narrow Fellow” to describe an insect, which would let me feel a little bit cute and fun. The author did not act as a recluse, inside her mind she is still a child who wants to share her happiness with other people.

The first stanze only talks about how author found this guest, the line” You may have met him? Did you not?” Which gives readers a feeling that the author loves this narror Fellow, she did not describe the insect as an uninvited guest nor an insect, the “him” used in the third line in the first stanza shows that the Emily Dickinson really loves nature, she puts the element in the nature an equal position with her. “You may have met him?” Sounds like she is facing an old friend rather than a new person. Which would let readers to place themselves at that condition, and found the fun in that situation.Then from second stanza to the last second stanza, the author describe the actions of that Boy and she. The second stanza “The grass divides as with a Comb.” First shows her characteristic of nature loving, also “as a Comb” is very good metaphor, no one would relate the grass on the ground as the comb, but the grass really looks like the comb. Then one confusion in this poem is that what was the spotted shaft? From my perspective the author wants to describe a coming insect because after the second line of the second stanza, the author describes several actions, like “Close at your Feet and opens further on.” In my interpretation, those action mean the close and good relationship between the author and the nature. The third and fourth stanzas totally show how the author interacts with her friend, I interpret the Boy as author’s good friend. The words and phrases, such as “Boggy Acre”, “ Braefoot” and “ Unbraiding in the sun”. These words and phrases it passes to readers the desire of the nature from Dickinson. She does not want to live in the city, she was eager of the natural life, when we read the word Barefoot, we first would imagine an image that a barefoot on the green grass, it is a symbolism of the interaction with nature. So one reason people like to read Emily Dickinson’s poems because her products could really trigger people’s eagerness for the nature.

For the fifth stanza, I am little confused about the main idea about it, I do not know what feeling the author wants to pass to the readers. The line “I feel for them a transport of cordiality” It is a little bit strange metaphor, no one would describe a real person as a transport, so author now is describing the natural people, which are the insects, the natural dwellers in the forests. The word in the last line of this stanza "cordiality" this word means the zealous behavior. And in the whole poem, this word also illustrates the nature's love to the author.

However,the style of the poem changes so fast from the fifth stanza to the last stanza, the author’s emotion changes to negative, in the beginning of the last stanza "but never met this fellow" two negative words give readers a feeling that the fellow invaded in author’s peaceful life. And then next line" attend or alone" which could let readers feel the sadness in it.

In general, the whole poem illustrates author’s love on the nature and the good relationship between the nature and the author, but that Fellow, whatever it is, it symbolized the misfortune, such as the Civil Wars happened in 1850s, it ruined much lands and caused many casualities. But the author still uses many space in poem to describe the happiness and quietness that nature brings for her. The poem really corresponds with Emily Dickinson’s writing style.