18K3E06-AMERICAN LITERATURE

UNIT-1-POETRY (DETAILED) (1)

1) I heard a Fly buzz - when I died by Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air -

Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset - when the King

Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away

What portion of me be

Assignable - and then it was

There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -

Between the light - and me -

And then the Windows failed - and then

I could not see to see –

I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died by Emily Dickinson -ESSAY

Emily Dickinson lived in Amherst, Massachusetts in the 19th century. She published very little during her
life time. Her published work was predominantly put out by men and was a famous figure, choosing to
stay indoors for most of her adult life. Her posthumous influence was far-reaching, however and she is
now considered one of the most important poets in the English language, Dickinson’s poem often
employ a meter and diction similar to that found in hymns. This poem is one of Dickinson’s best known
and her poems are preoccupied with death. Other poems on this subject include “Because I could not
stop for death”, “I felt funeral in my brain”, “As imperceptibly as grief”, and “Death is the supple suitor”.
Death, of course, is one of the oldest subjects in literature, and Dickinson is not only poet of the time to
take an unflinching look to die. The fly is no stranger of the page. Flies appear in the Bible (Book of
Exodus) as the fourth plague in Egypt, and Jean Paul Sartre wrote a play in the 20th century named ‘ The
Flies’. The fly flies usually associate them with impending doom, decay and death.

Dickinson grew up within a Puritan environment that placed great emphasis on Christian morality. Her
father was a congressman and the patriarch of the family and she could begin writing her poetry
because her father gave her implicit permission. Dickinson was a female author in a time and place and
this was not encouraged. Dickinson was a female author in time and place when this was not
encouraged. Dickinson’s America was one of religious revivalism, with competing ideas about the way
in which people ought to serve God, including the temperance movement of which her father was a
part. The morality of slavery and whether the slavery should be abolished was also an intensely debated
issue at the forefront of the political scene, led to the outbreak of the American civil war.
 2

The deathbed presented in the poem is typical of the 19th century New England Protestant world in
which Dickinson lived. Death was something to be prepared for, particularly in the religious and spiritual
sense. Dickinson lost many loved ones during her life, observing scenes similar to the one in the poem.
Her blackouts gave her a pronounced awareness of death. She was bedridden for seven months before
she died.The poem “I Heard a Fly buzz when I died” was written by the American poet Emily Dickinson in
1862, but it was not published during her lifetime. It has become one of her most famous and one of her
most ambiguous poems, talking about the moment of death from the perspective of the person who is
already dead. The poem seems, the speaker is on her deathbed and surrounded by mourners. The
irritating figure of the fly arrives and undermines the seriousness and gravity of the occasion.

‘I could hear a fly buzzing around the room at the moment I died. The room felt very still, like the calm,
tense air in between the gusts of storm’.

‘The people gathered around me had cried until they had no tears left, and everyone seemed like they
were holding their breath, waiting for my final moment and anticipating the arrival of God in the room’.

‘I had signed a will that gave away all my possessions, dividing up all the parts of my life that could be
divided up. And then, suddenly, a fly interrupted the proceedings’.

‘The fly looked blue and buzzed around the room erratically. It flew in front of the light, blocking it. Then
the light from the windows faded away, and I could not see anything at all’.

The poet attempts to imagine the transition between life and death. One can question about the poem
whether there is an afterlife, it conveys its uncertainty by focusing on the actual moment of death. The
poem is mysterious and paradoxical. No one has been able to describe what it feels like to actually die!
The sheer mundane of mortality is nothing ordinary as a bug or that no matter how well one prepares to
face the other side, it’s impossible to be ready for something unknowable.The speaker is reciting this
poem after died, what the speaker describes takes place just before this, as the speaker is on his or her
deathbed. In the final moments, the room and the air are notably filled with “stillness”. This seems to
anticipate the stillness of death, and suggests a sort of blurring of the border between these two states
as If the transition between life and death is not a sharp jump cut but rather a slow cross fade. The
people in the room are trying to remain still, in order to make the transition from life to death as
seamless as possible for the speaker. This creates a tension, as everyone is done with a sad part and
waiting for ‘the King’, God to take the speaker away. Instead of God arriving to aid with the passage
from life to death, there is only the ‘uncertain, stumbling Buzz’ of the fly. The timing of the fly’s arrival
suggests, it might be the ambassador of the underworld. Critics see the fly as an emissary of death the
grim reaper, it might be a literal fly. It represents the absence of ‘the King’, undermining any certainties
that the speaker might have held on to about the afterlife. It is annoying buzzing sound is darkly funny,
preventing the speaker from attaining the state of spiritual contemplation or grace that would seem
more fitting for the occasion. In other words, at perhaps the most spiritually significant moment in life,
the speaker is distracted by a fly. The fly is a perfect symbol for spiritual doubt, it seems aimless airborne
wandering the earthly wonderings of the human mind. The fly is interpretable as symbolic and
meaningless. The moment of death remains shrouded in mystery. The poem ends with an inconclusive
note, with the ‘failing’ light of the window representing the speaker’s inability to see beyond the last
living moments despite the speaker talks from the afterlife. Death remains as unknowable as ever.

UNIT I –POETRY (DETAILED)

2. The Haunted Palace BY EDGAR ALLEN POE
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion, 3
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A wingèd odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tunèd law,

Round about a throne where, sitting,

Porphyrogene!
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing

And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn!—for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley, 4
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh—but smile no more.

The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allen Poe

The poem “The Haunted Palace” by Edgar Allen Poe tells of a palace with a happy king of long
ago that falls to ruin. The poem “The Haunted Palace” is a ballad- a poem or a song that tells a
story. The Haunted Palace symbolizes the same thing that the house of Usher does: an ancestral
home and name fallen into mental and physical decline. Usher sings the poem to his friend
Victor, introducing it as a half-remembered, ancient melody about the state of his house. The
first four stanzas describe a beautiful, stately palace in a fair valley, ruled “in monarch thought’s
dominion” by a fair and wise ruler. Furthermore,
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows,
Spirits moving musically
To a lute’s well-tuned law.

The palace is a symbol for the mind; the “two luminous windows” are the ruler’s eyes. The
“spirits” are the ruler’s qualities, skills and thoughts; they move gracefully in time and in tune to
regular, harmonic music. Everything is in harmony; the ruler is sane and wise; thought and
reason rule in his mind. The last two stanzas, in the poem says about the palace and its
monarch’s decline into insanity. The stanza nine marks the abrupt turn of fortunes with the lines,
“But evil things in robes of sorrow

Assailed the monarch’s high estate”. Usher never specifies what evils have befallen his house,
the poem never specifies what the “evil things in robes of sorrow” refer to.

And round about his home the glory

That blushed and bloomed,

Is but a dim remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

This description of faded glory as “a dim-remembered story” is exactly how Usher presents the
poem to his friend in the first place: as a melody he barely remembers. It is also worth noting the
contrast between “blushed and bloomed” evokes the image of a vigorous blood that flows would
create a blush, whereas “entombed” evokes a dead face drained of blood and life. The last stanza
of “The Haunted Palace” is pure Poe: a hellish picture of a palace, and a mind, gone completely
wrong:

And travellers, now, within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms, that move fantastically

To a discordant melody, 5

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever

And laugh — but smile no more.

This last stanza is significant for its stark and total contrast to all the virtues of the palace
described in the earlier stanzas, and in particular the first stanza. While the first stanza describes
a palace where angels and seraphs would be happy to stay, the only visitors here are frightened
travelers and a “hideous throng.” Likewise, the “two luminous windows,” or eyes, are now “red-
litten” and bloodshot. The thoughts behind them are equally as twisted: as opposed to “spirits
moving musically to a lute’s well-tuned law,” the person’s virtues have been overturned into
madness personified by “vast forms”, instead of dancing in harmony, “move fantastically to a
discordant melody.” The “pale door” contrasts with the “glory that blushed and bloomed” so
radiantly in better days. Finally, the hideous laughter that ends the poem is not the joyful noise of
good times, happiness and reason, but the laughter of insanity and despair. The contrast between
order and chaos, reason and insanity, could not be clear. The poem serves as an allegory about a
king "in the olden time long ago" who is afraid of evil forces that threaten him and his palace,
foreshadowing impending doom.

UNIT-I- POETRY (DETAILED)

3. The Snow Man by Wallace Steven’s

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens- Essay

Wallace Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1879. As a poet he is known for diverse
vocabulary. Throughout his life he worked in different jobs, and studied philosophy, and
aesthetics. While in school as a young child Stevens studied Greek and Latin. He graduated from
Harvard with the intention of becoming a writer having worked on different editor boards and
with various magazines while there.
After school he spent time working for the New York Evening Post until, after deciding he
wanted his life to go in a different direction that he wanted to pursue a law degree, while in
school he continued to write published his first group of poems in 1914. While writing he had
steady employment with insurance law. After graduating from New York Law School, he
worked as a lawyer until 1916. He died in Hartford, Connecticut in 1955 at the age of 79 after
receiving the Pulitzer Prize for his Collected Poems. He now stands as one of America’s most
 6

respected poets. His most well-known poems include, “Anecdote of the Jar,” “The Snow Man,”
and “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”
The Snow Man was first published in 1921 in the magazine Poetry, and was reprinted in Steven’s
first collection Harmonium in 1923. It is one of Stevens’ most popular short poems. Stevens
states that the observer of nature during the winter needs to have a cold and detached approach
when beholding the frost and the snow on the trees and bushes. The observer must resist the
temptation to associate the mournful sound of the winter wind with misery: he must resist the
urge to project human feelings onto the wintry landscape.

The Snow Man is a short five stanza poem. Each stanza is a tercet, meaning that it contains only
three lines. The lines are unrhymed, creating a free verse form. This poem works as a single
sentence, from the first word to the last it reads as a single idea. This poem is a description of a
cold winter landscape. The narrator describes the characteristics of the Snow Man that is named
in the title. This person must not project their own, or the world’s problems onto an empty
landscape.

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
Stevens writes, “have a mind of winter” to be able to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine
tree. One must not be affected by the winter, but become part of it. One must be able to set all
things aside and to understand the world. One must “have been cold a long time…” or simply,
have had a “mind of winter” for a long period of time before correctly beholding “the junipers
shagged with ice,” or seeing the spruce “rough in the distant glitter.” It means rough as in a
sketchy, ill-defined silhouette in the distance, or rough as in the frost and “junipers shagged with
ice” have changed its outline from that of a normal spruce tree to something different and harder
to recognize.

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Stevens continues this image in the next line, placing the “rough” spruces “in the distant glitter”
in the “January sun.”Time and environment to the poem adds a layer of intensity to the cold. The
features of the landscape, pines, spruces, juniper berries, are frozen and are so stark that they
remain in the sun. All things are listed to appreciate the cold, sunny, January day, and not to
think of “any misery” in the sounds made by the wind and of a few leaves. The sound brings out
a mind of winter thoughts of misery, perhaps those in their own life, or of those general to the
world. The narrator believes that the projection of human emotions will disrupt one’s
understanding of the world. A snow man must not project human misery onto the sounds of the
world, but must observe it for what it is, that of “the sound of the land.” It is not human cries, or
the pains of the world, it is, as the last line decries, “Nothing that is not there and the nothing that
is.” The poem points out one must have a detached mind, free from the influences of society,
emotional and mental trauma, to observe the world and see the nothingness in the landscape
around them for what it is, nothing.

UNIT I POETRY- (NON-DETAILED)

4. The Death of the Hired man by Robert Frost

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said.
She took the market things from Warren’s arms 7
And set them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.
‘When was I ever anything but kind to him?
But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said.
‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I?
If he left then, I said, that ended it.
What good is he? Who else will harbor him
At his age for the little he can do?
What help he is there’s no depending on.
Off he goes always when I need him most.
He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,
Enough at least to buy tobacco with,
So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.
“All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay
Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.”
“Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.”
I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself
If that was what it was. You can be certain,
When he begins like that, there’s someone at him
Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—
In haying time, when any help is scarce.
In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’
‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said.
‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’
‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.
When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,
Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,
A miserable sight, and frightening, too—
You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognize him—
I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed.
Wait till you see.’
‘Where did you say he’d been?’
‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house,
And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.
I tried to make him talk about his travels.
Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’
‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’‘But little.’
‘Anything? Mary, confess
He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’
‘Warren!’
‘But did he? I just want to know.’
‘Of course he did. What would you have him say?
Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man
Some humble way to save his self-respect.
He added, if you really care to know,
He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.
That sounds like something you have heard before?
Warren, I wish you could have heard the way
He jumbled everything. I stopped to look
Two or three times—he made me feel so queer—
To see if he was talking in his sleep.
He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember—
The boy you had in haying four years since.
He’s finished school, and teaching in his college.
Silas declares you’ll have to get him back.
He says they two will make a team for work:
Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!
The way he mixed that in with other things.
He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft
On education—you know how they fought
All through July under the blazing sun,
Silas up on the cart to build the load, 8
Harold along beside to pitch it on.’
‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’
‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger!
Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.
After so many years he still keeps finding
Good arguments he sees he might have used.
I sympathize. I know just how it feels
To think of the right thing to say too late.
Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.
He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying
He studied Latin like the violin
Because he liked it—that an argument!
He said he couldn’t make the boy believe
He could find water with a hazel prong—
Which showed how much good school had ever done him.
He wanted to go over that. But most of all
He thinks if he could have another chance
To teach him how to build a load of hay—’
‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment.
He bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags and numbers it for future reference,
So he can find and easily dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.
You never see him standing on the hay
He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’
‘He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be
Some good perhaps to someone in the world.
He hates to see a boy the fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different.’
Part of a moon was falling down the west,
Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it
And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
As if she played unheard some tenderness
That wrought on him beside her in the night.
‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’
‘Home,’ he mocked gently.
‘Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’
‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’
‘I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’
Warren leaned out and took a step or two,
Picked up a little stick, and brought it back
And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.
‘Silas has better claim on us you think
Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles
As the road winds would bring him to his door.
Silas has walked that far no doubt today.
Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich, 9
A somebody—director in the bank.’
‘He never told us that.’
‘We know it though.’
‘I think his brother ought to help, of course.
I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right
To take him in, and might be willing to—
He may be better than appearances.
But have some pity on Silas. Do you think
If he’d had any pride in claiming kin
Or anything he looked for from his brother,
He’d keep so still about him all this time?’
‘I wonder what’s between them.’
‘I can tell you.
Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—
But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.
He never did a thing so very bad.
He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good
As anyone. Worthless though he is,
He won’t be made ashamed to please his brother.’
‘I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.’
‘No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay
And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.
He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.
You must go in and see what you can do.
I made the bed up for him there tonight.
You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.
His working days are done; I'm sure of it.’
‘I’d not be in a hurry to say that.’
‘I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.
But, Warren, please remember how it is:
He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and then he may.
I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon.’
It hit the moon.
Then there were three there, making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.

Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,

Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.
‘Warren,’ she questioned.
‘Dead,’ was all he answered.

The Death of a Hired Man by Robert Frost-Essay

The Death of a Hired Man is a poem written by Robert frost. Robert Lee Frost was an American
Poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for
his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently
wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20 th century, using them to examine
complex social and philosophical themes. Frost was honored during his lifetime and is the only poet to
receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America’s rare public literary figures, almost
an artistic institution. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont.

It is a poem about an ordinary man and his wife turn into a philosophical significant debate. The
wife represents love and sympathy, emotion and imagination and evaluates human beings not in
terms of reason but emotion. The husband is a practical modern man who regards and respects
people in terms of their work, worth, contribution and so on. The husband represents reason,
intellect, utilitarianism, practicality, rationality. The hired man is an old laborer who roams and
stays in one place for a few days and goes away without considering how and when he can be of
the best use to others or to himself. He has become old and unable to work. He has a brother who
 10
is a director in the bank, but he prefers dignity to a well to do brother. He prefers a free and
independent life most of all. He doesn’t satisfy anyone he works for and no one knows whether
he is satisfied or even conscious or not. He becomes an issue of debate between the couple of
one of his employers. He comes to Warren and Mary’s home once a year and stays for a time.
Warren’s complaint is that this old fellow goes away precisely when he is most needed; he
comes in ‘off season’ and goes when the time arrives for work. But the old man doesn’t
understand that, though he has been told it. Mary symbolizes motherhood or even Christ or
humanity’s mother insists that the man must be loved and cared. The husband and wife represent
two poles of attitudes. The old man, Silas has come for the last time he is exhausted and dying.
He cannot even speak to reply what Mary asks.
The poem is set in an evening when the husband is due to arrive from work and “Mary sat
musing”. The old man, Silas, has arrived again and Mary is worried due to his extreme bad
health. When she hears the footsteps of her husband, she runs down the passage to receive him
and to tell him that the old man has arrived. She whispers in his ear, “Silas is back”. She pushes
him outward and shutting the door behind, lest the old man hears what her merciless husband
says, requests him to “Be kind”. “Be kind” is Mary’s philosophy, for no reason or justification is
necessary. But her husband replies with an almost irritation, “when was I ever anything but kind
to him”. He means that he has always been kind to the man; but his idea of being ‘kind’ is
obviously different from that of Mary. “But I will not have the fellow back”, he adds, because he
had warned him not to leave the place the previous time. The man had left! “what good is he?
Who else will harbor him at his age for the little he can do?... Off he goes always when I need
him most… I can’t afford to pay”. Warren is not to be convinced by what Mary says. Mary is so
sympathetic that she is worried about the man hearing her husband’s cruel word and feels
insulted. She swept away by emotion to recount several incidents when the poor old man
impressed her by the way he worked and talked in the past. It is not that the old man is bad at
work; Mary remembers he has been a skillful hard working man. He is an honest and simple man
hates young boys whom he calls “fools of books”. Silas is very concerned for the people and he
has nothing to look forward with hope, or to look backward with pride. He never takes life
seriously. Warren picks up a stick of wood broke into two; this suggests his violence in contrast
to the tenderness of Mary. Sympathy begins in Warren’s heart. Frost has created a natural setting
in which outside atmosphere. The appearance of the moon signifies the generating of sympathy
and love in Warrens mind. Mary is overwhelmed with pity for the poor man which is
symbolically represented by the moonlight falling upon her lap immediately. Warren’s heart has
melted and he admits ‘I can’t think ever hurts anyone.’ Mary is troubled to see the deteriorating
condition of Silas’ who is on the verge of collapse that she advices Warren to watch the dying
man. When Warren returns, Mary asks, “Warren?” anxiously. Warren only replies in his typical
heartless manner, “Dead”. Thematically “The Death of the Hired Man” dramatizes the isolation
of the individual and the difficulty of communication, is memorable for its poignant portrait of
Mary’s mercy overwhelming Warren’s judgment, as she persuades her husband to let the hired
man return home. The conflict between them ends as they finally come close to each other.

UNIT-I-POETRY (NON-DETAILED)

5. E.E.CUMMINGS THE EAGLE

It was one of those clear, sharp, mustless days

That summer and man delight in.
Never had Heaven seemed quite so high,
Never had earth seemed quite so green,
Never had the world seemed quite so clean
Or sky so nigh.
And I heard the Deity’s voice in

The sun’s warm rays,

 And the white cloud’s intricate maze, 11
And the blue sky’s beautiful sheen.

I looked to the heavens and saw him there,—

A black speck downward drifting,
Nearer and nearer he steadily sailed,
Nearer and nearer he slid through space,
In an unending aerial race,
This sailor who hailed
From the Clime of the Clouds.—Ever shifting,

On billows of air
And the blue sky seemed never so fair,
And the rest of the world kept pace.

On the white of his head the sun flashed bright;

And he battled the wind with wide pinions,
Clearer and clearer the gale whistled loud,
Clearer and clearer he came into view,—
Bigger and blacker against the blue.
Then a dragon of cloud
Gathering all its minions
Rushed to the fight,
And swallowed him up in a bite;
And the sky lay empty clear through.

Long I watched. And at last afar

Caught sight of a speck in the vastness;
Ever smaller, ever decreasing,
Ever drifting, drifting away into the endless realms of day;
Finally ceasing.
So into Heaven’s vast fastness
Vanished that bar
Of black, as a fluttering star
Goes out while still on its way.

So I lost him. But I shall always see

In my mind
The warm, yellow sun, and the ether free;
The vista’s sky, and the white cloud trailing,
Trailing behind,—
And below the young earth’s summer-green arbors, 12
And on high the eagle, —sailing, sailing
Into far skies and unknown harbors

UNIT- II- PROSE 1) EMERSON’S EXPERIENCE –ESSAY

Emerson's essay "Experience" was first published without having been delivered as a lecture. It
appeared in 1844 in his Essays: Second Series. Essays: Second Series, including "Experience,"
was issued in 1876 as the third volume of the Little Classic Edition of Emerson's writings, in
1886 as the third volume of the Riverside Edition, in 1906 as the third volume of the Centenary
Edition, and in 1983 as the third volume of the Collected Works published by Harvard. The essay
has been separately published, and also included in collected editions as the 1940 Modern
Library The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson prefaces
"Experience" with a poem describing the solemn procession of the "lords of life" that forces all
men's experience of common life. God the "inventor of the game" is an unnamed presence in the
poem. Man walks in confusion among the lords of life. He is comforted by nature, who assures
him that the lords will "wear another face" tomorrow, and that his position is, in fact, one of
ascendancy over them. Emerson explores the action of the forces on the way we live and
understand our lives. The experience of life is confusing, Emerson writes at the beginning of the
essay. Gaining perspective on life while we are engaged in living is difficult. This confusion
affects our perception of our place in relation to nature, and of our powers. We are unable to see
beyond our material existence and to utilize the creative vigor that nature has given us, and
cannot distinguish between our productive and unproductive efforts. The distance created by
time's passage sometimes reveals that what we thought were unoccupied hours were actually our
most fruitful periods. Only in the long view do we understand the proper value of everyday
occupations and actions. In taking the short view, we lose sight of the quality and significance of
our lives in the present. Moreover, everyday details so preoccupy us that little time is left for
more serious considerations. Emerson writes that "the pith of each man's genius contracts itself
to a very few hours." As the history of literature contains only a few original ideas that have been
worked and reworked, so the history of society reveals only a very few spontaneous human
actions beyond "custom and gross sense." Although we attribute great importance to the
calamities of life, they actually have no meaning. Grief does not bring us any closer to the
people we have lost, and it does not change who we are. Emerson refers specifically to his own
grief at the death of his son Waldo in 1842. Grief cannot teach us anything, nor can it bring us
closer to understanding the material world. Moreover, nature does not like to be observed and
prevents us from focusing too clearly on objects that might offer insight through the material.

Emerson turns to the subject of perspective, and to the way temperament and mood , both parts
of man's makeup affect perspective. He writes of dream and illusion, and how one can see only
what one can capable of seeing. Genius is useless if receptivity is limited by some temperamental
trait that prevents "a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life." A man's talents
cannot be effectively applied if he does not care sufficiently for higher truth to look for it, if he is
overly sensitive, if he wants to reform but is not equal to the task. Mood even influences the ebb
and flow of the religious sentiment, and temperament cannot be fully transcended by the moral
sentiment. But medicine and phrenology (the study of the size and shape of the skull to
determine a man's character and abilities) — exaggerates temperamental limitations on human
possibilities by suggesting that temperament is materially predetermined. Pseudoscience defines
man by his physical traits and reduces inner qualities to the level of matter. Although
temperament does color our perceptions and constrains our potential, the material approach to it
discounts higher intuitive capabilities altogether and fails to recognize the direct, spontaneous
transforming connection between God and the individual. Emerson summarily dismisses the
approach.Like temperament, man's need to move in succession from one object of focus to
another — his disinclination to regard any one thing for too long — also influences his
perception of experience and the world. Our innate love of absolutes draws us toward the
permanent, but our human constitution requires "change of objects." After we have formed an
impression of a book or a work of art, we want to move on, even though our lasting sense of that
object may not be fully developed. We crave the larger, broader picture. Each book or work of
art offers only partial insight into the whole. Individual men, too, only represent particular
aspects of human nature and capability, and do not expand to illuminate traits or ideas beyond
those they possess. Each man has a particular talent, and his tendency is to reinforce and
 13

capitalize upon that talent rather than to grow in other ways. This self-limitation necessitates our
examining all of humankind to gain a sense of the whole. We must look at the weak as well as
the admirable examples, because God underlies all of them. Each individual has his own
educational value, as do all aspects of human experience in society — commerce, government,
the church, marriage, and the various occupations. Power (used by Emerson to signify a kind of
divinely imparted life force) speaks alternately through various examples of humanity but does
not remain permanently in any one of them.

Emerson emphasizes philosophical awareness of the shortcomings of human experience does not
constitute life itself. Life must be lived, not considered. Thought and writings on social reform
are not successfully translated into the ends toward which they aim. Constant criticism of various
institutions and courses of action has led to widespread indifference. Emerson urges the reader to
tend to his own life as it is. The balanced individual who accepts life will extract what can be
enjoyed from it. A man may thrive anywhere, under the "oldest mould conventions" as well as in
"the newest world." Emerson advises living to the best of our abilities in the present moment,
"accepting our actual companions and circumstances," approaching each day as "a sound and
solid good," and making the best of what life brings, the bad as well as the good. If we expect
nothing of life, we will be pleasantly surprised to receive anything at all. If we expect much, we
will inevitably be disappointed. Life's gifts are not obtained by analysis, but in the process of
living. We need to look after our own affairs regardless of what others think we should be doing.
Emerson recommends "the temperate zone" between the ideal and the material. Life is composed
of both power (life force) and form, which must be balanced if health and soundness are to be
preserved. Every quality, even the good, is dangerous in excess.

Our lives would be easier, Emerson writes, if we could simply attend to our ordinary daily
routines. But we are susceptible to intimations from a higher source, which shake the common,
limited vision of reality. Measured and predictable though daily life is, God isolates us in the
present moment and from one another so that we will live and respond spontaneously, will heed
the call of intuition. Both nature and man operate "by pulses" and "by fits," and chance plays a
key role. Human intention and design are not always factors in the way life plays out. The most
attractive person is the one who exerts power incidentally, not directly. The thought of genius
always contains the unpredictable. The moral sentiment is always new, always comes without
direct sensory experience. Our experience of life, too, contains an element of divine inspiration,
which won't bear analysis. Man's vital force derives from the eternal, and its results cannot be
controlled or predicted. Emerson describes intuition as the means of perceiving the underlying
unity behind the multiple expressions of God. Insight into the harmonious divine source does not
come sequentially, but rather in flashes, which bring joy as well as vision. Intuition opens up
whole new worlds to us. Man's consciousness is a constant, unchanging element that serves as a
"sliding scale" to rank all that is experienced according to its origin in the divine "First Cause" or
in material nature. The spiritual and the material coexist as "life above life, in infinite degrees."
The key question is not what a man does, but what source — the divine and spiritual, or the
material and temporal — motivates him to do it. The spiritual life force is tremendously
empowering. How we express the life force through what we think and do is less significant than
"the universal impulse to believe" — our receptivity. Spirit is conveyed directly to man, without
explanation, and likewise is expressed directly through man, in his character and actions. It
allows us to influence others without words and even without physical proximity. Openness to
spirit not only imparts personal force, but also allows the ever-greater understanding of "life and
duty, of a doctrine of life which shall transcend any written record we have." This new doctrine
must embrace both society's skepticism and its faith, and will reconcile its limiting as well as its
affirmative characteristics. Human subjectivity is an inescapable force that causes us to project
ourselves onto what we perceive in life, of nature, even of God. There is an inequality between
the subject perceiving and the object perceived. Deriving our strength and inspiration from God,
we need what we perceive to validate and enhance our sense of our own importance in the divine
scheme, and we focus on specific particulars that reinforce this sense. In our subjectivity, we go
so far as to excuse ourselves for traits and actions that we condemn in others, thereby accepting
the relative rather than the fixed and absolute. Emerson points to sin, which subjective intellect
perceives only in relation to itself, although when viewed from the framework of traditional
religion is an absolute quality. Because of our subjectivity, in order for the soul to attain "her due
sphericity" (a completeness reflective of the larger whole), we must be exposed to the full range
of particulars. Self-reliance is essential to avoid distraction by the many particulars that life
 14

brings our way. We must not pay too much attention to custom and opinion, must live our own
lives and think our own thoughts, must keep our focus on the eternal. Emerson admits that the
eternal and the material are essentially irreconcilable. He attempts to answer the question of what
the practical results of understanding the relationship between idealism and experience might be.
The effects of our explorations of truth, he answers, are cumulative, incalculable within the span
of a single human lifetime. Moreover, while people in general place too much emphasis on doing
rather than knowing, he himself accepts the primary value of knowing. He recognizes that the
world he lives in is not the world he thinks it is, and trusts that he will one day understand this
discrepancy. But we cannot resolve it by attempting to translate the world of thought into reality,
as is attempted by various reform movements. Emerson urges patience, avoidance of
squandering precious time and attention on inconsequential details of living, and persistent,
optimistic openness to the intuitive insight that will bring "the light of our life." Ultimately,
genius will be transformed into practical power.

UNIT-2-PROSE
2. The Battle of the Ants by Henry David Thoreau- Essay
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet
and philosopher. He is a transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection
upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally
published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among
his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he
anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of
modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature,
personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a
poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and attention to practical detail. He was also deeply
interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural
decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's
true essential needs.
Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave
Law while praising the writings of Wendell Philips and defending the abolitionist John Brown.
Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of
such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Thoreau is sometimes referred to as an anarchist. In "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau wrote: "I
heartily accept the motto, — 'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to
see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically carried out, it finally amounts to this, which
also I believe, — 'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. I ask for, not at once no
government, but at once a better government."
The article "Battle of the ants" was extracted from Henry David Thoreau the Walden Pond, it is a
detailed explanation of the ant war. One minute observation of the war greatly manipulated
Thoreau's idea, went to human war and national war. He concluded to humanity that the war is
destructive and painful not only during the war but also after the war. After all, there are no
principles of life in any form of destruction. One day, when a writer got out of the pile he saw the
two big ants fighting each other. When he observed, he saw the war between two ants, red ants
and black ants. Usually two small red ants are fighting big black ants. The whole area is covered
with fighting ants. Both sides are determined to fight an equally fatal battle. In this war, red
Republicans and black imperialists participated in the war. They are fighting more quietly and
more seriously than human soldiers. Then the author will watch the couple embracing each other
and fight until the end of the day or the end of their life. Red fighters are in enemy zones. He cut
out one of the enemy's tentacles. The black ant ran from side to side on him and he killed some
red ants. It seems that both sides have decided not to retreat. They want either win or dying. At
that time, the red ant got excited and reached there. He never lost his limbs. He arrived to
retaliate or save his Patroclus like Achilles. When he seized the opportunity, he ran away black
ants. Now, those three are fighting for life. The writer thinks that there are music bands that are
excited by late warriors on both sides and that cheer dying warriors. They are like human beings.
 15

The more they are compared with humans, the smaller the difference between them. This battle
has never happened there. They bravely fight the principle and are fighting like a patriot. The
outcome of this battle will be important and memorable. The author picks up the struggling chip,
carries it to his house and places it under the glass. He looked at the red ant with a microscope
and saw that the ant trimmed the enemy's forelimb and that his chest was torn with black ants.
Thirty minutes later he discovered that the black ant trimmed the head of the red ant and used
them as a sign of victory. When the glass rises, the black ant will paralyze and will appear on the
window frame. The writer is thinking about this fight all day, and he is saddened by the intense
and widespread destruction. Compared to the article by Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau's
"The Battle of Ants" is approaching the human life in a large-scale society by comparing ant
behavior fighting our actions. This article describes Ant's battle Thoreau witnessed at his stake.
He explained the battle of fierce ants, repeatedly comparing meaningless and emotionally
inanimate ants with Achilles, Napoleon's great historical army and Concord patriots. One can see
from Concord's article, it is ironic to repeatedly compare the influence of ant fight against human
courage and heroes. "There is no doubt that this is the principle that is fighting for their
ancestors," Thoreau ridiculed the patriots and stated that the principles they are aiming are as
important as the principle of small ants. The author’s intention is to see through comparisons
between human wars and meaningless ant behavior. Battle allegory in David Thoreau's "Battle of
Ants" The record of the reading of my choice was David Thoreau's "Battle of Ants." The story is
about the government and war, and it is portrayed by a fight between ants and death. "Militant's
army covered all the hills and valleys in my garden, regardless of whether it was red or black, the
ground was scattered with all the dead and the dead."

UNIT-II PROSE

3. Martin Luther King, Jr., THE TRUMPET OF CONSCIENCE

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but
later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family’s long tenure as pastors
of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from
then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin
Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of
fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro
institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years
of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected
president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a
fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his
residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and
married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two
sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in
Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King
was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready,
then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent
demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar
Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On
December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional
the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During
these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal
abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an

organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement.
The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from
Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles
 16

and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and
action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a
massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing
what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a
manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of
Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to
whom he delivered his address, “I Have a Dream”, he conferred with President John F. Kennedy
and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and
assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year
by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also
a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the
Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the
prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the Civil Rights Movement. On the evening of
April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where
he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was
assassinated.

In November and December 1967, Martin Luther King Jr., delivered five lectures for the
renowned Massey Lecture Series of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The collection was
immediately released as a book under the title Conscience of Change, but after King’s
assassination in 1968, the book was republished as The Trumpet of Conscience. The collection
sums up his lasting creed is his final testament on racism, poverty and war. Each oration
encompasses a distinct theme and speaks prophetically to today’s perils, addressing issues of
equality, conscience and war, the mobilization of young people, and nonviolence. Collectively,
they reveal some of King’s most introspective reflections and final impressions of the movement
while illustrating how he never lost sight of our shared goals for justice. The book concludes
with “A Christmas Sermon on Peace” a powerful lecture that was broadcast live from Ebenezer
Baptist Church on Christmas Eve in 1967. In it King articulates his long-term vision of
nonviolence as a path to world peace.

“I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose
culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of
smashed hopes at homes and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world,
for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders
of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”-
from “Conscience and the Vietnam War”. “Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our
class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective… No individual can
live alone: no nation can live alone: and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in
this world.”- from “A Christmas Sermon on Peace”. There is nothing wrong with a traffic law
which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes right
through that red light, and normal traffic had better get out of its way. Or, when a man is
bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed.
There is a fire raging now for the Negroes and the poor of this society. They are living in tragic
conditions because of the terrible economic injustices that keep them locked in as an
“underclass,” as the sociologists are now calling it. Disinherited people all over the world are
bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. They need brigades of ambulance
drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved.
Massive Civil Disobedience is a strategy for social change which is at least as forceful as an
ambulance with its siren on full. In the past ten years, nonviolent civil disobedience has made a
great deal history, especially in the Southern United States. When we and the Southern Christian
leadership Conference went to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, we had decided to take action on
the matter of integrated public accommodations. We went knowing that the Civil Rights
Commission had written powerful documents calling for change, calling for the very rights we
were demanding. But nobody did anything about the Commission’s report. Nothing was done
until we acted on these very issues, and demonstrated before the court of world opinion the
urgent need for change. It was the same story with voting rights. The Civil Rights commission,
three years before we went to Selma, had recommended the changes we started marching for, but
 17
nothing was done until, in 1965, we created a crisis the nation couldn’t ignore. Without violence,
we totally disrupted the system, the lifestyle of Birmingham, and then of Selma, with their unjust
and unconstitutional laws. Our Birmingham struggle came to its dramatic climax when some
3500 demonstrators virtually filled every jail in that city and surrounding communities, and some
4000 more continued to march and demonstrate nonviolently. The city knew then in terms that
were crystal clear that Birmingham could no longer continue to function until the demands of the
Negro community were met. The same kind of dramatic crisis was created in Selma two years
later. The result on the national scene was the Civil Rights Bill and the Voting Rights Act, as
President and Congress responded to the drama and the creative tension generated by the
carefully planned demonstrations.
Of course, by now it is obvious that new laws are not enough. The emergency we now face is
economic, and it is a desperate and worsening situation. For the 35 million poor people in
America- not even to mention, just yet, the poor in the other names- there is a kind of
strangulation in the air. In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or
an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real
way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very
creed of his society. Now, millions of people are being strangled that way. The problem is
international in scope. And it is getting get worse, as the gap between the poor and the “affluent
society” increases.