I am creating this post so that students can bounce ideas off of each other regarding the poems chosen for the poetry essay. This first post is dedicated to the Emily Dickinson poem There is another sky. The text of the poem can be found below. Even if you are not using this poem for an essay, feel free to comment and share your ideas about it.
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
29 comments:
The speaker is telling "Austin" to forget dark skies and faded forests and silent fields and to come to a place whereeverything is brighter and unfading. I notice that the second half of the poem is sort of the compliment of the first:
dark sunshine-> brighter garden
Faded forests-> unfading flowers
silent fields-> bee humming
The second half describes such a better/happier landscape. I feel like she is talking to "Austin" and trying to convince him to move on from where he is and come to the place that she has found so beautiful. This makes me wonder who exactly Austin is to her... friend? brother? person she loves? Anybody have any thoughts?
i thought austin was her brother or friend, or she wrote it about someone who was trying to convince themselves that its better if they think postive, not completely sure, but the imagry like AF313 said does conteract it balances the good and bad.
I absolutly agree with AF313 about the speaker telling Austin to come to a brighter, better place and the relation between the first and second half of the poem. I also did a little research on Emily Dickinson and found that she had a brother named Austin. That likely means two things. 1. The speaker is Emily Dickinson herself. 2. Austin is her brother in this poem (Which answers AF313's question). I am not saying that either of these things are indefinitely true, as Emily Dickinson may have just decided to use the name "Austin" rather than another name. Whether she is referring to her brother or not turned out to be pivotal in the meaning of the poem.
I think the speaker is telling Austin that there is a better place than where he is right now. Where he is in a faded forest with silent fields, she is in a bright garden with bee's humming. She wants Austin to get to that place in his life.
I think the speaker is trying to make "austin" who i think is her son, to show that little things can be just as if not more beautiful than the bigger things. the point shes trying to get accross is that you really dont need to be big and mighty to be beautiful.
Tkuch, in real life Emily Dickinson had a brother named Austin. I am not saying you are indefinitely wrong about who Austin is, but you are unlikey right.
I was wondering if anyone saw hope in this poem?
I was wondering how everyone else interpreted this poem.
I agree with both AF313 and JBruce when they said that the speaker is telling Austin to come to a brighter place, better place. I think that place is heaven and the speaker which i also think is Emily Dickinson herself, wants her elder brother Austin to come to, to escape the life he has gone through. AF313 made a good point by saying that Emily Dickinson used both halfs of the poem to compare some of the same things but different qualities. Like the bright bee humming and silent fields.
JBruce, I think that finding out that it is probably her brother definitely makes sense! It does actually say "my brother" in the poem, but I hadn't really thought that it is her brother, because people use that phrase pretty often. If he is her brother, then she must have grown up with him and seen the darkness that he has now, but she has moved on and her life is better. She still cares for her brother, so she wants
One quick question if anybody wanted to answer. When it says "And there is another sunshine, Though it be Darkness there" How can sunshine be darkness also. Any ideas?
I think the poem is just saying that there is always a better place, like the garden. I think the imagery in the poem shows this. I also agree with AF313 about the imagery comparisons. the negative imagery describes the places that are not as good as the garden and the positive imagery describes the garden being a bright and wonderful place
I thought this poem was about choosing your path. There were two paths you could have taken. One was positive and one was negative. I also thought at the end of the poem the last two lines...
"Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come"
were about people praying for others to choose the right path to take because Prithee means to pray.
I think that this poem has to do with the two main poits of heaven and hell. Towards the begining of the poem Emily Dickinson talks about another sky even though there is darkness there. So that shows the second world of hell and how dark it could be. But then towards the end of the poem she starts to talk about a little garden that is brighter and safer. So I got the idea that this poem might have more to do than just whats good and bad, it has a bigger idea to it.
The speaker is telling austin its ok to suffer everything bad on earth because life is short and after life is forever. Emily describes the perfect after life by pointing out all the pains and torment on earth and saying that well, theres none of that here so just nevermind it and get ready for something thats perfect.
The speaker in this poem is telling about home they longs to find a better life than them and Austin do now. They are saying that the life they are living now is dull, and that they want a better one.
i think that Dickinson is saying that there are places we must bypass if we wish to find true happieness. I also believe that the garden depicted in the poem is potrayed as unearthly perfect. I think she is making it unearthly perfect because she is trying to convince her brother to come to this happy place.
I was thinking that this " happier place" as afore mentioned was the happy world created by positivity and looking on the brighter side of things. Positivity is often compared to lightness and a much more carefree and calmer/happier lifestyle. I thought Dickinson was telling it to her younger brother, Austin, as older siblings usually share great wisdom such as thinking positively with their younger siblings.
I think this poem has to do with the different choices there are in life, and how you should always choose the best one. The first two lines symbolize the bad choice with the calm sky, and dark sun. It is like something that is masked by beauty. Obviously, the next four lines show two choices that could be better, but still not the perfect choice. Then the next six lines describing the garden shows the best choice with the unfaiding flowers, the bees, and the brightness of it all. If you chose to go to the garden, you would be the happiest there.
To answer LeBron's question: I think the "other" sunshine she is talking about is just the sun outside her garden...so she is saying that even though there IS a sun beyond her garden, there is still darkness there and her garden is a better, brighter place to be. Does that make sense?
i thought that this poem had to do with taking two different paths and that the speaker wanted her brother to take the good path with her. i agree with AF313 that the garden is a better placce to be and she wants her brother to be able to come with her and to take the rigth path in his life.
I think the point Emily Dickinson is trying to make is that there always is another place in life that you can get away from the bad things in life. Her "Garden" is her place to get away from life, and she is trying to get Austin to come too. Like AF313 said, there is another "sunshine" and "sky" that someone can find if they look hard enough.
i think that the speaker is telling "Austin" that he needs to forget the bad things in life and think happily and have a positive outlook on life. in the poem the speaker says to forget faded forests and silent fields and to look at the brighter happier things.
i really enjoy the strong use of allusion in this poem. There is two main allusions i enjoyed very much when i read this poem.
"Never mind silent fields"
and
"Into my garden come"
when i first read "Nevermind silent fields, i thought about that as to being the bad things in our life. It also alluded to death. a blissful/ silent field to me and death and all of the other feelings affiliated with it. The when i read "Into my garden come" it was an allusion to heaven. Basically what i as a reader took from this poem is that it may be a bad world in which we live in but their will always be salvation.
Replying to JBruce's first post, Emily Dickinson had a brother named Austin, who suffered through something terrible. Both his wife and child died within a year of each other. I think it would be safe to assume that anything in her poem having something to do with a place being dark is standing for the saddening effect death can have on a person.
i agree with Tkuch on how Austin could be her son and how little things can be better than bigger ones. Also did anyone think that the little forest is her garden?
I agree with dana because this poem is about happiness. Inaddition the poem starts off alittle dark but then towards the end it talks about happiness and joy.
I believe that Emily Dickenson is saying that she can see beyond what maybe others see. Maybe how others could see darkness and nothing really there, while Emily can see beyond it and can see something totaly different, and she tries to share her thoughts and sights with possibly her brother Austin. So maybe the theme of this poem could be that Some people can see beyond others, Or that Some people see things differently than others.
i actually also agree with Aly when she said
dark sunshine-> brighter garden
Faded forests-> unfading flowers
silent fields-> bee humming
because i can definetly see where she is going with the idea how Austin should forget that stuff and focus on something better that he would like to enjoy and see:)
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