I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain--Dickenson

I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain

The themes in Dickinson’s poems

Dickinson’s 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, death, 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 Dickinson’s religious poetry are her poems concerning death and immortality, （不朽）ranging over the

physical as well as the psychological and emotional aspects of death. Dickinson’s greatest rendering （描写）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 suffering 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 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 Dickinson’s skepticism about the relationship between man and nature is well-expressed.

(1) On the 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 nature’s inscrutability （不可预测性） and indifference to the life and interests of

human beings.

Dickinson’s artistic characteristics

Dickson’s 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 （公共的）, and sometimes, irregular.

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

Dickinson’s poetry, despite its ostensible（表面上的）formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness,

and her limited private world has never 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 were 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 toll, 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 plunge, 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 a Funeral, in my Brain," introduces us

to the funeral metaphor, in preparation for the descriptions to follow. With the word "funeral," immediately the reader's 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

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 speaker's mind is "going numb" as a result of the pain. This pain is so great

it has anesthetized the senses.

Later 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 speaker's ears, another symptom of the headache, one

which can make the pain of the headache unbearable. 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, 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 suggests 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 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, 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 continue 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 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 makes 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, 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 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 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 constant

ache in the speaker's 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 alliteration 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 harshness 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 across 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 is 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 the 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 child, 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 America‘s greatest poets and is well known for her unusual life of self

obligatory social 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 madness 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 the 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 literal 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 demonstration, terrifying in its loneliness and the isolation of the speaker from others actually reveal Dickinson‘s 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 compounds 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 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 fac

eless and devoid of feeling. They are just beings, and they are just there, as if callous and heartless. She is totally alone, distancing from 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 when 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 though 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 plunges 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 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 aren‘t mad. The implication 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 mass 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 speaker's

descending madness and the horror most of us feel about going crazy.

• Her reason is being overwhelmed by 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 repetition, "beating, beating." This time her mind, the source of reasoning, goes "numb," a further

deterioration in her condition.

• You can trace the process of the speaker's loss of rationality in stanzas three and four. The last two lines of stanza four

assess her condition; she sees herself as "wrecked, solitary." Her descent into irrationality separates her from other human

beings, making her a member of "some strange race." Her alienation and inability to communicate are indicated by her

being enveloped by silence.

• In the last stanza, Dicksinson uses the metaphor of standing on a plank or board over a precipice绝壁 to describe the

speaker's descent into irrationality. In other words, her hold on rationality was insecure, just as standing on a plan would

feel insecure.