Of Lit and Brains

There is only one word that nicely describes today's Literature class--Intense. This in part stems from the fact that we were all racking our heads, trying to analyse six poems for three hours straight. The other reason, of course, being that it has been ages since I last studied Literature.

By the third hour, my friend shot a look in my direction and said "Help! My head cannot take it anymore! It's exploding." I feel the same way too. Staring at what seems like 'inpenetrable' poems by T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats and Emily Dickinson for hours on ends was both daunting and exhausting. Yet, I strangely like the feeling of trying to tease apart meanings because in so doing, I feel as if I've put on the cloak of Sherlock Holmes, embarking on a journey of discovery. Needless to say, when I've finally managed to make sense of a work, the sense of satisfaction is just immense.

Just within the short span of three hours, I feel that I've learnt so much. The poems allowed me to gain insight into the sense of alienation that pervaded the twentieth century, the breakdown of religion at that point in time, the facade of urban life and so on. Literature, as I always say, is amazing. It gives you perspective, helps you understand cultures and histories, reflects life, reveals the human condition. I look forward to learning more.

Because I Could not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson:

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, be passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Preludes by T.S. Eliot

I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shadesIn a thousand furnished rooms.

III
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters,
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed's edge,
whereYou curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles
of feetIn the palms of both soiled hands.

IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened streetImpatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentleInfinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.