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I Felt A Funeral, in My Brain

The document instructs students to analyze an Emily Dickinson poem about love or death by focusing on its meaning, figurative language, and literary devices. Students will choose a poem not already covered, take notes on its themes and language features, and be prepared to discuss their analysis in class.

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Andrea Hernandez
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114 views3 pages

I Felt A Funeral, in My Brain

The document instructs students to analyze an Emily Dickinson poem about love or death by focusing on its meaning, figurative language, and literary devices. Students will choose a poem not already covered, take notes on its themes and language features, and be prepared to discuss their analysis in class.

Uploaded by

Andrea Hernandez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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-Read and make notes on one Emily Dickinson poem on either the themes of Love or Death.

Choose a
poem that has not been analysed by other students.

-Focus on the meaning of the poem and find figurative language, literary devices and other language
features being used.

-Be ready to share their analysis and make links with other students who chose different poems in class
that day.

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain


1 I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
2 And Mourners to and fro
3 Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
4 That Sense was breaking through -
5 And when they all were seated,
6 A Service, like a Drum -
7 Kept beating - beating - till I thought
8 My mind was going numb -
9 And then I heard them lift a Box
10 And creak across my Soul
11 With those same Boots of Lead, again,
12 Then Space - began to toll,
13 As all the Heavens were a Bell,
14 And Being, but an Ear,
15 And I, and Silence, some strange Race
16 Wrecked, solitary, here -
17 And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
18 And I dropped down, and down -
19 And hit a World, at every plunge,
20 And Finished knowing - then -
Meaning of the poem
Dickinson uses the metaphor of a funeral to represent the speaker's sense that a part of her is dying,
that is, her reason is being overwhelmed by the irrationality of the unconscious. A funeral is an
appropriate image for this ordeal. However, it appears that this poem traces the various stages of some
kind of mental breakdown, using the imagery of a funeral to describe those stages. the speaker has had
some kind of mental experience which is likened to the events of a funeral - a psychological death
becomes merged with a physical death.

Themes
Madness
Dickinson's poem depicts the difficulty of understanding the mysterious thoughts and feelings
that happen inside people. Often interpreted as chronicling a nightmarish descent into
madness, the poem can be read as depicting the terror and helplessness that accompany losing
one’s grip on reality. (Where this theme appears in the poem: • Lines 1-13 • Lines 16-20)

The Nature of Despair


Throughout the poem the speaker references mourning, numbness, and a loss of control. Using
those characterizations as guideposts, readers can think of the poem as offering an
idiosyncratic depiction of despair. The speaker presents no explanation or solution. Instead, the
poem tracks despair from its onset to the darkest abyss of isolation. (Where this theme appears
in the poem: • Lines 1-3 • Lines 3-4 • Lines 5-8 • Lines 9-11 • Lines 12-13 • Lines 15-20)

The Irrational Universe


As the poem progresses, the speaker undergoes increasingly broad visions of the world. In these visions,
reason—the ability to find order and meaning in the world—is seen as a human invention that the
unknowable universe gradually breaks down. This can be thought of as a complement to the theme of
madness in the poem: the speaker loses “Sense” specifically because the speaker is exposed to the
senselessness of the universe.(Where this theme appears in the poem: • Lines 3-4 • Lines 12-20)

Figurative language
Literary devices
Symbols
https://literariness.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/LitCharts-i-felt-a-funeral-
in-my-brain-1-1.pdf
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/emily-dickinson/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain
Other language features used

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