Sunday, April 24, 2016

Writing about "Nature is what we see"

"Nature" is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse— the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—/
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—/
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—/
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity. /


In this poem called "Nature is what we see" by Emily Dickinson, the narrator speaks about wonderous factors of nature. It has only one stanza and the stanza consists of 12 lines. It is always ambiguous to divide Dickinson's poem into sentences, but I think this one has four sentences, even though it has only one period (I marked with a slash). She used verbs like see, hear, know, and say. These verbs are mostly used for us, human. By listing verbs, she made uniformity in the format. After each verb, she listed things in nature such as the hill, afternoon, squirrel, eclipse, bumble bee, bobolink, and cricket. Then, she added, "Nay - Nature is Heaven/Harmony". It is her admiration onto the nature she sees or hears. She meant whatever we see or hear from nature, it is not just an object or a sound, but heaven and harmony. As one of her characterized skills, she referred nature to as "she" and made abstract concepts such as afternoon observable. There are some rhymes too. ABABCA structure for the first 6 lines (See-bee-sea / afternoon-heaven) and ABACA for the last 5 lines (nay-harmony-say-simplicity). 

In my opinion, the one thing that the poem is saying is the comparison between our wisdom, which is weak, and nature's simplicity. The author changed the order of words which had to be "Our wisdom is so impotent to her simplicity" into "So impotent our wisdom is to her simplicity". Perhaps the poet wanted to emphasize this sentence. Nature's simplicity, which literally could mean simple, but actually is very strong and could be overwhelming. As the narrator spoke above, because nature is actually heaven, and nature is actually harmony, nature is always something more than what we think, and what we think is our wisdom. This poem ultimately shows we are merely a small piece of a huge puzzle called nature. 


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