New Beginnings

I finally got my cooking blog started. 

Obviously I no longer need to continue this blog for grading purposes, but I feel that I ought to continue exploring Emily Dickinson and modern media, though perhaps less formally.  To that end I have found two videos that are musical interpretations of Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers:"


"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

I have been doing some further reading on Emily Dickinson, and have recently looked at a book called The Music of Emily Dickinson's Poems and Letters.  Through much of the book Carolyn Lindley Cooley, the author, explores how music both effected and is reflected in Emily Dickinson's poetry.  She also has a section on musical adaptations of her poetry, and even in the 70s when the book was written there were several thousand musical adaptations, and we may safely assume that that number has increased significantly.  So let us get on to some examples:



And here is one more:




You can notice immediately how different the styles are.  You can also examine musicality within the poem itself.  It is in alternating tetrameter and trimeter (8,6), which is a metrical rhythm common to at least two musical forms, hymns and ballads.  And, as we saw it lends itself very well to music.

A.J. Morris