Ragged Beauty
Today's theme might be said to be the relationship between death and beauty. In my previous two uploads today I've described why I am lingering for a while in the Melbourne General Cemetery. It is because, essentially, I believe like the early Greek philosophers, that death is our greatest teacher.
This ragged and worn little statue of the Virgin Mary sits beside fading artificial flowers in the Roman Catholic section of the cemetery. Where some see kitsch (see my previous photo for discussion), I see an image that tells me something of the subtleties of human faith and meaning.
This is the sort of vision that almost obsessed the great poet, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). Not that she was afraid of death for a moment. In fact she saw death as a kind of suitor, and in some extreme instances in life, death is indeed a friend.
"Death is Emily Dickinson‘s main theme which left its impact on all her thinking and gave its tint to the majority of her poems. For Dickinson, death is the supreme touchstone for life. She lived incessantly in his presence. She was always conscious of its nearness and inevitability...Investigation of the theme of death gave her a panoramic view of vital issues such as religion, God, nature, love and immortality. In the poems discussed in this study, death presumes different personalities taken from life surrounding Dickinson. The main features of death which are implied in her death poems reveal the very contradictions, absurdities and complexities of our life. Death may be a refined and respected coachman, a cruel victimizer and a personal enemy, a leveler, an elusive lover, a suitor, an assassin, and a democrat. The poet uses these concrete images to portray death, which is an abstract force, in an attempt to come to terms with it as well as to fathom it. She gave death human and nonhuman characteristics as part of her inexorable quest to comprehend it. In her death poems, she did not offer a final view of death because death for her remains the great unknown mystery."
-Dr. Rashed Ahmad Daghamin.
"Reflection on Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson"
www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_7_No_4_April_2017/15.pdf
I strongly suspect Emily Dickinson would have looked at this Ragged Beauty with deep understanding and sympathy. It may even have inspired a poem.
Ragged Beauty
Today's theme might be said to be the relationship between death and beauty. In my previous two uploads today I've described why I am lingering for a while in the Melbourne General Cemetery. It is because, essentially, I believe like the early Greek philosophers, that death is our greatest teacher.
This ragged and worn little statue of the Virgin Mary sits beside fading artificial flowers in the Roman Catholic section of the cemetery. Where some see kitsch (see my previous photo for discussion), I see an image that tells me something of the subtleties of human faith and meaning.
This is the sort of vision that almost obsessed the great poet, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). Not that she was afraid of death for a moment. In fact she saw death as a kind of suitor, and in some extreme instances in life, death is indeed a friend.
"Death is Emily Dickinson‘s main theme which left its impact on all her thinking and gave its tint to the majority of her poems. For Dickinson, death is the supreme touchstone for life. She lived incessantly in his presence. She was always conscious of its nearness and inevitability...Investigation of the theme of death gave her a panoramic view of vital issues such as religion, God, nature, love and immortality. In the poems discussed in this study, death presumes different personalities taken from life surrounding Dickinson. The main features of death which are implied in her death poems reveal the very contradictions, absurdities and complexities of our life. Death may be a refined and respected coachman, a cruel victimizer and a personal enemy, a leveler, an elusive lover, a suitor, an assassin, and a democrat. The poet uses these concrete images to portray death, which is an abstract force, in an attempt to come to terms with it as well as to fathom it. She gave death human and nonhuman characteristics as part of her inexorable quest to comprehend it. In her death poems, she did not offer a final view of death because death for her remains the great unknown mystery."
-Dr. Rashed Ahmad Daghamin.
"Reflection on Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson"
www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_7_No_4_April_2017/15.pdf
I strongly suspect Emily Dickinson would have looked at this Ragged Beauty with deep understanding and sympathy. It may even have inspired a poem.