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I'm Nobody
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by Emily Dickinson |
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I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
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I'm nobody! Who are you? |
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Are you nobody too? |
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Then there's a pair of us? Don't |
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Tell! |
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They'd advertise, you know! |
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How dreary to be somebody! |
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How public--like a frog- |
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To tell one's name the livelong June |
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To an admiring bog! |
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Emily Dickinson
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(1830-1886)
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| Emily Dickinson is considered one
of the greatest American poets of the 19th century. She was born on December
10, Amherst, Massachusetts. She never got married, and spent her years
as a recluse who loved to wear in white. During her lifetime, probably
no more than seven of her poems were put into print. After her death,
three collections between 1890 and 1896 won her the reputation of a powerful
eccentric, and later collections of her poems, beginning in 1914 until
1955 established her widespread recognition as a major poet. The style
of her poems was simple yet passionate, and marked by economy and concen-
tration. She discovered that the sharp, intense image is the poet's best
instrument. In her poems, Emily Dickinson constructed her own world; yet
her ideas were witty, rebellious, and original. She remains incomparable
because her poems shed the unmis- takable light of originality and greatness. |
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| The rhyme scheme of the poem is aabc,
defe. The poem's language is simple, concise but meaningful. The tones
are sharp and they vary from one line to the next. In the first line,
the speaker proudly claims that he's a Nobody. With the joy of finding
a partner being also a Nobody, the speaker clearly divides them two from
the superficial Somebody. Similarly, this obvious separation is used in
the stanzas. The first stanza talks about Nobody with clear, easy rhythm
and changeful patterns, while in the second stanza, the rhythm used is
slow and heavy, with only one pattern (How + adj.!) to describe Somebody.
And the metaphor, such as "an admiring bog" and the simile of
describing Somebody as a "frog" are pretty suggestive. Besides,
the rhyming of "frog" and "bog" shows the congeniality
of Somebody and his audience. The poet's use of irony and contrast between
Nobody and Somebody also reveals her strong will of being only Nobody,
and her despise towards Somebody. |
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| Pre-reading Activities: |
| Divide students into several groups
in advance, and have each group gather some data about Emily Dickinson. |
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| While-reading Activities: |
| 1. |
Ask one member of each
group to use one sentence to introduce the author. |
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| 2. |
Provide some specific information
about the author. |
| 3. |
Play the tape of the poem. |
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Have students repeat
after the teacher to get the feeling of the rhyme and rhythm of
the poem. |
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| 5. |
Explain the word usage,
phrases, stanzas, rhymes, rhythm and ironies. |
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| 6. |
Ask comprehension questions and
have group discussion about the advantages and disad- vantages of
being a Somebody vs a Nobody. |
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| Post-reading Activities: |
| Contrasting－ |
| 1. |
Have students circle
as many words in the poem as they can provide opposites to rewrite
the poem. |
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| 2. |
Ask several students
to reread the poem out loud in front of the class individually to
give some contrastive feeling toward the original poem so as to
get an even clearer picture of the original content. |
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| Writing－ |
| Write a short paragraph beginning
with the topic sentence: |
| How nice it is to be Nobody/Somebody! |
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| 1. |
Bassnett, Susan and
Grundy, Peter. (1993). Language through
Literature. England: Longman Group UK limited. |
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| 2. |
Perkins, Bradley, Beatty
and Long. (1985). The American Tradition
in Literature. New York: Random House. |
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| 3. |
施玉惠, 林茂松, Sarah Brooks:
遠東高中英文第三冊教師手冊, 台北:遠東圖書公司 |
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| 4. |
黃自來, 黃訢, 謝南玉, 黎文靜, 丘薇薇,
Mary Goodwin: 東華高中英文第一冊教師手冊, 台北: 東華書局 |
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