Emily Dickinson Poems

Emily Dickinson on the Left 

Poems by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
1886

Emily Dickinson has been in the news lately because a new picture has been discovered. She is a major American poet and an infamous recluse. Prior to this picture being discovered there was only one other picture of her at sixteen years of age. She only published a handful of poems in her life out of the nearly eighteen hundred she wrote.

Emily Dickinson at 16

Poetry is very intimidating to people including myself. I have been thinking about how to structure this post for days now and I think the best thing to do is present the books to you and leave the research to those that want to learn more. She has a way with words and I will let her work speak for itself.

6

IF I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

The convention of the time was not to name the poems so most of hers have been numbered in subsequent publications. Here are the three volumes available in the Kindle Store.

Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series One

Poems by Emily Dickinson, Series Two

Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

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August 2012 Roundup

Kindle Literature had another great month in August! We implemented a few changes this month. We removed the comments section from the posts. After some research and thinking we decided to move the comments section over to our Facebook page. Most people have Facebook and for those that don’t you can contact the blog through email at kindleliterature@yahoo.com. You can leave comments or suggestions on our Facebook page and through email. Let us know how we are doing and any suggestions you may have. Thanks for reading and here are last month's posts.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy’s award winning novel. A great read that a few of our readers read last month. Let us know what you think.

Mark Twain Biography - Archibald Henderson’s biography that follows Twain from his humble beginnings to being one of the most famous men on Earth.

Autobiography of Mark Twain - Released one hundred years after his death. It contains many writings that he did not want published while he was alive.

The Epic of Gilgamesh - One of the oldest works of literature. A great look at an earlier time in our civilization.

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe writing back against colonialism. A great novel that will make you think.

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad’s novella that explores the darkness in man.

You can share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a free 2 week trial*  on your kindle to have the posts delivered directly to you. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness - Free
1899

Joseph Conrad left Poland at sixteen to enlist as a sailor in order to see the world. This is evident in his writings as many of his stories have to do with sailing. He did not become fluent in English until his mid twenties and his writing style has a foreign sensibility. He was able to incorporate a tragic feelings into his English prose that had not been seen before. He is now widely considered one of the best English language writers.

Heart of Darkness is number 67 in the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels. It is a novella originally published in three parts in Blackwood’s Magazine.

Marlow is the main character sent by the company to restore the company’s name by bringing back Kurtz. Marlow narrates most of the story. Kurtz has been down river in Africa trading for Ivory and he is giving the company a bad name. Marlow is appointed boat captain and goes down river to see what is happening. Conrad uses symbolism in the book to show man’s descent into savagery. As Marlow goes farther down river and time passes and gets darker he is getting closer to madness, closer to Kurtz.

The language in this book can be difficult at times. It has been called dense. But the language is not the only difficulty with this book. The themes and approach to imperialism have been points of discussion among literary scholars. Conrad at times is critical of imperialism.

“The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.”

Yet, the book has been criticized for being a justification of imperialism. Chinua Achebe has written brilliant criticism of Heart of Darkness and even advocates that people not read this book. His novel Things Fall Apart is writing back to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s critique of imperialism has been challenged because the book can be seen as a justification for imperialism because it is can be read more as a warning. Conrad never gives voice to the africans in the book. He is warning against the shaming of europeans tactics and

“They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.”

While he seems to be sympathetic to their plight, he still only writes about the european’s plight. Conrad was writing in a very different time when just writing about imperialisms imperfection was a form of criticism. Conrad wrote a terrific novel that was years ahead of its time. It is considered to be a precursor to modern literature. Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart can be read as authors in conversation. They are often studied together in Modern Literature courses.

Francis Ford Coppola made a great movie adaptation of Heart of Darkness in 1979 called Apocalypse Now. It places the story in Vietnam and has Kurtz as a rogue Army Colonel.

Check out our Facebook Page and Like us to keep up to date on the latest Kindle Literature news. You can share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a free 2 week trial*  on your Kindle to have the posts delivered directly to your Kindle. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart - $9.99
1958

I am always peddling books to people, much like this blog. I was at my nieces birthday party this past weekend and some friends I don't see too often were there. Like always my topics for discussion consisted of great books to read. I have become the go to guy whenever someone is looking for something good to read. I think I also am a great conversationalist because I have been enlightened by so many authors. Like most people, my friend is very busy and does not have as much time as he would like to to read books. He was asking me for the very best books to read and I recommended a few. He asked me what my favorite books are and so on. The one that peaked everyones interest from my description about the topic alone was Things Fall Apart. I do not give plot outlines when describing books, mainly because that is not my main interest in reading. I like ideas and characters and what they can teach me.

When describing Things Fall Apart I said it was an anti imperialist novel.

Anti imperialism n. - a term that may be applied to a movement opposed to any form of colonialism or imperialism.

What I mean is that it is written from the perspective of the colonized. Chinua Achebe is a nigerian author and an amazing writer. He is writing from a  very different perspective of the colonization of Africa. He is directly writing back to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which is also a wonderful book but not as easy to read. Achebe gives voice to all the Africans in Heart of Darkness that are described but never speak.

Chinua Achebe writes about the consequences of european colonization in Africa.

"The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart."

Achebe does not pull any punches when criticizing the tactics used to devastate the African culture. The novel can be applied to all regions of the world that western civilization came to “discover,” never mind the fact that people were already living in complex societies. Achebe makes this novel universal by including quotes such as:

"We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true."

The novel was first published in 1958 and Achebe is writing about an earlier time, when Africa was being divided into sections belonging to different European countries. What surprised me about the date of first publication is how current the novel feels. Achebe has a great command of the English language and the novel has a timeless feel. It could have been written this century, the last one of the one before. Things Fall Apart was the first african novel to get worldwide attention and acclaim. It is included in the World Library’s 100 Best Books of All Time.

Things Fall Apart has become a staple of literature courses around the world. It is also studied in conjunction with Heart of Darkness, which is a great way to study the novels. This is how I first read this novel in my twentieth century british literature class.

While researching the novel I found out that this is the first in his “African Trilogy,” which also includes No Longer at Ease (1960), and Arrow of God (1964). I sent over samples of the books to my Kindle for later reading. Send a sample of this book to your Kindle and start your virtual “to read” book shelf.

I hope my friends are reading this book and I really hope the readers of this blog read it. It is one of the best books ever written and you don’t have to take my word for it. You know people like a recommendation when they google the name of the book on their phones to save it for later.

Check out our Facebook Page and Like us to keep up to date on the latest Kindle Literature news. You can share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a   free 2 week trial*  on your Kindle to have the posts delivered directly to your Kindle. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Anonymous
The Epic of Gilgamesh - $5.59
2150 - 2000 BCE

The Gilgamesh Epic dates back to the Bronze age! That is over 4000 years old. It was discovered in 1853 or 1849, depending on the source. This great work was lost for thousands of years. It dates back to the earliest civilizations in the fertile crescent, modern day Iraq and surrounding areas.

Epic n. - A long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation

The Epic survives in tablets. The standard versions of the epic consist of twelve tablets. They also found a few other versions in different languages and they used the different versions to fill in the missing or broken pieces.

The Akkadian versions is considered the standard version. They also have an older babylonian version and alternate poems of the different parts of the epic in Sumerian.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is split into two parts. The first part is the tale of Gilgamesh who was a demigod and a bad ruler to his people. The gods create a rival to Gilgamesh in Enkidu. Enkidu has many similarities to Adam in the bible. Gilgamesh and Enkidu battle and Gilgamesh is the superior fighter but they end up becoming friends. Gilgamesh was lonely as a demigod and now he has an equal. They go about doing heroic deeds until Enkidu is killed.

The second part of the epic is Gilgamesh quest for immortality. He is distraught over the death of Enkidu who he thought immortal like himself. Gilgamesh searches for the secret to eternal life and does not find it.

"The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping."

He does find a version of immortality in the form of epic poetry. The poem survives today and so does Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is now considered to have really lived, not as a demigod but as a king in ancient times.

When I first heard of the Gilgamesh epic I knew I had to read it. It is one of the oldest pieces of literature that humans have created. What surprised me about the story is how good it is. I don’t know why I didn't expect this epic to be as good as others. The Odyssey is one of my favorites works of literature and that is about 2500 years old. That is considered one of the best things ever written and I think that Gilgamesh is not up there yet because it has not been around as long because it was lost. It has not had enough time to be studied and become a part of our culture. Gilgamesh has only been studied for 150 years compared to The Odyssey that has influenced all literature for 2500 years.

Gilgamesh seems to be more interesting to historians than to literature professors. The epic just needs more people like us to read and spread the word.

Here are the different versions of the epic available in the Kindle store:

1 An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Free This is one of the versions I read. Compares the different versions of the tablets and has a lot of analysis as well as a history of the tablets.

2 The Epic of Gilgamesh (Classics) - $5.59 This is the Penguin Classics versions. Has a great introduction and is the standard versions of the epic.

3 Gilgamesh: The Oldest Epic Tale (Annotated) - $0.99 This versions compiles the tablets to produce a more complete text of the story. This is an almost direct translation with some annotations.

Check out our Facebook Page and Like us to keep up to date on the latest Kindle Literature news. You can share this post or any others on your social media of choice and bookmark the site for future post. You can also grab the RSS feed or try a   free 2 week trial*  on your Kindle to have the posts delivered directly to your Kindle. Follow me on twitter @seframos. Happy Reading.