Reading Response Prompts
 

These prompts are meant to get you thinking about what you have read, and to help focus your thoughts for your reading responses. You can respond to any one of them, or, if you have another idea you would rather explore, you are free to write about that instead. Do not, however, attempt to answer multiple prompts for any assignment. If you choose to pursue an idea of your own or are not writing a response that day, you should still spend at least a few minutes thinking about each of the prompts in preparation for class. For more information, review the listserv assignment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Circles”; Emily Dickinson, Poems on Faith, God, and the Afterlife (132, 143, 215, 128, 202, 283, 396, 437, 521, 544, 601, 632, 633, 711, 973, 1050, 1240, 1768, 1773 — all Franklin numbering)

Early in the “Circles” essay, Emerson paraphrases a many centuries old definition of God “as a circle whose centre was everywhere, and its circumference nowhere.” As the note tells you, he misattributes the quotation to Augustine, but that does not matter much. We know that Emily Dickinson read Emerson’s essays. Can you find evidence that this particular idea influenced her. If so, where and how?

In contrast to the way she writes about some other topics, Dickinson’s idea of God is much more consistent. How does Dickinson view God?  What about the afterlife?  How and why does she use the word “Circumference” in these poems?

Explication option:  Choose any one of these poems, and perform a line-by-line reading in which you explain what you think the key words, phrases, and images are.

 
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