Writeacher, I'm finding it difficult to rephrase the poem "I had been hungry all the Years" by Emily Dickinson.
I wonder if you could help me.
1) Dickinson’s poetic universe is characterized by personal deprivation. In particular, in poem 579, “I had been hungry, all the Years” she imagines herself dining again after many years of unsatisfied hunger.
2) In the first stanza she writes that her “Noon” has come “to dine”. In the second stanza she claims that she had imagined this moment often enough, as she stared through windows into opulent houses where people were “eating”.
3) She knew she could not even hope for such abundant happiness. She had never experienced the ample bread as she was used to sharing the “crumbs” with the birds in nature’s dining room. In other words, she had always starved.
4) The crumbs always left her hungry and frustrated, exiled from human society. Trembling with eagerness, she draws the table close to her and merely touches the strange wine. This abundance, however, hurts her.
5) She feels strange and compares herself to a berry which, transplanted from a mountain bush to the public highway, dies. Her self has been so completely defined by its starvation that food threatens to destroy it.
6) Thus she resists food in order to survive. She states that hunger is the conditions of those who, like her, are fully detached from social life. Here it becomes clear that her starvation is above all an emotional one.
I'm only on my phone right now, but I can get on a computer in a few hours. OK?
I think you are right in your analysis of this poem. Here is a teacher's approach to this poem, and I believe (as this teacher would also believe) that you are right to interpret the poem metaphorically, not literally.
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/hungry.html
Certainly, I can help you rephrase the poem "I had been hungry all the Years" by Emily Dickinson. Here's a rephrased version of the poem:
In Emily Dickinson's poem 579, titled "I had been hungry, all the Years," she portrays a sense of personal deprivation. The poem describes the speaker's imaginary experience of finally satisfying her hunger after years of longing.
The first stanza illustrates that the speaker's "Noon" has finally arrived for her to "dine." In the second stanza, she confesses to frequently imagining this moment while gazing through windows into affluent houses where people were happily eating.
The speaker acknowledges that she had never experienced such bountiful happiness. Instead, she has always shared "crumbs" with birds in nature's dining room, never having enough to fulfill her hunger. Consequently, she has lived a life of starvation and isolation from human society.
With trembling eagerness, she draws the table nearer and cautiously touches the strange wine. However, the abundance overwhelms her, making her feel unfamiliar and out of place. She compares herself to a berry that withers when transplanted from the safety of a mountain bush to the busy public highway. Her hunger has so deeply defined her self that the presence of food threatens to obliterate her existence.
Thus, she resists succumbing to food in order to survive. She declares that hunger is the condition of those who, like her, are completely detached from social life. It becomes evident that her starvation is primarily an emotional one, highlighting the profound longing she experiences.