Alnilam Summary
James Dickey

Alnilam Summary

In Dickey's poem "Diabetes," the narrator goes blind because of his illness, and the poem develops some of the themes that Dickey would expand in Alnilam. He cannot find a justification for his own mortality: the loss of youthful powers is irreplaceable by wisdom of any nourishing vision of the remainder of life. There are no rituals or rites of passage for the mid-life adult male to undertake to redeem himself. He can...

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