矛盾意象——解读艾米丽狄金森的死亡诗歌

1、本科毕业论文(设计) 题目 contradictory images interpretationof emily dickinsons death -themed poems 院 系 外国语言文学系 专 业 名 称 英 语 年 级 2009级 学 生 姓 名 学 号 指 导 教 师 二零一三年五月i contradictory images interpretation of emily dickinsons death-themed poemsa thesissubmitted in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the degree

2、 of bachelor of artsin the school of foreign languages and literatureschongqing university of educationschool: school of foreign languages & literaturesmajor: english class: 4name: student no.: supervisor: date: may 10th , 2013i重庆第二师范学院本科毕业论文（设计）原创性声明本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是本人在导师的指导下独立进行研究所取得的成果。除了文中特别加以标注引用的

3、内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或未发表的研究成果。本人完全意识到本声明的法律后果由本人承担。作者签名： 年 月 日acknowledgmentsfirst and foremost, id like to present my sincere thanks and great appreciation to my supervisor, tang hongbo. it is a great privilege as well as pleasure to work on the thesis under his guidance. what he gives me is not

4、 only insightful suggestions and invaluable comments, but also unfailing encouragement. without his consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.second, i would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the professors and teachers at the department of

5、english, for example, zhang xiaoqing and xiao kunxue who have instructed and helped me a lot during my thesis writing.at last, i sincerely extend thanks to my parents, my friends and my roommates for their care, support and encouragement. they are the sources of confidence and strength for me to ove

6、rcome all the difficulties in life and study. without them, the accomplishment of the thesis will be impossible.abstract：emily dickinson (1830-1886) was as a famous poet as walt whitman, who lived in the nineteenth century. she is the most influential poet in the history of american literature, whos

7、e works still arouse great interest in modern critics. dickinsons poetry is famous for its splendid yet death-themed poems. this paper attempts to conduct a study on the contradictory images in dickinsons death-themed poetry for the purpose of unveiling the true essence of her poems. at first, the a

8、uthor of this paper analyzes the images in several death-themed poems, and tries to reveal the contradictory images in the poems. then, the author builds up a connection between the contradictory images and emotional experiences of the poet. according to the major influences of contradictory images

9、discussed in this paper, the reason of using contradictory images would be divided into two categories and discussed more detailedly through specific examples. at last, the author would try to discuss the major rhetorical devices of the contradictory images in dickinsons poems. adopting the method o

10、f close reading, this paper concentrates on the impact of dickinsons life experiences on her writing and tries to explore the inner world of the poet and the meaning behind the verses. the author of this paper believes that all the contradictory images in dickinsons poems are not created by accident

11、 or merely out of intuition. instead, they are deeply rooted in her everyday life experiences and her own exploration of life and death. key words：death; image; religion; contradictory摘要：艾米丽迪金森（1830-1886）是19世纪与惠特曼齐名的著名诗人。她是美国文学史上最具影响力的诗人之一，至今她的诗歌仍能激起现代评论家的兴趣。其中, 以死亡为主题的诗歌更富盛名。 为了揭示她死亡诗歌的精髓，本文尝试研究矛盾意

12、象在迪金森的诗歌中的体现。首先，作者分析了几首死亡诗歌中的意象，进而揭示矛盾意象。然后，让矛盾意象和诗人的情感经历相联系。文中通过讨论矛盾意象的主要影响，其产生原因分为两个部分, 本文将用具体例子进一步进行论证。最后，作者尝试讨论了在死亡诗中，矛盾意象的主要修辞手法。 本文主要采用了文本细读的方法，着重于诗人的生活经历对其创作产生的影响，继而深入探究诗人的内心世界，挖掘意象以及诗歌背后的内涵。作者认为，狄金森诗歌中的矛盾意象并非凭空创造出来或是未经思考的，而是来源于诗人的生活经历及其对生命、死亡等问题的自我探索。关键词：死亡; 意象; 宗教; 矛盾thesis statementthis pa

13、per researches contradictory images in emily dickinsons death-themed poems from aspects of: images, contradictory images, and rhetoric devices.vicontents1. inroduction1 1.1 the introduction of the poet1 1.2 masterpieces of emily1 1.3 death-themed poems of emily22. literature review2 2.1 foreign stud

14、y on emilys death-themed poems2 2.2 domestic study on emilys death-themed poems23. images in emilys poems4 3.1 images of a dying eye in ive seen a dying eye4 3.2 images of a fly in i heard a fly buzz when i died5 3.3 images of a journey in because i could not stop for death74. contradictory images i

15、n emilys death-themed poems8 4.1 contradictory in her poems8 4.2 contradictory images in emilys poems9 4.3 reasons of contradictory images9 4.3.1 death and god9 4.3.2 dickinsons paradox in religion faith105. rhetorical devices used to express contradictory images11 5.1 rhyme11 5.2 first person in th

16、e poem12 5.3 ellipsis in the poem126. conclusion14bibliography151. introduction1.1 introduction of the poet emily dickinson (1830-1886) was one of the greatest female poets in the american history. she was regarded as one of the legend female poets of america. dickinson never married and she lived i

17、n almost total seclusion for the last twenty-five years. obviously dickinson belongs to a thinker, and she is a private poet. living a reclusive life, for a long time cut off from the society, she mainly wrote poems for the need of herself. therefore, dickinson found poetic freedom in her unique way

18、s of poetry composing, which took time for the critics and readers of her poems to adapt themselves to her unconventional syntax. however, sadly, dickinson gained her status as a prestigious poet posthumously. at her death, she left close to 1800 poems, but only fewer than a dozen of them were publi

19、shed. dickinson left behind her huge chaotic mass of manuscripts of poems, some carefully revised, others carelessly jotted down on odd scraps of paper.1.2 masterpieces of emilysince the appearance of the 1890 volume of poems by emily dickinson, further publications such as poems by emily dickinson

20、(1981), letters of emily dickinson(1894), and poems by emily dickinson (1896) attracted a lot of readers at the end of the nineteenth century. literary critics showed their complex attitudes and expressed their comments on this “new- born” literary star, which can be seen from emily dickinsons recep

21、tion in the 1890: a documentary history. after the publication of her poems, people began to do research on her, poetry life experiences, and special attitudes to the world. scholars and critics divided her poetry into different groups according to the themes, such as love, nature, religion and deat

22、h. among more than 1880 poems created by emily dickinson, we are familiar with some of them, such as a sepal, petal, and a thon, i lost a world - the other word, dying at my music, the nature smile - the mother must. but her death-related poems are more famous.1.3 death-themed poems of emily althoug

23、h never left home, there few living like she did know love and death. some critics regard her works as gift! on modern poetry view: “poetry is a conversation between poet and self”. dickinson, in all her life again and again thought life, death, eternal life, religious discipline and natural meaning

24、. in her nearly one thousand eight hundred poems, 600 of them are about the death theme, such as i die for beauty, ive seen a dying eye, i heard a fly buzz-when i died, because i could not stop for death. the death-themed poems which she writes are full of life artistic conception, and peculiar, and

25、 significant meaning. many abstract objects are replaced by contradictory images. 2. literature review 2.1 foreign study on emilys death-themed poemsthe first phase of emily dickinsons criticism began with the todd and higginsons co-effort to publish her first series of poems in 1924, with an unsati

26、sfactory response that she was appealed to readers more as an elusive figure than as a successful poet. it was not until the publication of rebecca pattersons the riddle of emily dickinson that the critical practices came to a blooming stage of significant research. allen tate was among the first cr

27、itics who took emily dickinson seriously as a poet, and his appeal for a serious textual study of her death poetry was significantly rewarded, with a pioneering effort of donald thackrey and henry wells textual criticism.recently, american scholars pay much attention to the language styles of dickin

28、sons poetry and try to use bakhtin, miehel foueault and j. jacques derridas creative theories of fiction to discuss language art of dickinsons death-themed poems. at the same time, researchers try to reevaluate dickinsons status in literary history. 2.2 domestic study on emilys death-themed poemsin

29、recent years, there are over 70 papers of domestic study on emily dickinson. these researches mainly focus on the following aspects: emily dickinson in solitude, not marry in her life, her paradox in religion faith, emily dickinsons poetry theme, artistic style. the following are some domestic studi

30、es.rongrong xue in ruminating over death emily dickinson has said , for living in the secular world, she is already dead. she puts all the energy are collected into a spiritual world that belongs to herself completely, and ponders the life, death and life, lets her own art accomplishment in calm and

31、 mature sublimating. guohua sun in death and life death themes emily dickinsons poetry research points out, from the attitude to the concept of death, she does not stay in the fear of death and helpless of the emotional expression, but through the constructing the unique artistic conception open up

32、a new perspective of thinking about life and death, the essence of life. zhifang xiao, also in contradictory soul interpretation of emily dickinson studies dickinsons death poems which has the feature of duality, points not only the ruthless of death, but also death brings the liberation and calm.ju

33、 sun in death equals immortality and death does not equal immortality discusses dickinsons conversion of belief in death poems. dickinsons life caused by the special historical environment and personal life of faith, death poetry creation in the contradiction between death and life journey is the re

34、sult of emily dickinson early christian faith and faith consciousness of belief formation process, in fact it also reflects the period of the american people belief change. at the same time, yan qu in the article passion in emily dickinsons poemson the motives of nature,love and death has also said

35、that although we cant ignore dickinsons fear of death, her focus on the death are because she loves the life so much. dianhong yang in love, death and eternity: interpretation of emily dickinsons poems, thinks that emily dickinson poems content is rich, and her poetry should not simply be classified

36、 because her love poems are closely related to culture, and religious, death poetry closely links to the eternal, death-themed. this paper is under the help of previous researches, comprehensive analysis dickinson death theme poems. re-acknowledge of emily dickinson concerns about life and death the

37、me. making her poems have more strong sense beyond the significance and the more strong sense of ultimate concern. emily dickinson has not stopped research on the meaning of death. therefore, author puts the poetry contradictory images and the fate of the poet together to research, which can achieve

38、 a significant understanding about emily dickinsons poem. 3. death images in emilys poems emily uses images in her poems, and that is why we can follow her footprint to appreciate the death journey. death in her poems image is immortality reality. using different perspectives to read her poems can a

39、chieve incessant new recognition. from strong fear of death at her earlier age, till to create imagination of death at the end of her life, poems manifests dickinson transcendent life. dickinson finds her own identity on death imagination, and she selects lonely way to live. she can understand her i

40、nner world better, therefore, she creates magical poems. now this paper will talk about some images in 3 death-themed poems. 3.1 images of a dying eye in ive seen a dying eyeive seen a dying eye,run round and round a room,in search of something, as it seemed,then cloudier become,and then, obscure wi

41、th fog,and then be soldered down,without disclosing what it be, t were blessed to have seen. the poem ive seen a dying eye is, like the following poem i heard abuzz when i died, a poem concerned with the experience of a dying person. there are two different observations taking place in the poem, one

42、 from the dying eye and the other from the narrator. the observation from the dying eye is, it is clear, the search for something just before the sight is obscured by death. the search, then, is in fact being made by the poet who, in the presence of death, hopes to find an answer to the riddle of de

43、ath. death, as the poem goes, presents its uncertainty and uncontrollability. the first line indicates directly what the subject of the poem is, and then follows the description of the subject in the second line. the similar pronunciations of run and round show a sense of uncertainty. the eyes are s

44、earching for something, and no one else except the dying person himself can know what exactly it is. the word “seemed”, plus the dash following it, suggests the narrators suspect of the availability of the object the eyes are searching for. as death approaches, the eyes become “cloudier”, which indi

45、cates the end of the search is also being closer. “obscure with fog” is the following state of the eyes vision, and then finally comes the last state“be soldered down”, which means that the channel of vision is totally shut. the narrator witnesses the whole process, but she yet can not provide the e

46、xact result of the dying eyes searching. the question of what the dying has seen at the moment of death is still unanswered, but the narration of death and narrators potential suggestion encourage one to imagine and to produce his own version of answers through his imagination.3.2 images of a fly in

47、 i heard a fly buzz when i died her continuous thinking of death results in her imagination as the dead. in many of her poetry, she expresses her wondering thoughts about death. she believes in immortality, but she is also curious about what happens after death. with her writing, dickinson manages t

48、o describe the process of death by sensing the conversion of the process from life to death. actually, the poet becomes so involved in the detailed description of that process that the readers can discover quite a few poems, by which dickinson interprets her deeply idea of life and death.i heard a f

49、ly buzz when i died, the stillness round my formwas like the stillness in the air between the heaves of storm.the eyes beside had wrung them dry, and breaths were gathering surefor that last onset, when the king be witnessed in his power.i willed my keepsakes, signed away what portion of me icould m

50、ake assignable, and then there interposed a fly,with blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, between the light and me,and then the windows failed, and then i could not see to see.i heard a fly buzz when i died, which is remarkable for its virtuosity, shows her imagined “experience of the dead”. in this poe

51、m, dickinson places herself in the mind of a woman who is died. she relives the moment of death, and the hope for immortality that should pursue. with family and friends gathered around, her heightened sense reports the crisis in flat domestic terms. the bereaved family at the bedside is full of tea

52、rs, for the moment of death arriving, a stillness such as “between the heaven of storm” prepares the reader physically to hear the finial agonizing gasp of the dying. in an atmosphere of calm inner and quiet outward, the dying person collectedly proceeds to bequeath his or her worldly possessions, a

53、nd while engaged in this activity of “willing”, discover his attention withdraw by a flys buzzing.it is the same moment of death, and it is the same comparison of quiet and move. what the difference is an important image which the author added in this poem a fly. this fly in the silent room is hummi

54、ng (buzz) at begin, and at the end, the instability of the intermittent cry (uncertain stumbling buzz), till the disappearance of the voice. the authors description in this poem aims at reflecting how the hero in the poem is undergoing from conscious, perceptual state, into the unconscious insensibl

55、e state. the room is quiet until it is broken by the fly hum, which means death is really approaching. then, the heros awareness and consciousness gradually decline, and the flys voice, shape and color vanish in the heros eyes. in the whole process described, the poet always remains a state of objec

56、tive and calm, and brings experience of reason death to readers.3.3 images of a journey in because i could not stop for deathbecause i could not stop for death,he kindly stopped for me,the carriage held but just ourselvesand immortality.we slowly drove, he knew no haste,and i had put awaymy labor, a

57、nd my leisure too,for his civility.we passed the school where children played,their lessons scarcely done,we passed the fields of gazing grain,we passed the setting sun.we paused before a house that seemeda swelling of the ground,the roof was scarcely visible,the cornice but a mound.since then it is centuries, but eachfeels shorter than the dayi first surmised the horses headswere toward eternity.each poem of dickinson manifests the dignity of death, th