TheTranscendentalThoughtinEmilyDickinson’sPoetry-2019年文檔

1、The Transcendental Thought in Emily Dickinson s Poetry: As one of the greatest American womanp oets, Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems. The main themes of her poems are about nature, love and death. This essay is to analyze a few nature poems and death poems of Emily Dickinson, to explore how

2、transcendentalism influenced her poems.1 IntroductionEmily Dickinson is regarded as one of the greatest American womenp oets. During her lifetime, she wrote nearly 1800 poems. She remained single and lived in seclusion. This kind of lifestyle contributed a lot to the themes of her poems. In her poet

3、ry, the main subjects are nature, love and death. She was greatly influenced by the current Transcendentalism. This essay attempts to analyze the Transcendental thought in Emily Dickinsons poetry.2 The definition and characteristics of TranscendentalismTranscendentalism is an idealist philosophical

4、tendency among writers in and around Boston in the mid-19thcentury. It stressed the ability to discover higher truth intuitively or mystically, without recourse to the sense or logic. The idea of“Oversoul ” is the core ofTranscendentalism.The major features of Transcendentalism can be summarized as

5、follows: First, to the transcendentalists, Oversoul or the Spirit was regarded as the most important thing in the universe. They believed that the soul could transcend the body and the limitations of individuality. Second, Transcendentalists held the idea that the individual should be highly valued.

6、 In their opinion, people should depend upon themselves for spiritual perfection and self-improvement. Third, they also suggested that nature symbolized spirit or God and the glorious mission of nature was to embody God. Man could get spiritual instruction and moral truth from God by way of nature.

7、The representative writers are Emerson and Thoreau.3 Emily s poetry and TranscendentalismWe could detect a strongly Emersonian ring in Dickinson s poetry. Her intoxicationto nature and herbelief in immortality both owed to Transcendentalism.3.1 Transcedntalism in Emilys nature poetryTranscendentalis

8、m made Dickinson absorbed in nature.Nature possessed great charm for her. During her reclusion, she viewed nature as her sole companion and always wandered with her dog in the embrace of the beautiful nature.Dickinson often presented nature in the best transcendental manner.Among Dickinson s nature

9、poems, “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed ” is the one that best shows hertranscendental thought. In the poem, we can see that Dickinson was totally intoxicated herself in nature and became “Inebriate of airam I ?C / And Debauchee ofDew” and got drunk in the inn of nature, staggering through the numerou

10、s summer days. “Whenl andlords turn the drunken bee/ Out of the foxgloves door/When butterflies renounce their drams/I shall but drink the more!”(WuWenren,19)Even though the bees and butterflies left when season was off, she was not willing to part herself away with the alcohol until she got too dru

11、nk to move, drawing angels and saints out to have a look at her as a drunkard in the sunshine! To Dickinson, nature was emblematic of God. Everything bore a second sense and an ulterior sense. Only when one is totally intoxicated in nature and achieves a harmonious relationship with it, can he or sh

12、e perceive the higher truth in it. Dickinson proclaimed her transcendental philosophy in this poetry: go to the nature to sink back into its influence, and in doing so you can transcend the empirical world and become spiritually whole.In another poem “How Happy is the Little Stone”,she depicts a gay

13、 little feature who lives independently of the earthly world and shows no fear of the coming danger. “How happy is the little StoneThat rambles in the Road alone,And doesnt care about CareersAnd Exigencies never fears -Whose Coat of elemental BrownA passing Universe put on,And independent as the Sun

14、 Associates or glows alone Fulfilling absolute DecreeIn casua l simplicity ”To the transcendentalists, everything in nature wasalive. Here, the little stone is personified. He didntcare about his careers and never feared about theexigencies. He chose his own way of living and chose the one he wanted

15、 to be and enjoyed his own life, which reminds us of the poet herself. The theme of the poem is correspondent with one of the characteristics of Transcendentalism the emphasis on the importance individual. This kind of self-reliant individual is the ideal type of man whom the Transcendentalists advo

16、cated. They believed the individual soul communed with the Oversoul and as therefore divine. In addition, we also sense the poet s admiration of nature and her eagerness to fuse into nature in this poetry.In Emily s view of point, “earth is heaven”. poem “Nature is What We See ”, nature is a harmoni

17、ous symphony and a heavenly landscape, where everything are peacefully coexisted:“Nature is what we see-The Hill - the Afternoon -Squirrel - Eclipse - the Bumble bee -to beof theIn herNay - Nature is Heaven - Nature is what we hear - The Bobolink - the Sea - Thunder - the Cricket -Nay - Nature is Ha

18、rmony -Nature is what we know -Yet have no art to say -So importent our wisdom isTo her simplicity. ”The roaring of the sea is compatible with the low talking of the cricket; the tall hills and the hopping squirrels are both beautiful and divine. Here, we sense the resonance of Emersonian view natur

19、e was the origin of beauty and our human beings can get the truth and wisdom intuitively from nature. She felt just being alive and living with nature.3.2Transcendentalism in Emily s death poetryBy far the largest part of Emilys poetry is aboutdeath and immortality. About one third of her poems dwel

20、l on them. Of this kind the best are“Because I Could NotStop For Death, ”“I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died,” Fromthese poems, we can also easily detect an Emersonian Transcendentalism in them.In “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”,the speaker uses a narrative structure to relate a sequence of symboli

21、c details. “Death” is personified as a kind gentleman,waiting for the speaker in a carriage. In the journey tothe grave, they passed“the school ”the symbol of thechildhood; “the fields of the gazing grain” thesymbol of adulthood and “the setting sun” the symbol of senility. It is a review of her ear

22、thly life which she didn t want to stop. She felt terrified towards death, “quivering in the chilly dew”. Yet, no one could escapethe fate of death. However, after centuries stay in thegrave, she realized that the“Horses heads were towardeternity ”.(Wu Wenren,23)Death is not the end of a soul s jour

23、ney, but marks the beginning of a higher life. Even though her body is decayed, her soul is eternal, which is compatible with the transcendental thought that soul can transcend the body and fuse into the pervasive “Oversoul ” .The author thinks the experiences of death may be pleasant rather than te

24、rrifying because it leads to eternity. The natural circle of death and birth was just a changing process of nature.There is a similar theme in the poem“I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died ”. In this poem, it deals with the dying person s last sensation of consciousness. The speaker was waiting for death

25、and the room was filled with an atmosphere of stillness and solemnity. Suddenly, a fly flied into the room and buzzed. Fly was regarded as a disgusting creature, whose food was the decayed things including the corpses.“I willed my keepsakes Signed awayWhat portion of me beAssignable and then it was.

26、 ” (Wu Wenren,22)Here, we can infer that the speaker was experiencing a decomposition of the self into corporal waste.“Whatportion of me be assignable ” refers to the dying person s property and identify, which are all abandoned on earth after death. But her soul, which is not assignable, can be free of the social rule, conventio