Metaphorical Account of Death in Dickinson’s Poems隱喻視角下的艾米莉狄金森詩歌死亡主題的解讀

1、Metaphorical Account of Death in Dickinsons Poems隱喻視角下的艾米莉.狄金森詩歌死亡主題的解讀 AcknowledgementsMany thanks first go to Professor Wang Bin, my respective supervisor, who inspired my interest in cognitive linguistics from the very beginning. His influence on me and my work is tremendous. I am greatly indebte

2、d to him for his careful guidance and illuminating instructions throughout my study. He has provided me with tremendously useful material and given me informative suggestions and helped me overcome the difficulties with strict requirements and benevolent understanding during the whole process of my

3、thesis writing, from the selection of the topic, the making of the proposal and the construction of the theoretical framework, to the painstaking modification of the earlier drafts. Without his guidance and encouragement, the completion of this thesis would not have been possible.I also owe great gr

4、atitude to other distinguished professors, such as Professor Dai Weihua, Assistant Professor Jin Wenlin and etc. My appreciation also goes to Shanghai University of Science and technology which has offered me valuable resources of teachers, lectures, references and academic nourishments giving me mu

5、ch inspiration to better my study.I would like to thank my roommates who have given me help from them I have learned a lot of valuable experience.Finally, I also owe great gratitude to my families, especially my dear wife, who has supported me both with finance and understanding from the very beginn

6、ing to the end of this thesis.艾米莉.狄金森死亡詩歌的概念隱喻分析與解讀摘要 C. Lewis曾說過，隱喻是詩歌的生命，是詩人的主要文本和榮耀。沒有隱喻，也就沒有詩歌。作為美國最偉大的女性詩人，艾米莉.狄金森的詩歌充分的反應(yīng)了這一觀點(diǎn)。本篇論文依據(jù)萊考夫和約翰遜的概念隱喻理論為理論基石和研究視角，對(duì)女詩人的死亡詩進(jìn)行認(rèn)知解讀；從艾米莉詩歌創(chuàng)造的實(shí)踐和對(duì)死亡的哲學(xué)思考，作者從中得出文化創(chuàng)造是人類超越肉體死亡的一種方法，對(duì)于艾米莉.狄金森來說，她的不朽或永恒就在于她的詩歌里。因此我們就不難理解她終生隱遁生活，其目的有二，其一是為了騰出更多的時(shí)間與經(jīng)歷去進(jìn)行詩歌創(chuàng)造；其

7、二是隱遁使她的藝術(shù)生命獲得了再生。概念隱喻貫穿全文，為本篇論文的理論紅線。考慮到詩人的詩歌浩如煙海，作者僅對(duì)詩人的典型作品進(jìn)行認(rèn)知解讀，并把她的死亡詩歌劃分為三類，分別是對(duì)死亡的恐懼與彷徨，直面死亡以及超越死亡。這樣做的是因?yàn)樵娙藢?duì)死亡的認(rèn)識(shí)是一個(gè)動(dòng)態(tài)的上升的過程，其目的是通過步步分析最終得到詩人的理想境地超越死亡獲得永生。 在具體分析研究中，作者從她的詩歌中提煉出幾個(gè)基本的概念隱喻，分別是死亡是一次痛苦的旅程，死亡是人，死亡是睡眠，死亡是黑夜，死亡是隱遁，圓周是永生等。并分析這些概念隱喻的系統(tǒng)性和連貫性，進(jìn)而得到對(duì)詩人死亡哲學(xué)的一個(gè)完整的充分的認(rèn)識(shí)，以及對(duì)這些死亡詩歌有一個(gè)新的理解。本篇論文

8、共有五章，第一章引言，重點(diǎn)是綜述國內(nèi)外對(duì)詩人死亡詩歌的研究特點(diǎn)及方法。并提出自己的視角-概念隱喻視角；第二章是文獻(xiàn)綜述。第三章分析研究死亡詩歌里出現(xiàn)的有關(guān)死亡的概念隱喻。第四章承接第三章，分析研究死亡隱喻的連貫性和系統(tǒng)性，目的是對(duì)詩人死亡哲學(xué)有個(gè)比較完整的認(rèn)識(shí)，第五章是結(jié)論部分，并指出本篇論文的不足與未來的研究工作。關(guān)鍵詞：概念隱喻 死亡 詩歌 認(rèn)知分析 連貫性 AbstractThis thesis gives a detailed analysis of Dickinsons death poems from conceptual metaphor theory. Based on the

9、 poetesss writing experience and philosophy of death, the author concludes that cultural creation is a way to overcome death. To Emily Dickinson, her immortality or eternity lies on her poetry. Therefore, we can say that her seclusion in her later life is mainly for saving time to write poems and ma

10、king her art life immortal.As the main thread that runs through the thesis, conceptual metaphor theory is a milestone in the field of metaphor research. The traditional theory represented by Aristole is confined to the rhetoric field. This thesis will just give a glimpse of metaphor history. In deal

11、ing with the poetesss death poems, the author will analyze some representatives of them. Moreover, the thesis will categorize these death poems into 3 kinds: poems of fearing death, facing death calmly and overcomging death based her changing attitude toward death. The author draws a conclusion that

12、 the poetesss ideal is to overcome death through means of poetry writing after a stepwise analysis. After a comprehensive study of death metaphors in Emily Dickinsons poems, the author abstracts several fundamental conceptual metaphors in each of 3 kinds of poems such as DEATH IS A PAINFUL DEPARTURE

13、, DEATH IS A PERSON, DEATH IS SLEEP, DEATH IS NIGHT and CIRCUMFERENCE IS IMMORTALITY, DEATH IS SECLUSION and so on. Then the author analyzes them combining with Emily Dickinsons life experience. Finally, coherence and systematicity of these metaphors are studied with a view to getting a comprehensiv

14、e knowledge of the poetesss philosophy of death and providing a new perspective to understand these death poems as well.This thesis is divided into 5 chapters. In chapter one, the author will give a brief overview of metaphor study, Emily Dickinsons death poems and the relation among death, literatu

15、re and metaphor. In chapter 2, the author reviews the history of Emily Dickinsons death poem study. In chapter 3, death metaphors in Emily Dickinsons poems are extracted and analyzed. In chapter 4, coherence and systematicity of death metaphors are studied to get a better understanding of the poetes

16、ss view on death. In chapter 5, the author make a conclusion of this thesis and points out some limitations and future to do.Key Words: conceptual metaphor; Emily Dickinson; cognitive approach; poetry; coherence and systematicityChapter 1 introduction1.1 An overview study of metaphorTraditionally, m

17、etaphor is taken as a figure of speech and is regarded as an effective rhetorical device to persuade people. Viewpoints of this rhetorical school can be traced back to Aristotle and Cicero. Such theories include Aristotles comparison theory, Quintilians substitution theory and Blacks interaction the

18、ory. These theories treated metaphor just a rhetorical device. With the publication of Metaphors we live by (1980, Lakoff&Johnson), metaphors have been studied mainly from cognitive perspective. Lakoff and Johnson as well as their colleagues have thought that metaphors have not only rhetorical f

19、unction but also cognitive function. They believed that not only the human conceptual system involves in the processing, understanding and making use of metaphor, but the conceptual system itself is metaphorically structured. Thus, metaphor is found to be pervasive in our everyday life, in language

20、and most importantly, in thought and action. In other words，metaphor plays a basic role in defining the way we perceive the world, the way we think and act to that perceived world. The reason why metaphors in linguistic expressions are possible is that there are metaphors in a persons conceptual sys

21、tem (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980: 6). Their theory on metaphor is known as conceptual metaphor theory.1.2 Metaphor and poetryMetaphor is all essential component of poetry and it is a basic building block that makes poetry. And it has long been considered as a most important device of the poetic imagi

22、nation and it is the life principle of poetry and treated as the poets main text and honor. G. Bachelard said that the brain of a poet is actually and completely a container holding a set of metaphorical syntax. Aristotle once said in the end of Poetics, “But the greatest thing by far is to be a mas

23、ter of metaphor, and it is one thing that cant be learned” and in the Rhetoric, “From metaphor we can best get hold of something fresh,” and “Metaphor moreover gives style clearness, charm and distinction as nothing else” (W. Shys. Robert). And the great poets themselves paid great attention to the

24、role of metaphor in the poetry. Robert Frost remarked, “There are many other things I have found myself saying about poetry, but the briefest of these is that it is metaphor, saying one thing in terms of another.” Poets frequently use it not only to simulate the reader to think and imagine, but also

25、 provoke a wide range of emotions and poets use metaphor to create beautiful and associative imagery to communicate profound meaning. Without metaphor poetry would be uninteresting jargon, without metaphor the reader would not be moved emotionally, without metaphor poetry would be extremely shallow.

26、 Shallow poetry is perhaps one of the most purposeless forms of writing available. So to sum up, we can know that the functions of metaphor in the poetry are to make poems more beautiful, novel and interesting, to crystallize and even visualize the abstract concepts thus avoiding wateriness and mono

27、tonousness. In a word, metaphor is the life of poetry. Dickinsons stark style, her ambiguous punctuation and capitalization, her variant word choices and multiple versions of poems, and her practice of expunging clearly historical references from her poetry, all contribute to creating poems that are

28、 open to varying, sometimes contradictory, interpretations that perplex, startle, and amaze her readers. Beside this, the most salient feature is her frequent use of metaphors, which are novel and seems quite strange to her readers. She believes that mind can know everything. Emilys mind is analogic

29、al, that is to say, most often, the boundary of the poem is not a particular scene or situation but the figure of analogy as it moves from scenes to scenes. She often employed at least two things or ideas at once to create a complicated relationship between two ideas or images. Her so-called abstrac

30、t images are grounded in her physical and intellectual experience of the world and the universe around her. The constructive power of the conceptual metaphor can enable her to create her individualized world. However everything has two sides. The poets frequent use of metaphor, on one hand, can make

31、 poems more novel and interesting and help the reader take something abstract and put it into concrete terms, then figure out what meaning the poet is intending to convey. It allows them to go beyond the outward view of the text and further into the internal structure of the poem to grasp its deep m

32、eaning. But on the other, the use of metaphor can add difficulty to understanding of the poems, because one metaphor has various interpretations which run parallel with various understanding of a single poem. So a proper understanding of metaphors is crucial to understanding her poems.1.3 Death and

33、literatureIn Western humanism, death, as the opposite of life, has irreplaceable value. So it is common that death becomes the everlasting subject the western literature. It can be said that without much consideration of death, there is no literature. For without death, man has no horror, no regret,

34、 and no ideal. Therefore man cant create a metaphysical world of literature to compensate mans loss and regret, to satisfy mans dream of immortality and eternity. This can be traced back to ancient Greece. As early as in ancient Greece, the great philosophers such as Socrates and Plato as well as gr

35、eat writers all paid much attention to the problem of death. Plato gave a very famous definition of philosophy: philosophy is the practice death. The great tragedian Sophocles in his master piece Oedipus also discussed the riddle of death. Actually, the riddle of Sphinx is the riddle of death to a d

36、eep extent. If the bystanders cant figure out the riddle, they would be killed. The modern philosopher Schopenhauer articulated that death is the source of inspiration for philosophy. And Heidegger claimed that man is Being-towards-death. It can be said that all great literary works more or less cor

37、related to death. Because death is inevitable, in order to overcome, exceed the death of body or flesh, man has painstakingly tried all their means to construct his belief of truth, beauty and holiness, and further to materialize such belief as the form of cultural creation. It is out of question to

38、 say that literature is one kind of such cultural creation ( JI Fenglin p398). Only by investing all his efforts into the various kinds of cultural creation can he face directly and bravely the riddle of death to journey the life of promise and dignity, can make limited lifetime meaningful and valua

39、ble, can realize immortality and eternalness. So from this, it is relatively right to say that Dickinson, by means of her voluminous work, has exceeded her physical life and realized her pursuit of immortality. 1.4 Death in Emily Dickinsons poems “Death in earnest,” Kierkegard writes, “gives life fo

40、rce as nothing else does; it makes one alert as nothing else does.” (Fred D. White, p.103). Emily Dickinson gives dramatic importance of the subject of death in her poems. Death in her eyes sets a thing significant (p109, selected poems). Of all her poems, about one third is about death. She describ

41、ed death from various perspective employing different kinds of images. Some of them was written from viewpoint a dying, some of them from viewpoint of a bystander of a dying. Some poems focused on the process of dying and others focused on sentimental feelings at the time of dying. Her obsession wit

42、h death actually conveys that death is not the end of life, but a bridge to immortality and eternity. Her exploration for death makes limited life extend to unlimited one, and also disillusioned life to eternity. Her recluse makes her have much time and energy to explore the meaning of life with ant

43、i-traditional rhythm and vagarious images. Although before realizing the dream of immortality, she experienced suffering, hesitation and finally calmness, she still held onto her ideal within her inner heart. So it can be said that she herself embodied the saying: true is beauty, beauty is true. In

44、1886, in deathbed, she uttered “back” in dying at last.1.5 A brief introduction of the characteristics of Dickinsons poemsIt is generally believed among Dickinsons scholars that Emily Dickinsons poems have no titles, and hence, are always quoted their first lines. In her poetry, there is a particula

45、r stress pattern, in which dashes are used as a musical device to create cadence and capital letters as means of emphasis. The form of her poetry is more or less like that of the hymns in community churches, familiar, communal and sometimes, irregular. Emily Dickinsons irregularity of sometimes inve

46、rted sentence structure also confuses her readers. However, her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainness. Her poems are usually short; rarely more than twenty lines and many of them are centered on a single image or symbol and focused on one subject matter. Her poems t

47、end to be very personal and meditative. She frequently uses personae to render the tone more familiar to the reader, and personification to vivify some abstract ideas. Emily Dickinsons poetry, despite its ostensible formal simplicity, is remarkable for its variety, subtlety and richness；And her limi

48、ted private world has ever confined the limitless power of her creativity and imagination.(Zhu, p140)1.6 Organization of the thesisIn what follows，the thesis will be organized in four chapters, in chapter 2, the author will invest main effort into the metaphors present related to the subject of deat

49、h in Dickinsons poems from the angle of cognitive linguistics, namely Lakoffs CMT. And in chapter 3 and 4, the author will give a detailed analysis of these metaphors related to death from their coherence and sytematicity with the purpose of uncovering Dickinsons philosophy of death, and state that

50、his attitude toward to death is dynamic. It undergoes three phases-fearing death at the beginning, dealing with death calmly and finally exceeding death. In chapter 5, the author will put forward his own view on death and then make a comparison between Dickinson s view on death with that of authors.

51、1.7 The significance of this thesisThe author of this thesis will firstly classify the death poems of Dickinsons into 3 kinds. Namely, poems about fearing death, poems about facing death and poems about exceeding death. Correspondingly, the author will explore 3 kinds of conceptual metaphors which a

52、ppear in these 3 kinds of poems. Moreover, the author will analyze in detail them from the perspective of conceptual metaphor theory with a view to exploring the reasons for writers fascination with the topic of death. Note worthily, the author in this thesis claims that cultural creation is a way o

53、f exceeding death, and also, the author in this thesis put forward a view that the topic of death in Dickinsons poems is actually a metaphor for writers seclusion by which she can enjoy amounts of time and freedom for poetry writing. the author hope this new perspective in reading and explaining Dic

54、kinsons poems and new point of view can do something to Dickinsons scholarship and facilitate the readers understanding of Dickinsons poems.Chapter 2 Literary review of the subject of death in Dickinsons poemsEmily Dickinson enjoys an ever-increasing critical reputation both within and outside of Am

55、erican history of literature. She is even considered as revolutionary as her contemporary Walt Whitman, who broke the bounds of 19th century verse form, refusing the confines of conventional poetics. (Wendy barker, Emily Dickinson and poetic strategy in Emily Dickinson) Since her poems were first pu

56、blished posthumously in 1890, critical responses and literary critical essays and articles to Emily Dickinsons work have been both abundant and unceasing; steadily gathering force with every new version of her collected poems as well as her manuscripts. In her life, she wrote about 1,800 poems, and

57、these poems centered on the four topics- death, love, nature and immortality. Among these four, death is her favorite concern, evidenced by surprisingly about 600 death poems. So to understand Emily Dickinsons poems one must grapple, as Dickinson herself did, with the problem of death. 2.1 Overseas

58、reviewPrevious scholars studied Dickinsons preference for the subject of death from various perspectives. They are mainly psychoanalytic, social and historic criticism and religious influence and cognitive perspective and finally new critic.Here I classify Feminism into the category of social and hi

59、storic criticism2.1.1 Perspective of social and historic and poets personal experiences A well-known Dickinson female scholar Wendy Martin in her brilliant book Emily Dickinson elaborated the underlying meanings and characteristics of Dickinsons death pomes. “Dickinsons poetry is dedicated to recording to the subtle emotions of the moment; her attitude toward death is not co