Abstract: Death and eternity are the major themes in most of Emily Dickinson’s
poems.“ Because I could not stop for death ”is one of her classic poems.
Through the analysis, this essay clarifies infinite conceptions by the
dialectical relationship between reality and imagination, the known and
the unknown. And it tells what’s eternity in Dickson’s eyes.
Keywords: death, eternity, finite, infinite
Introduction
Emily Dickinson（1830-1886）, the American best-known female poet ，was
one of the foremost authors in American literature. Emily Dickinson ’s
poems, as well as Walt Whitman’s, were considered as a part of "American
renaissance"; they were regarded as pioneers of imagism. Both of them rejected
custom and received wisdom and experimented with poetic style. She however
differs from Whitman in a variety of ways. For one thing, Whitman seems
to keep his eye on society at large; Dickinson explores the inner life
of the individual. Whereas Whitman is "national" in his outlook, Dickinson
is "regional"
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10,1830.
She lived almost her entire life in the same town (much of it in the same
house), traveled infrequently, never married, and in her last years never
left the grounds of her family. So she was called "vestal of Amherst".
And yet despite this narrow -- some might say -- pathologically constricted-outward
experience, she was an extr英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】emely intelligent, highly sensitive, and deeply
passionate person who throughout her adult life wrote poems (add up to
around 2000 ) that were startlingly original in both content and technique,
poems that would profoundly influence several generations of American poets
and that would win her a secure position as one of the greatest poets that
America has ever produced.
Dickinson’s simply constructed yet intensely felt, acutely intellectual
writings take as their subject issues vital to humanity: the agonies and
ecstasies of love, sexuality, the unfathomable nature of death, the horrors
of war, God and religious belief, the importance of humor, and musings
on the significance of literature, music, and art.
Emily Dickinson enjoys the King James Version of the Bible, as well
as authors such as English WRTERS William Shakespeare, John Milton, Charles
Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, and Thomas Carlyle.
Dickinson’s early style shows the strong influence of William Shakespeare,
Barrett Browning, Scottish poet Robert Browning, and English poets John
Keats and George Herbert. And Dickinson read Emerson appreciatively, who
became a pervasive and, in a sense, formative influence over her. As George
F. Whicher notes, "Her sole function was to test the Transcendentalist
ethic in its application to the inner life".
1“death” in Emily Dickinson’s poets
For as long as history has been rec
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