A Cognitive Stylistic Analysis Of Emily Dickinson’s Poems

By a cognitive stylistic analysis of Emily Dickinson’s poems from three perspectives (conceptual metaphor, figures and grounds, cognitive deixis), the thesis intends to demonstrate that a cognitive stylistic analysis of poems is an accessible and valuable way to analyze and appreciate poems. The methodology adopted in this thesis is the combination of theoretical elaboration and case studies.Firstly, in the light of the nature of poems, poetry is a kind of use of language and a stylistic form by which people use language to express their inner thoughts. This type of language use is meant to be interpreted as having some relevance to human affairs. For a long time, literary criticism has always been playing an important part in interpreting poems. However, critics always concentrate on investigating the minutiae of disagreement and they are more interested in the deviances and uniqueness of works. Unfortunately, as a result, they overemphasize this difference, ambiguity, ambivalence and irresolution to a disproportionate extent. Therefore, literary criticism alone cannot offer a scientific and systematic approach to interpret poems.Secondly, since stylistics is the very study of the language use in literature, and this kind of research enjoys a cognitive turn in recent years, cognitive stylistics, as one of the most forefront field of cognitive linguistics, can provide us a systematic and scientific approach to discuss authors and readers’ understanding of the world and explain how these interpretations are reflected in discourse organization. As a matter of fact, cognitive stylistics is an application of cognitive linguistics to poetic reading.In current studies of cognitive stylistics, scholars borrow the fruit of cognitive science and apply relevant theories to interpret literary texts. They mainly concern readers’intellectual operation or cognitive mechanism. The major cognitive methods include figure and ground, script and schema, prototype theory, cognitive grammar, mental space, conceptual metaphor and so on, which are employed to interpret and comprehend literary text. Due to space limitations, this thesis will conduct the analysis from these three perspectives:conceptual metaphor, figure and ground, cognitive deixis.Thirdly, Emily Dickinson, the American best-known female poet, is one of the foremost authors in American literature. Emily Dicknson’s Poems, as well as Walt Whitman’s, are regarded as a part of "American renaissance". Both of them are considered to be pioneers of imagism. The bold and novel deviations, unpredictable images and the unique arrangements of phonological rhythm in her poems convey her special experience as a gifted poet. However, these very characteristics also cause impediments when readers interpret and appreciate her poems. Many researchers assiduously seek for how to interpret the deeper thoughts in Dickinson’s poems and further appreciate those vertiginous images. In recent years, the sweeping development of cognitive stylistics brings dawn to the realization of this object.In view of the above observations, this thesis intends to interpret some of Emily Dickinson’s representative poems from the perspective of cognitive stylistics. Through this analysis, the article attempts to draw the following conclusions:firstly, the poetic language in Dickinson’s poems, actually, is the unconventional use of common language. Secondly, the unique images in Dickinson’s poetry are, as a matter of fact, the poet’s own experience of mankind and the history of human society. She enveloped these images in mystery with her idiosyncratic sight. Thirdly, cognitive stylistics has a strong explanatory power for the interpretation of poetry, and has brought inspiration to the teaching of English and American literature.