Emily Dickinson In Light Of Pragmatism

Emily Dickinson is now one of the most recognized leading figures in American literature.Her over 1700 poems demonstrate her extraordinary and original ability to perceive and ruminate on spiritual matters.Great poets always foreshadow future philosophical trends,and so does Emily Dickinson.Her poetry somehow manifests and constructs the guiding rules of American pragmatism decades later.Dickinson’s poetry manifests how religion and science,the two seemingly opposing forces that could hardly coexist in other cultures,were able to go hand in hand and prosper in the land of the United States of America.The tension in Dickinson’s poems,which allows science and soul to live happily together,and complement and consolidate each other,works the same way as in James’ s pragmatic philosophy.Beyond this,the approach Dickinson follows in her poetic explorations helps lay the groundwork for future classical pragmatism and neo-pragmatism.Her practice of secretly reconstructing the concept of God in her poetry presages the anti-Cartesian advent that Peirce,the classic pragmatist,proposed decades later.In addition,Dickinson lays specific emphasis on linguistic contingency – a notion at the heart of contemporary pragmatic theorists – embodied in Dickinson’s unique practice of words’ recognition and reconstruction.Dickinson also creates objects for pragmatism-informed aesthetics and innovates her poetic language to express thoughts in her way.Snakes,spiders,and other repulsive images are not rare in her poems because Dickinson keeps bringing these unusual objects into the aesthetic domain.The value of these eccentric objects contributes to constituting aesthetic value,and at the same time,it is inextricably linked to pragmatism.As an incisive and independent thinker who thinks in poetry,Dickinson also reflects her concerns with the coercion of the individual by pragmatism.Pragmatism is portrayed as a “mediating philosophy,” which is thought to be both empiricist in its adherence to facts and to allow for faith.Nevertheless,science still holds sway when it comes to ordinary people,thus leading to consumerism,exclusionism,and many other problems.The rising of social authority,in the wake of the decline of the authority of God,gives rise to the solitary individual,which can be seen in some of Dickinson’s poems.The adverse effects brought by pragmatism – the neglect of internal complexity and the loss of poetic possibilities of individuals – were also found in Dickinson’s work.In a word,Emily Dickinson is a prophet,a poetic prophet.Her exploration of her time and the world full of intellectual contradictions,her reinvention of the poetic form and her performatively pragmatic verbal practice prefigure pragmatism and neo-pragmatism that were to come.Her great work embodies the powerful Americanness that is peculiarly informed and empowered by pragmatism while warning of the oppressions by American pragmatism weighing in on the individual mind.