Paratextual Analysis Of Emily Dickinson’s Romantic Legends

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson(1830-1886),together with Walt Whitman(1819-1892),is regarded as the pioneer of modern American poetry and a mysterious poet in American literature and world literature.Her romantic legends have attracted many researchers to study,but there are still many unveiled mysteries.Adopting the method of textual analysis,this thesis focuses on Emily Dickinson’s romantic legends with Charles Wadsworth,Susan Huntington Gilbert,and Otis Phillips Lord from the perspective of paratextual theory by analyzing the characteristics of paratexts of the three romantic legends and their practical influences on presenting the romantic legends to illustrate the obvious influence of paratexts on Emily Dickinson’s romantic legends,and by which to expect attention and research of the academic circles and the public on Emily Dickinson’s paratexts.This thesis first expounds the research background,research objective,research questions,and research significance;then reviews the previous studies on Emily Dickinson’s romantic legends.Chapter three introduces the origin,development,and application of paratextual theory,and explains the three research steps taken in this study to fulfill paratextual analysis,that is,establishment of the texts of romantic legends,selection and analysis of characteristics of paratexts,and analysis of practical influences of paratexts on presenting Emily Dickinson’s romantic legends.Following the three research steps mentioned above,chapter four conducts a paratextual analysis of the three romantic legends respectively.Chapter five summarizes the research findings,points out the limitations of this thesis,and puts forward some suggestions for further study.The study finds that,of the paratexts of three romantic legends,paratext of the romantic legend between Emily Dickinson and Charles Wordsworth enhances the emotional level of their romantic relationship through conjecture and other methods,with the characteristic of overstating the romantic legend;the two types of paratexts of the romantic legend between Emily Dickinson and Susan Huntington Gilbert reveal the characteristics of overstating and understating respectively;one of them enhances the affectionate intensity of the romantic legend by speculation;the other deliberately misdates the historical facts and expurgates the passionate words and sentences in letters to reduce the intimacy of the romantic legend.The paratext of Emily Dickinson’s romantic legend with Otis Phillips Lord strengthens the romantic relationship between the two through speculation and imagination,with the characteristic of overstating the romantic legend.In addition,statistics show that paratexts of the three romantic legends all have a practical impact that cannot be ignored,indicating that paratexts play a prominent role in presenting romantic legends.Therefore,it is concluded that the influence and effect of paratexts on Emily Dickinson’s romantic legends are obvious.At present,there are a large number of paratexts of Emily Dickinson’s life,letters,and poems in academic circles and social public spaces.The findings of this thesis show that attention should be paid not only to the study of relevant paratexts of Emily Dickinson but also to the practical impact of these paratexts.