A Study On The Relationship Between Dickinson's Religious View And Her Poetry Writing

As the most outstanding and quiet poet in the American literature history, Emily Dickinson wrote with passion and innovatioa Her writing, as well as her life, has been an unsolved riddle. Although she was brought up in a religious family and community, she dared to live according to her own rules. With her persistent efforts, she built a distinctive temple for her souls and faith. It is safe to say that thinking was her most serious work. She had reflected on such issues as God, Heaven, eternity, nature and so on for her lifetime. Her thoughts on religious issues and her poetry are closely related. The objective of this dissertation is to study the relation between her view of religion and her creative writing. In a historical and religious perspective, the dissertation has an interpretive reading of Dickinson's upbringing and makes a detailed textual analysis of Dickinson's poems to reveal her special explanation of religious images, purpose of writing and her special strategies to achieve her goal.The dissertation is divided into six parts. The introduction part has an overview of Dickinson's life and creation. Living in seclusion in her father's house, Dickinson devoted all her time and energy to the exploration of the inner world. With blazing emotion and profound thinking, her creation was beyond her time. On the one hand. Dickinson inherited her religious tradition, taking good advantage of the Bible and relevant images; on the other hand, she went far to find and built her religious temple. She believed and disbelieved God and finally constructed her own faith. Her poetry is the embodiment of her faith and the way she built her temple.Chapter one is "Dickinson's Religious View and Social Settings". This part discusses Dickinson's view on religion in three aspects. First, the cultural and religious background of Dickinson's time is discussed. In an uneasy era, with various social trends of thought powerful Puritan and Calvinist thoughts were greatly impacted and the status of God gradually decreased. Under the circumstances, religious revival movements swept the country. Dickinson grew up in such a cultural context. Dickinson was exposed to much religious education in her family, school and church. On the one hand, she adhered to the Puritan tradition, on the other hand, she began to seek her faith, absorbing various thoughts from Puritanism, Calvinism, Unitarianism and transcendentalism. Basically, Dickinson didn't has a fixed religious view. She spent her whole life seeking answers to various questions about God, death, nature, immortality, and so on. Her belief and disbelief existed at the same time. As time goes on, she moved further toward "circumference" which was her business. In her eyes, the so-called circumference actually was the realm of the unknown, possibility, and mystery.The second chapter is "The Religious Scenes in Dickinson's Poetry"' Dickinson was familiar with the Bible, and she took good use of it to achieve her goal. As an independent thinker, Dickinson doubted God in the Bible. She abandoned the orthodox Bible doctrines, rewrote the Bible stories and reshaped several characters in the Bible, including Jesus, Jacob, and Moses who became her models to challenge God. As for nature, her attitude is consistent with her attitude towards God. God is unapproachable, so is nature. Man cannot know nature, since nature is as mysterious and known as God. Likewise, the view of death in Christianity and resurrection was questioned by Dickinson.The third chapter is "Dickinson's Religious View and Spirit Purport of Poetic Creation"'. As a reclusive poet, Dickinson combined her poetic creation, domestic experiences, and religious request together. She built a spirit space which defied the traditional religion. This spirit space, namely "heaven on earth", was a transcendental space relevant to her religious view. With the image of house. Dickinson built her heaven on earth. The word of house has various meanings, from her physical shelter to the spirit home and even the poet's body has become another kind of home and finally poetry becomes her eternal home, the heaven on earth.The fourth chapter is "Dickinson's Religious View and Poetic Strategies". As a nonconformist, Dickinson called her business as circumference. God commands the center, and the poet occupies the circumference which is beyond God's control. In her eyes, poet's realm means decenter, blankness, vague, uncertainty, and mystery. With strategies of blankness and ambiguity, Dickinson announced her truth in a crooked way. By means of negation and self-deprecation, Dickinson established her own authority and got control of her world. With such means, Dickinson finally constructed her world of poetry and faith in the uncertain kingdom.In conclusion, Dickinson's distinctive religious view had a great influence on her poetic creation. Her poems are the embodiment of her pursuit of faith. Previous studies on Dickinson's religious view focus on her contradictory view of religion, while this research further points out that Dickinson broke the traditional religion, and constructed a unique belief---earthly paradise. This dissertation points out that Dickinson's unique concept of poetry. Dickinson'poetic creation is a kind of religious practice, which makes her work go beyond the general literary creation. The research on the relationship between her religious views and the poetry creation will help us to find and build our spiritual home.