Religious Meanings In Emily Dickinson's Poems

Emily Dickinson is one of the best and most original poets in American literature, however she was unknown in her lifetime and led an isolated life. Among her 1775 poems, only seven were published anonymously. Her poems are distinctive in style and filled with wise thought and original ideas about life, religion and love. She also wrote a lot of poems on God, death and eternity, which show her great concern to faith.This thesis is to analyze the religious meanings embodied in Emily Dickinson poems and find her attitudes towards religion.The thesis consists of five parts.Introduction explores the feasibility and necessity for the study of Emily Dickinson's views on religion.Chapter one mainly displays Emily Dickinson's division from Christianity under the influence of the American transcendentalism and her changing attitudes towards God. She read Emerson from early youth and accepted his ideas of the liberating notions of self-reliance, the stress on personality and intuition. So she disdained all formalized church services and gave up the Christian church with its dogmas. After she lost faith in the established church, her attitudes towards God changed as well: from love to suspicion, from disdain to hate.Chapter two focuses on another respect of Dickinson's views on religion: herreflection on death. The destructive power of death and the fragility of life brouaht her great pain and a sense of loss. Although she found life was transient and mutable, death was totally inevitable. She didn't give way to despair. She kept delving into the study of the problem of death so as to find the weapon against it, that is her firm belief in "immortality".Chapter three is mainly about the establishment of Emily Dickinson' s own theology, the symbol of immortality that she has discovered in nature and the way she found in life to reach immortality. After her renunciation from Christianity, Dickinson felt very disappointed with God. After long exploration and thinking, she decided to establish a theology and God in her mind. The center of her theology pointed to one thing-immortality. In nature, she found the symbol of immortality-"circumference'' which has no beginning and no ending, going round and round without stopping. It just responds to the meaning of immortality. In life, she chose poet as her way to reach immortality. She refused to publish her poems because she didn't want to submit to the standard of accomplishment of literature in her time. So she did all her work in loneliness because she clearly realized and foresaw that poetry could bring her consolation and everlasting reputation, and in this way could she reach immortality.In conclusion, the whole discussion of the thesis reflects three aspects of religious meanings in Dickinson's poems: her rebellion against Christian church in her early age, her reflection on death and the establishment of her own theology as well as her find of immortality in nature and the way to reach it in life.