An Ecofeminist Reading Of Emily Dickinson's Poetry

As one of the most prominent women poets in the nineteenth century, Emily Dickinson made a great impact on American literature, and she was praised as"the most topping poetess in west since Sapphic". She was outstanding among the contemporary poets for her unique writing style, creative images and profound ideology. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century of her literary prowess for challenging the traditional literary standard and writing conventionality, critics and readers sang highly of her brilliant writing competence. Many scholars home and abroad utilized multiple perspectives to interpret and analyze Dickinson's poetry, applying psychology, linguistics, phenomenology and feminist literary criticism in the research, and made great progress. However, critics seldom pay attention to Dickinson's ecological thought and female awareness.This thesis begins with the fundamental introduction of Emily Dickinson and the ecofeminist criticism. Based on the former researches on Dickinson and her poetry, this paper further discusses the formation of Dickinson'female awareness and ecological thought, mainly exploring Dickinson's rebellion and challenge of the religious belief, literary trends and social tradition in the nineteenth century. After that, this thesis analyzes the themes and styles of Dickinson's poetry from ecofeminism.As a woman and a devotee of nature, Dickinson has feminist consciousness and ecological thought. It is unknown whether she is a feminist or an environmentalist, but it can be found from her life and poems that Dickinson always pursues female identity and shows great enthusiasm to nature. She was born in religious family but refused to accept Christianity; her poetry reveals the characteristics of the nineteenth century American literature but embodied with personalized features; therefore she was regarded as one of the forerunners of Modernism. She challenged the social convention in the nineteenth century in United States, and chose to become an exceptional poetess rather than a traditional housewife.Nature is Dickinson's favorite theme. She wrote 1775 poems in her life, including more than five poems about nature, which shows her great interest in nature. Dickinson prefers to use the images which are common in nature to define nature and use sensitive language to praise nature. Like the traditional poets, she acclaims nature as"the gentlest mother"or compares herself to a member of nature. However, she is different from the traditional poet because she holds contradictory attitude towards nature. In the first place, she loves nature; in the second place, she feels worried and suspicious about the relationship between nature and human beings. Though her poems and letters are full of references of Christian, she does not accept the religious belief and always shows her disdain towards God, which reveals her oppugn on the traditional patriarchy system.As to the distinctive style of Dickinson's poetry, it is characterized by elliptical, compressed expression, striking imagery, and innovative poetic structure. Dickinson often uses the words and images related to nature to express her thought; the narrative art of her poetry is unique because the narrator is often a weak woman or an innocent child. Although Dickinson has inherited the rhythm features of the traditional hymns in some degree, she still shows her remarkable individuality in her poems. The punctuations are used in different manners which violate the traditional grammar, especially the uses of dashes. The dashes not only make the vocabulary in the poems carry new meaning and enhance the historic factors of the poetry, but also make the poem natural and musical. In addition, Dickinson's poetry is loose in structure, showing different writing features from the male writers'.Through the ecofeminist reading of the themes and styles of Dickinson's poetry, finally the thesis gets the conclusion: although Dickinson has little intention to become an ecofeminist or environmentalist, but her female idea and ecological viewpoint challenges the traditional dualism without fail. Dickinson research not only means to make a detailed description and analysis of her life and poetry, but also means to provide new interpretive methods and appreciating perspectives.