Metaphorical Images In Emily Dickinson's "Death" Poetry: A Conceptual Integration Theory

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), the American best-known female poet, is one of the foremost authors in American literature. Emily Dickinson's poems, as well as Walt Whitman's, are considered to be a part of "American renaissance"; they are regarded as pioneers of imagism. In Emily Dickinson's poem, she uses imagination, metaphor, fantasy and other means to constitute a concrete, clear-cut and sensable images, and give her own understanging of poetry according to the description of feelings through the body to make abstract concepts concrete. She studies the death poetry from all angles and expresses her true feelings. In order to make her death poetry more vivid and more attractive, she largely uses imagery techniques and a variety of writing skills to achieve her aim, including metaphor, personification, symbolism, and synesthesia writing skills. It is her mastery of these writing skills that can depict a variety of different death images to show the world a mysterious and rich inner world.This thesis employs a cognitive approach to the interpretation of the death's images in Emily Dickinson's poetry within the framework of conceptual integration theory (CIT) which is proposed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner and serves a variety of cognitive purposes. This thesis attempts to demonstrate the meaning construction through conceptual integration theory and offer an alternative perspective on the study of the images in Emily Dickinson's poetry.Conceptual integration theory has complete networks, which function independently according to a set of uniform structural and dynamic principles. The basic operation is comprised of four mental spaces:two input spaces, one generic space and one blended space. In blending, structures from input spaces are selectively projected to a separate "blended space". Through composition, completion and elaboration, the blend develops structures that are not provided by the inputs. According to this theory, the hidden cognitive mechanism involved in the comprehension of the death's images in Emily Dickinson's poetry can be revealed.The whole thesis is made up of five parts. Chapter 1 presents a brief introduction to the general framework and the research direction of the study. Chapter 2 generalizes the development of image and its applications briefly by means of literature review, and it looks back on the previous study about the death's images in Emily Dickinson's poetry as well. Chapter 3 constructs a theoretical framework of conceptual blending theory. It is composed of the theoretical background of blending theory, a minimal four-space blending model, some basic elements of blending operation. Chapters 4 is the heart of the whole study. It explores the death's images in Emily Dickinson's poetry in the terms of CIT with relevant cases in detail, including metaphorical images, personification images, multiple symbolic images and synaesthesia images. Chapter 5 is a conclusion of the whole thesis in which suggestions for further study are presented.