Significance of Research新

Significance of Research

ⅠCurrent situation

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886),the reclusive poet of the American Romantic Period, together with Walt Whitman, is regarded as the forerunner of modern American poetry. She wrote about 1800 poems in her life of which one third were concerning about death. When it comes to her personality, the research both western and eastern usually start from the three points--- the reason of her death complex, immortality and suffuring of death in her poems and her unique viewpoint towards death. Through her death philosophy, the hovering between fear of death and looking forward to death, many scholars, psychoanalysts and psychologists did some research about Emily’s inner world and found the reasons contribute to her dual personality. They find that on one hand, Emily isolated herself from the outside world but on the other hand she was eager to communication; she had strong desire for love and sex but controled it by masochistic means; she was fond of the beauty of nature but unwilling to go to the open air. But few research have been done about her ideology where the male consciousness and the female consciousness coexist affect her dual personality.

ⅡPurpose

This thesis aims to studying Emily Dickinson’s dual personality from three ponits-- her death philosophy, male consciousness and famale

consciousness. To explain the development of the three aspects that are key factors of her personality, I do the study of her life experience, her letters and her poems, finding both object and subject factors in the formation of her dual personality. Apart from her death complex, I focus more on her sexual consciousness to explore her inner paradox, attempting to uncover the mystery of her life and career from the view of gender psychology.

ⅢSignificance

Emily Dickinson was absolutely one of the greatest poets in the world. After her death, her poems were published and highly praised. From then on, people became interested about her wrting style, about her fantastic imagination, about her sharp sensibility, about her life and her inner mind. Through the research about her life and inner mind, we can understand her poems better. Meanwhile, through the study about her dual personality, we even communicate with her regardless of time and space. Former studies most focus on her death philosophy, thus my thesis make up the gap to some extent from the aspect of sexual consciousness. This will help to understand Emily Dickinson in an more all-round way.

Methodology

ⅠAuthor oriented

ⅡText orientated