On Emily Dickinson’s Concept Of Eternity And Its Application In Her Poetry

Emily Dickinson’s conception of eternity was a fruit of her metaphysical quandary during the religious crisis of the 19^thcentury when the orthodox Puritanism and Calvinism in New England gradually gave way to the blend of the multiple thoughts including the orthodox Christianity,the liberal Christianity,the scientific theology,the Romanticism,the organic poetics,and the pop culture,etc.First,she“filtered”and“screened”the Christian doctrines about the eternity.In the poems,she forsook the morals about sin and punishment for the warmer and more humane diction.She used irony to expose the discriminatory dogmas and those against the individual significance,such as the“victory”of the Christians,the“new name”and“spiritual body”in heaven,etc.Second,she was keen on describing the indescribable eternity.She admitted that eternity was“a still riddle”while at the same time she endeavored to put it into words with her metaphorical language as well as“happy ending”device,“heaven as home or not” diversions,home substitutions of“the underground villages and towns”,etc.She dealt with the issues of heavenly body and consciousness with the transcending metaphors,yet remained suspicious about the validity of the metaphorization.Third,she used the concept of“home”to connect the contexts of this life,death,and eternity.Contrary to the metaphysical belief,she regarded this life as“home”or“old home”,the eternal heaven as“foreign land”or“no land”,and the death territory as “underground home substitutes”to deconstruct the“heaven-as-home”tradition and rebuild her own home conception.Despite the panic over the unknown abyss beyond as well as the religious uncertainty,Dickinson subverted the metaphysical and Christian tradition of eternity.Although she could not settle this“still riddle”,she tried to approach and describe it to endow human being’s experience with some continuity and meanings in the light of eternity.