Comparative Study On The Content And Style In Poetry Of Emily Dickinson And Li Qingzhao

Chinese classical literature has rich meaning and special style. It is accepted by other nations. And in the meantime, foreign literature is also mingled into our own culture. Therefore, poetry as a form of literature is being mingled together. This thesis attempts to compare Emily Dickinson and Li Qingzhao who made great contributions to their own nations. Emily Dickinson and Li Qingzhao are respectively considered as the greatest women poets in American and Chinese literary history. Dickinson left the later generations about 1,775 unique, insightful and emotional poems concerning love, nature, death, etc., which are very rare in the poetic history of America, even of the world. She made great contribution to the flourish and development of the world literature. Li Qingzhao, a prominent poet in Southern Song Dynasty of ancient China, was an innovator who formd the exclusive "Yi'an style". Her style was claimed to be a mixture of the graceful and the bold. Li Qingzhao was good at Shi poems, Ci poems and prose. But she was especially renowned for the emotional intensity of her Ci poems. Emily Dickinson led a reclusive life but vaulted into prominence after she died in the 19^th century in America. While Li Qingzhao led a happy life in her early years and had tough experience when she was old. In spite of the fact that they lived in totally different countries, social systems as well as historical periods, there are similarities and differences.Focusing on different themes, this paper makes a comparative study on these two poetesses and employs the Feminist literary critical method to analyze their texts. This paper firstly discusses three aspects of Emily Dickinson's poems on love: her understanding of love, her longing for love and marriage and her raising love to a higher level. Then it analyzes Li Qingzhao's works which describe girlhood life and newly wed life, works expressing sorrow of parting and missing are also mentioned. Thus the paper draws a conclusion that both of these two poetesses have the courage to love and hate by expressing their aspiration for true love boldly though in different degrees. Their nature poems which present their unique view on nature are also compared.In the second part of this thesis, these two poetesses' style are analyzed. Firstly it compares the similarities and differences of rhythm and rhyme and language. For example, most of the syllables in Li Qingzhao's Ci poems are vowel syllables. There are few syllables ending in consonants. So her poems are not influenced by it and then the rhyme of vowel can produce a loud and lasting sound effect. However, in Emily Dickinson's poems, there are a great number of consonant ending syllables, which badly influence the loudness and lasting effect of the rhyme. Li Qingzhao wrote Ci poems according to restricted forms and rules while Emily Dickinson was not confined to the traditional rhymes. Instead, her inventive use of punctuation and her innovation in rhymng achieved wonderful effects in transmitting a certain meaning and forming a special rhythm. This paper also compares the two poetesses' poetry in Imagist Approach and in the end of this part, it further points out another type of strategy that both poets employ, that is the frequent use of negation in their poemsFinally, this thesis analyzes the causes of the similarities and differences in two aspects: social background and family background; personal experiences. Therefore, it draws a conclusion that the similarities and differences of the two poetesses and their counter-traditional spirit in works result from the background and personal experiences, thus the culture differences between east and west are reflected.