| Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886) is one of the most extraordinary poets of all times. Although leading a life of seclusion, she has a sharp and unique understanding of the world. Her poems are mainly concerned about love, religion, nature and death. Of all 1775 poems published in 1955 by Thomas Johnson, more than 500 are about nature. Being influenced by two conflicting thoughts of her time, her nature-themed poems are paradoxical complexes of both thoughts—Puritanism and Transcendentalism. As these two thoughts deem nature in two totally different ways, Emily's nature-themed poems are sometimes permeated with burning love, while sometimes resounds with the tune of puzzlement and horror. Up until now, studies on Emily Dickinson's poems are abundant both home and abroad. However, analyzing Emily's poems from a linguistic perspective is still a wasteland which needs to be further reclaimed. Therefore, this thesis endeavors to analyze Emily Dickinson's natural view with the application of Appraisal Theory.Inheriting and evolving Halliday's interpersonal metafunction of Systemic Functional Grammar, Appraisal Theory is a powerful tool of evaluating texts. Focusing on discourse semantics rather than social context or lexicogrammar, Appraisal Theory is very effective in analyzing Dickinson's irregular lines. Furthermore, with its being classified into three subsystems-attitude, engagement and graduation and its being improved by many linguists home and abroad, Appraisal Theory can always generate a systematic and convincing result of text analysis. Therefore, Appraisal Theory is applied in this thesis in order to analyze Emily Dickinson's natural view in her nature-themed poems. With the application of Appraisal Theory, eventually in this thesis we will draw a tentative conclusion that Emily Dickinson's natural view is both of Transcendentalism and Puritanism.
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