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Walking On The Borders Between Sleeping And Waking-surrealistic Features In Elizabeth Bishop's Poetry

Posted on:2011-01-20Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y Z XieFull Text:PDF
GTID:2195330332974294Subject:English Language and Literature
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Elizabeth Bishop was one of the most profound figures in the 20th century's American poetry. She won American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, National Book Award, and a Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Meanwhile, she was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950.Her poems won the favor of the critics with both refreshment and smoothness of the expression, and mystery insight in meaning. It is accepted by the critics that her poems have avoided the shallow sentiments and self-indulgence. On the contrary, she strives to explore the objective truth with a subtle and accurate language which disclosed the profundity of human existence and life.The present dissertation is to provide a possible approach to Elizabeth Bishop's poetry, that is, by applying the Breton's theory of surrealism, and through detailed analyses of her poems, the author explores the surrealistic features from three aspects: theme, imagery and technique as well. Magic and mysterious images, which partially arise from her preoccupation with sleeping, dreams and the borders between sleeping and waking, permeate Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. By exploring the workings of the unconscious and the interplay between conscious perception and dream, Bishop shows a distinguishing feature of surrealism in her poetry.Meanwhile, as a painter herself, Bishop exerted surrealist painter's techniques, like frottage, collages and displacement directly into her poetry. As Bishop admitted, surrealist painters like Ernst and Klee inspired her poems.Finally, the author explores the roots of the poet's surrealism, which derives from her past life experience as an orphanage in childhood, a geographically rootless traveler, a frequently hospitalized asthmatic, and a sufferer of depression and alcoholism.Hopefully, this research will provide a new perspective of understanding the great poet and her works.
Keywords/Search Tags:surrealism, dreams and hallucination, imagery, features
PDF Full Text Request
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