An Empsonian Study Of Ambiguity In Emily Dickinson’s Death Poetry Of1862

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is honored as one of the founders of the modern American poetry. His poetry is unique in style and rich in connotation with ambiguity as its hallmark. Based on Dickinson’s own poetics of ambiguity and Empson’s theory of ambiguity, the present thesis endeavors to interpret ambiguity in Dickinson’s death poems in1862from three perspectives:words, syntax and rhetoric.The thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter1focuses on Dickinson’s own poetics of ambiguity and Empson’s theory of ambiguity. Ambiguity is what Dickinson pursuits in her poetry and "Circumference" is her own word of ambiguity, which is in line with Empson’s theory of ambiguity. Chapter2probes into the ambiguity by virtue of the theory of ambiguity in verbal meaning. Dickinson attaches great importance to the circumference of the words and tries to disseminating their circumference so as to color her poetry with verbal ambiguity, leaving her poems to readers a wealth of implications and interpretations. Ambiguity in her poetry lies heavily on the words. Chapter3explores ambiguity from the aspect of syntax. Dickinson uses quite a lot of ellipsis in her poetry. Nonrecoverable ellipsis renders Dickinson’s poetry a riddle quality and enables readers to have a freedom of association. Also, syntactic doubling imposes an intensity of interpretation. Dickinson employs this blurred syntax to record her every individual moment of her mental experience in questing for ineffable religious truth. Chapter4concerns ambiguity in rhetoric devices. Dickinson adopts quite many metaphors, puns and paradoxes. Rhetoric for Dickinson is an essential tool which helps to give poems charm of ambiguity and room for alternative reactions.Because Dickinson was born in a family with strong Calvinist tradition and she was very familiar with the Bible; religion had a great impact on her. Yet God in many respects often failed Dickinson. As a result, Dickinson experienced a religious crisis when she was very young; she grappled with the problem of faith all her life. Such an inner conflict between belief and doubt and between hope and fear is often conveyed in an elusive way, while Dickinson’s poetic corpus offers evidence that she creates ambiguity intentionally and with it a variety of interpretive possibilities for readers. Therefore, this thesis reveals the multiple meanings in Dickinson’s death poems of1862and her complex attitudes towards death by virtue of analysis of ambiguity.