Love,Soul And Death In Louise Glück's Averno

Louise Glück(1943-)is the contemporary American Poet Laureate.The themes of love,soul and death in her Averno reflect the modern people's love anxiety,loneliness,the contradictories between soul and body,and the conflicts of life and death.This thesis consists of five parts.The first chapter introduces Louise Glück,Averno and a literature review of all those research by previous writers and critics.In addition,this chapter lays out the research significance.The second chapter uses Muray Bowen's family system therapy to analyze two imageries of “sister” and “electric chair”.By describing an innocent girl's longing for love and love disillusionment,it embodies the anxiety and trauma of women in modern relations,love and marriage.Also,“shuttered room” and “the wanderer Persephone” show that the contemporary youth's loneliness which roots in the lack of parental love and parental chronic anxiety.“Tethered boat” and the abuser “Hades” suggest that women as daughters and wives suffered from the patriarchal and marital oppression,loss of self consciousness and individual rights deprived.The third chapter focuses on the binary opposition of soul and body based on Plato's view of soul.In the seventh poem of Fugue,the imageries “flag flown high” and “body cowers underbrush” indicate the soul rules the body.The soul must control the impulses and desires of the body,and lead the body to a life that is conducive to justice.In the first poem of Averno group poems,the imagery “chair” four times appears where the “chair” is actually the embodiment of the physical body,which indicates that the body will perish while the soul will be immortal.The fourth chapter by using theories of death aesthetics and the Heidegger's being towards death analyzes the views of death embodies in Averno.A large number of imageries of death are used in Averno.The poet directly describes the “death” or takes a variety of imageries,such as: “wonderful music”,“autumn light” and so on to chant the death.It is the imageries that endow the beauty to death.“Death is just the beginning” implies that death is the initiation of another form of being.The “thrush” as the messenger of the Death is no longer a horrible thing.It has become the Muse that inspires human to transcend death and to obtain the newborn.In the fifth part,the author summarizes and sublimes the themes embodied in Averno.By the analysis of the themes of love,soul and death,the poems educate modern people who are caught in the confusion and pain to overcome the fear and sorrow,to get rid of the material life for seeking the real self and get spiritual satisfaction.