Because I can't stop to die.
Abstract: Death and eternity are the themes of most Emily Dickinson's poems. "Because I can't stop and wait for death" is one of her classic poems. Through analysis, this paper expounds the concept of infinity with the dialectical relationship between reality and imagination, known and unknown. And what is eternity in Dixon's eyes.
Keywords: death, eternity, finiteness, infinity
introduce
Emily Dickinson (1830- 1886) is the most famous American poetess and one of the most important writers in American literature. Emily Dickinson's poems, as well as walt whitman's poems, are considered as part of the "American Renaissance"; They are regarded as pioneers of imagism. They all rejected customs and accepted experiments in wisdom and poetic style. However, she is different from Whitman in many ways. On the one hand, Whitman seems to pay attention to the whole society; Dickinson explored the inner life of the individual. Whitman's view is "national", while Dickinson is "local"
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts on1February 10. She lived in the same town almost all her life (mostly in the same house), rarely traveled, never married, and never left her family in the last few years of her life. So she is called "Vesta of Amherst". However, despite this narrow-some people may say-psychologically restricted external experience, she is an extremely intelligent, highly sensitive and passionate person. The poems she wrote throughout her adult life (about 2,000 in total) have amazing originality in content and skills, which have profoundly influenced several generations of American poets and won her a firm position as one of the greatest poets in American history.
Dickinson's simple structure, but strong feeling, the works of keen intellectuals are of vital importance to human beings as their theme issues: the pain and ecstasy of love, sex, the unfathomable nature of death, the terror of war, God and religious beliefs, the importance of humor, and thinking about the significance of literature, music and art.
Emily Dickinson likes King James' version of the Bible, as well as British writers william shakespeare, john milton, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot and Thomas Carlyle. Dickinson's early style shows the strong influence of William Shakespeare, Barrett Browning, Scottish poet robert browning, English poet John Keats and George Herbert. Dickinson read Emerson with appreciation, and Emerson had a pervasive influence on her, in a sense, on her formation. As George F. Witchell pointed out, "Her only function is to test the application of transcendentalism ethics in inner life".
1 "Death" in Emily Dickinson's Poetry
Since the recorded history, maybe even longer, human beings have always had different views on their own death. Even those of us who accept death gracefully, at least to some extent-fear, fear or try to postpone the arrival of death. We personified death-as a villain dressed in black, it appeared and pounced on us, killing our lives as if it were a malicious street murder. But in reality, we know that death is not a chaotic death in fairy tales and myths. Death is not a cruel and unfair prankster, but an inevitable and natural part of life itself
Death and immorality are the themes of most Emily Dickinson's poems. She is so obsessed with these themes that about one third of her poems are about them. Many of Dickinson's friends died before her, and it seems that death often happens in Amherst, which increases her pessimistic meditation. Dickinson's works are not a pure description of death, but an emphasis on the relationship between life and death, death and love, and death and eternity. Death is a bridge that must be crossed. She is not afraid, because only through the grave can she reach another world, and God's forgiveness is the only way to eternity.
Step 2 analyze
Because I can't stop to die.
(1) Because I can't stop to die,
(2) He kindly stopped for me;
(3) There are only ourselves in the carriage.
(4) and immortality.
We drove slowly, and he knew not to rush it.
(6) I have put it away
(7) My labor, my leisure,
Thank him for his courtesy.
We passed the school where the children played.
(10) Wrestling in the ring;
We passed the fields staring at the grain,
(12) We passed the sunset.
(13) We are in a building that looks like
(14) ground expansion;
The roof is almost invisible,
(16) The cornice is just a mound.
(17) It has been several centuries since then; But each one
(18) feeling shorter than daytime.
I guessed the horse's head first.
(20) Towards eternity.
Because I can't stay for death (J7 12) maintains a serene tone from beginning to end. In this work, Emily Dickinson illustrates the concept of infinity by establishing the dialectical relationship between reality and imagination, known and unknown, and using the past images in her memory. By looking at this relationship in a holistic and hierarchical way, and including all stages of life, including death and eternity, Dickinson put forward the essence that finite and infinite are interrelated and mutually determined.
To some extent, Dickinson personifies death, believing that death is an inevitable conqueror, hanging over us and inescapable. The first line tells us what we are reading. Unlike the works of some other poets, the main points are gradually formed. On the contrary, there is only a series of explanations. Many years after her death, the speaker described her peaceful death. During this process, when he escorted Emily into the carriage, her death was personified. During the slow riding, she realized that riding would last forever.
For eternity, the speaker recalled the experience that happened on the earth centuries ago. In her memory, she tried to determine the eternal world through the relationship with secular standards, because she said that the "century" in eternity (17) was "shorter than (earthly) days" (18). Similarly, by personifying death as a kind and civilized gentleman, the speaker lists the characteristics of the beneficial connotation of death. Similarly, finite and infinite are merged in the fourth section (1. 12):
Dewdrops are shivering and cold-because there is only gauze, my robe-my shawl-only gauze-(14-16)
In these lines, the speaker's time exists, which allows her to tremble when she is cooled by dew, and merge with the spiritual universe, because the speaker is wearing a robe and a cloak or shawl, which are made of tulle, spider's web and tulle respectively. Tulle is a thin and open net-shaped time covering, suggesting a transparent spiritual quality.
By recalling the specific stages of life on earth, the speaker not only solved her time past, but also looked at these events from a higher consciousness, whether literally or symbolically. For example, literally, when the carriage rises to the height of heaven, the house looks like a "ground heave" (14). The grave, to be exact. This poem symbolizes three stages of life: "school, where children struggle" (9) may represent childhood; "Staring at the field of grain" (1 1), mature; And "sunset" (12) old age. Regard the progress of these stages-life, death and eternity-as a continuum, and give meaning to these isolated and usually incomprehensible events. From her eternal point of view, the speaker understands that life is like a "horse's head" (19), leading "to eternity" (20).
Through her infinite fusion and gradual sequencing of the secular world and the spiritual world, Dickinson dialectically shapes the meaning from the limitations of life, allowing readers to catch a glimpse of a universe in an instant, in which seemingly different and discontinuous stages of existence are implicated and set as a whole.
3. Conclusion
No one can delay or stop death. Most people die unexpectedly, and they are not ready to stop everything they have and want to do. Their relatives and friends are not prepared to accept this fact. It seems that man's time on earth is limited. Before death comes, we should fulfill our dreams without regrets and love the people around us. Emily Dickinson once wrote that when she knew that life after death would always exist in the memory of her lover, the person who gave her eternity would return the memory.