摘要
艾米莉·狄金森(1830-1886)是美国文学史上最负盛名的诗人之一。出生于19世纪的她被誉为英美现代派诗歌的先驱。尽管狄金森一生离群索居远离尘嚣,但这位才智超群、心思细腻的女诗人的内心世界却丰富多彩。栖身于父亲的房子之中,她一直不停地在探索人生、自然、爱情、死亡和永生的真谛。在她创作的1775首诗中,其中有600多首是以死亡为题材,或与死亡相关的,约占其存世诗歌的33.8%。在这些关于死亡的诗歌中,大部分反映的是面对死亡的泰然自若、对永生的向往和对死后所去世界的好奇等等。
狄金森对死亡主题的特殊偏好引起了国内外学者的浓厚兴趣,多年来各地学者对这些死亡诗进行的各方面的研究。然而,目前这方面的研究主要集中在对诗歌体裁、艺术表现、宗教内涵和影响作者创作的因素等方面,鲜有学者从语言学的角度来对它们进行研究。
本文将以评价体系为理论框架,从语言学的角度对狄金森关于死亡主题的诗歌进行剖析,分析并发掘这些诗所蕴含的评价观点,从而探索出诗人对死亡的特殊态度和情感。
本文将选取14首以死亡为主题的诗歌作为分析文本,从评价理论的三个子系统(态度、介入、级差)出发,通过分析诗歌中的评价项(Evaluative items)来发掘诗人对此主题所持观点和态度。希望这个新角度可以为读者提供一个更简易的方法来赏析狄金森死亡主题诗歌,也希望研究成果能为读者更好地掌握和理解诗歌的含义提供一点帮助。
Emily Dickinson(1830-1886) is one of the most famous poets in the history of American literature.Born in the 19~(th) century,she was honored as the pioneer of British American modern poetry.Although isolated herself from the outside world for almost all her life,this smart and sensitive poetess had a rich and colorful inner world.
Reclusive in her father's house,she kept exploring the essence of life,nature,love,death and eternal life.Among the 1,775 poems that she has composed,more than 600 are talking about death, or subjects concerning death,accounting for more than 33.8%of all the poems.Most of these death-themed poems are about the positive attitude towards death,the yearning for the eternal life and the curiosity of the world after life.
Dickinson's preference for the subject of death has aroused great interest of the scholars from all over the world.For many years,they have done a lot of researches on the different aspects of her death-themed poems.However,up to now,the researches on this field are mainly concentrated on the stylistics,the reflection of art,the significance of religion and the factors that influence Dickinson's composition of the poems.Researches on the death-themed poems from the perspective of linguistics are still rarely to see.
Taking Appraisal System as the theoretical frame work,this thesis will explore Dickinson's death-themed poems from the perspective of linguistics,aiming to dig out the hidden evaluative meanings in the poems and clarifying the poet's attitude towards death.
We will select 14 death-themed poems as the analytical material,and analyze each poem from the perspective of the three subsystems of Appraisal Theory,i.e.Attitude,Engagement,and Graduation.Through the analysis of the evaluative items,we,hopefully,want to uncover the evaluative meanings hidden in Dickinson's death-themed poems.And from this new angle of interpreting Dickinson's death-themed poems,we tentatively want to show a simpler way to appreciate Dickinson's death-themed poems,as well as other poems,hoping that the findings of this research would be helpful for the readers to get a better understanding of the connotation of poems.
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