The Luxury of Doubt: A Study of the Relationship Between Imagery and Theme in Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Author

Norman Gregor

Publication Date

11-3-1955

Abstract

Emily Dickinson's protagonists, when they are most moving and have the greatest complex reality, are caught between the agony of death and the agony of life. Analogous terms are non-being and being, renunciation and experience, unreality and reality, sterility and fruition, extinction and redemption. Renunciation is a major pattern, but in the act of renunciation the Dickinson protagonist may be discerned grasping for fulfillment. Similarly, when she strains toward fulfillment, she can simultaneously yearn for negation. Her reaching two ways at once is manifest in her qualifications. When the subject is life, her talk is tinged with death; and when she is speaking of death, her words have the savor of life. This hovering is part of her luxury.

Degree Name

English

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

English

First Committee Member (Chair)

George Warren Arms

Second Committee Member

Dane Farnsworth Smith

Third Committee Member

Ernest Warnock Tedlock Jr

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Recommended Citation

Gregor, Norman. "The Luxury of Doubt: A Study of the Relationship Between Imagery and Theme in Emily Dickinson's Poetry." (1955). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/243