Jo Anne Gabbard

Publication Date

5-1978

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

William McMahon, Nancy Davis, James Heldman

Comments

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Degree Program

Department of English

Degree Type

Specialist in College Teaching in English

Abstract

Only recently has Emily Dickinson been recognized as a major American poet. Her poems were not published until after her death in 1886, and a reputable critical study did not appear until 1960. When collections of her poems began surfacing around the turn of the century, reliable critical studies were hindered because of editorial alterations. But with the publication in 1955 of Dickinson’s poems in their original form, critics became more concerned with the major ideas in her works. While some attention has been given to one of her principle themes, religion, no significant study has examined the relationship between her religious views and her aesthetic theory. It is the purpose of the present study to point out the correlation between her spiritual and aesthetic theories and their interrelation with her concepts of “awe” and “circumference.”

The first chapter of this study briefly reviews the anomalous problems created by Dickinson’s critical background. The second chapter discusses the possible sources of Dickinson’s concepts of “awe” and “circumference” and explains her dependence upon these ideas for poetic expression. Chapter three details her theory of aesthetics and describes the role of awe in her poetic process. Included in this chapter is a discussion of her theory of perceptions and her manner of expression which leads to her statements on spirituality, to which the fourth chapter is devoted. The conclusion of this study investigates some modern analogies to her religious and aesthetic ideas and summarizes her achievements in combining her art with her religion.

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Creative Writing | Education | English Language and Literature | Higher Education | Higher Education and Teaching | Literature in English, North America | Poetry

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