Textuality in Proliferation: A Study of Gestural Expressions in Dickinson's Poetry

繁衍的文本：論狄瑾蓀詩歌表達中的姿態變化

10.7109/HKJELL.200107.0055

林春枝(Chun-Chih Lin)

Hwa Kang Journal of English Language & Literature

7期（2001 / 07 / 01）

55 - 70

英文

文學的活力往往表現在語言之中。狄瑾蓀(1830-1886)處於美國文學創作的低潮時期，卻能不受時代的影響，以其獨來獨往的姿態，爲美國詩壇立下新的里程碑。其獨特的風格、敏銳的觀察以及深度的思考都透過獨創一格的技巧來表現。由於狄瑾蓀喜歡用文字來映照靈魂深處的幻變，因此她的詩歌頗能反映女性心靈的獨有特質。但是傳統的批評家通常忽略了她的詩歌語言中獨特的表達特色，例如標點的刻意誤用，文法、押韻、與韻腳的異常表達手法等。從最近整理出來的資料顯示，狄瑾蓀的詩歌文本在某些時候呈現不同程度的游移性及不確定性，包括大小寫及標點等，以至於文字在紙上以不同的韻律及姿態在飛舞。本文從維根斯坦的語言遊戲及其他理論推敲狄瑾蓀書寫戲耍的動機，試從文字呈現的空隙中尋覓詩意繁衍的脈絡。

Emily Dickinson is a very difficult poet; even her best critics tend to underestimate the subtlety and complexity ensued from her immense cognitive originality. But Dickinson's poems are less alien than most critics have claimed. Her story is the story of a soul in which a feeling or an emotion created its own shaping thought, and the whole was transmuted into art. To say what she wanted to say, she invented her peculiar use of grammar, punctuation, rhyme, and meter intentionally. As Dickinson withdrew from the world to her family, and spent her life in self-imposed confinement, her poetry showed a rich and deep inner life. The ruptures and irregular stylistic expressions in Dickinson's poems reveal myriad differences that constitute a woman's lived experience. In this study I will try to explore the textual instability in Dickinson's drafts of poems, which has hitherto received little attention from the critics. For a theoretical grounding, I will borrow light mostly from Wittgenstein, who endeavored to reveal the material substance of language, of its possibilities of combination and recombination, to uncover the destablization that is going on in the text.