Definition poems and Riddle poems in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry

Abstract

Two intriguing phenomena in the poetry of the American poet Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886), definition poems and riddle poems, have long attracted the interest of researchers and critics. However, it can be seen that there has been almost no explication of the phenomena from the language perspective but principally from her individuality, creativity and capacity of imagination. In the field of modern Linguistics, Louis Hjelmslev (1899 – 1965), a follower of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857 – 1913), on developing the theory of linguistics and semiotics by Saussure, proposes the principle of generalization, which theorizes that language signs can entail each other in the plane of content (the signified); therefore, they can be categorized into a system / order, and so are defined accordingly. Dickinson’s poetry, studied from this perspective, contains flexibility in the structure proposed by the Saussurean structuralists. Based on the aforementioned principle by Hjelmslev, this paper will clarify the formation of definition and riddle poems, through which the act of defining and riddling are proved to highlight her power of imagination in poetry.