狄金森诗歌解读Emily Dickinson’s Measurement of Marriage in “I gave Myself to Him–”摘要

Emily Dickinson’s Measurement of Marriage in “I gave Myself to Him–”

链接 https://doi.org/10.1080/0895769X.2022.2064805

Abstract

This reading for intrinsic evidence between the lines in Emily Dickinson’s “I gave Myself to Him–” (Fr426/M170) explores how Dickinson made use of the power of words to illustrate what marriage could mean to a woman in her own time. By scrutinizing every word that plays a part in contributing to the richness of the meaning conveyed, this reading suggests that, the key word “I”, the first person narrator speaking “as the Representative of the Verse” (L268), is pondering issues such as women’s social status and the devaluation of self in marriage, while the narrator’s viewpoints reveal the psychology of the bride who measured how much future married life was valued in Dickinson’s time. Through her representative’s cautious measurement of marriage, Dickinson reveals that, developed from an era of growing international trade dating back to fifteenth century during the period of European expansion when married women were considered, essentially, the property of their spouses, marriage in her time is primarily not about romance or love but essentially a contractual business transaction; and that the contract is less a sale, in the sense of an exchange of capital for goods or services, than a mutual investment or partnership in which each partner takes a lifelong risk, which makes the transaction fair, or at least equitable, but the future value of each partner remain uncertain. Her subtle use of legal terms as is highlighted throughout the poem in measuring marriage leads us to perceive such a practical profile of Dickinson that she is not only a woman who stays at home for a lifetime with deep concern over women’s social status but also a poet who expresses her deep concern over humanity by skillfully and sublimely employing the professional legal vocabulary used by her father Edward Dickinson and her brother Austin Dickinson as prominent lawyers, indicating that the life of the poet is deeply interwoven with her family and the culture she is in.

摘要

对艾米莉·狄金森的诗作 “I gave Myself to Him–（我将自己托付于他） ” （ (Fr426/M170) 字里行间内在证据的解读，旨在探究狄金森是如何运用文字的力量，阐释在她所处的时代，婚姻对于一位女性而言可能意味着什么。通过仔细审视诗中每一个有助于丰富传达意义的字词，此次解读表明，作为“诗歌代言人”（书信第268封）的第一人称叙述者，关键词“我”正在思考诸如女性社会地位以及婚姻中自我价值贬低等问题。同时，叙述者的观点揭示了在狄金森所处时代，新娘对于未来婚后生活价值的衡量心态。

通过其代言人对婚姻的审慎衡量，狄金森揭示出，自15世纪欧洲扩张时期国际贸易不断发展的时代以来，已婚女性在本质上被视为丈夫的财产，而在她所处的时代，婚姻主要并非关乎浪漫或爱情，从根本上来说是一种契约性的商业交易。这种契约与其说是一种以资本换取商品或服务意义上的买卖，不如说是一种双方都要承担终身风险的相互投资或合作关系，这使得这种交易是公平的，或者至少是平等的，但双方未来的价值仍未可知。

在衡量婚姻的过程中，她巧妙运用贯穿全诗的法律术语，让我们得以认识到狄金森这样一种务实的形象：她不仅是一位终生深居简出、深切关注女性社会地位的女性，还是一位诗人，她巧妙而绝妙地运用其身为杰出律师的父亲爱德华·狄金森和哥哥奥斯汀·狄金森所使用的专业法律词汇，表达了她对人性的深切关怀。这表明诗人的生活与她的家庭以及她所处的文化紧密交织在一起。