A poesia de Emily Dickinson e a infinitude humana.

Abstract

The present research discusses the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the boundaries between human finitude and non-finitude. To do so, we discuss the context of US nineteenth century, locating the life and work of the selected poet in texts taken from specific books on poetry, anthologies, articles, dictionaries of meaning and symbols and internet sites, among others. This research has as its main objectives the analysis of two of Dickinson’s poems, developing a detailed reading of them, besides presenting a brief comparison of our reading of both, regarding the themes in focus - the relations of human beings with the concept of life and death, problematizing the idea of finitude. For the theoretical basis, we use several authors, from the United States, as well as from England and Brazil. The research method is bibliographical, interested in exploratory, explanatory and descriptive methods. Finally, we present our initial conclusions, pointing to the particular way Dickinson constructed images of finitude/non-finitude in relation to human beings, worked in Dickinson so to discuss the possibility of life after death, in the spiritual sphere. The research shows that the poet had a quite peculiar vision of death for her time, presenting poetic strategies such as metaphors, ironies and ambiguities to deal with these difficult themes in very creative ways.