SEMANTIC DEVIATION IN SELECTED POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON

Poets have their own particular styles of writing in which the ordinary language is used in a distorted way. This distortion is special because it makes their language a deviation which has poetic value and, accordingly, attracts the attention of the readers. Therefore, a linguistic deviation is the unexpected and irregular use of conventional language. This paper aims at discussing types of semantic deviation in Emily Dickinson’s six selected poems. The paper attempts to answer the following questions: what kinds of semantic deviation can be found in Dickinson’s selected poems? And how do they, in accordance with the poetess’s personal life, convey the poet's intended meaning? The analysis of the poems revealed that transference of meaning, semantic oddity, and honest deception, are the types of semantic deviations employed by the poet. The results also showed that these deviations were influenced, to a great extent, by Dickinson’s personal life and especially by the fact that she sequestered herself inside her own room. Also, one should not neglect the fact that all these tropes of semantic deviation helped her create poems that, from an aesthetic viewpoint, possess the power to please and make the readers ponder upon the themes dealt with in each one.

Keywords:

semantic , deviations , Emily Dickinson , poems , aesthetic