Humor and Catachresis in Emily Dickinson’s Death Poetry

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Zsófia Anna Tóth

Abstract

The paper discusses how Emily Dickinson, with the help of humor and catachresis – both of which work with the logic of defamiliarization/refamiliarization –, tries to reinterpret death as an experience, as a state of being or as an E/entity that we all encounter inevitably. The paper argues that Dickinson refused to be intimidated by the traditional concepts of death/Death and she consciously approached it/It with humor as well as through catachresis to shake our notions and force us to see the whole issue from a new perspective. For Dickinson, death was never a final destination, it was always a door and a new avenue for greater knowledge, wisdom and exciting adventures. The paper analyzes some of her most unorthodox (and well-known) poems about death and dying to support these claims after overviewing the scholarly research on her death poetry (that traditionally also treated it as tragic and there were only occasional instances when her humor was pointed out) as well as some theoretical arguments about the workings of humor, catachresis and some reflections on the relationship between women and humor.

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How to Cite
Tóth, Zsófia Anna. 2019. “Humor and Catachresis in Emily Dickinson’s Death Poetry”. AMERICANA E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary 15 (1). https://iskolakultura.hu/index.php/americanaejournal/article/view/45435.
Section
Essays
Author Biography

Zsófia Anna Tóth

Zsófia Anna Tóth received her PhD in British and American literature and culture from the University of Szeged and is currently a senior assistant professor at the Department of American Studies, Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged, Hungary. Her general research interests are film studies, cultural studies, gender studies, literary theory, humor theories as well as British and American literature and cinema. Her main research field is concerned with the representation of female aggression and violence in American literature, culture and specifically film. Her other main fields of interest include Jane Austen (her works, their adaptations as well as her legacy, her ‘afterlife’), the New Woman (her representation and historical, cultural and academic reception), American women writers especially Sandra Cisneros as well as Disney and Pixar animations. Her first book, which was based on her PhD dissertation, entitled Merry Murderers: The Farcical (Re)Figuration of the Femme Fatale in Maurine Dallas Watkins’ Chicago (1927) and its Various Adaptations, was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (UK) in 2011. Her current research topics are humor theories, humor and gender, women’s humor, and especially the work(s) (and the phenomenon) of Mae West. Email: tothzsofianna@gmail.com