II.    Literature Review and Relative Theories

2.1. Literature Review

Before the 1920s, Emily Dickinson’s poetry was warmly welcomed by readers and greatly appealed to the critics, but without any study in the true sense. In 1914,the fourth volume of Emily Dickinson were published , which renewed the scholars’ interest. After 1915, newspapers and magazines began to comment and introduce Emily Dickinson. Some influential journals like Portraits of American Women, 1919, The Procession of Masks,1923, and Poets of America,1925 all had special columns on Emily Dickinson. In 1924, The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson and The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson were published. This was the first time that Emily Dickinson and her works had been made in public. At the same year, Aiken talked about the reasons for Emily Dickinson’s liking the seclusion, her ideas and the themes of her poems. Then with the publication of Further Poems of Emily Dickinson, its unique style attracted the reader’s praise. Van Doreen once called Emily Dickinson “the best of women poets”.(Van Dore,1929)The famous scholar Spencer explored Emily Dickinson’s writing style. According to his study, Emily Dickinson’s poems were short but meaningful. The period from 1930s to 1950s witnessed an insightful biographical study on Emily Dickinson. And 1980s and 1990s were periods when Emily Dickinson was purposefully beautified, and manuscript study gradually became the main direction of Emily Dickinson study which is still popular until now.
Recently, Chinese scholars’ research on Emily Dickinson has made gratifying achievements. Wang Yugong’s treatise about the classification of Emily Dickinson’s poetry fills the blank of our country. Later on, Wu Lingyi and Pu Lingyi publishe 浅析艾米莉狄金森诗歌中的死亡意象(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_40152.html