Dickinson's Dao

Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin's idea of the epistemic advantage of a cultural outsider, this essay seeks to enrich the newly developed Chinese critical perspective of rereading Emily Dickinson by arguing that Dickinson's explorations of spiritual ideals resonate with Daoism and Chan Buddhis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Orbis litterarum 2018-06, Vol.73 (3), p.288-306
Main Author: Kang, Yanbin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aesthetics
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich (1895-1975)
Buddhism
Chan Buddhism
creative understanding
Daoism
Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)
Emily Dickinson
Epistemology
Literary criticism
non‐action
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Spirituality
Taoism
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Summary:Drawing upon Mikhail Bakhtin's idea of the epistemic advantage of a cultural outsider, this essay seeks to enrich the newly developed Chinese critical perspective of rereading Emily Dickinson by arguing that Dickinson's explorations of spiritual ideals resonate with Daoism and Chan Buddhism in their focus upon non‐action as a perfect action that entails consummate skills, sensuous eradication, and egoless aesthetics. Specifically, Dickinson uses the perfect actions to illustrate wandering (staying) at ease; she uses dropping‐brain to emblematize eradicating senses; she exhorts self‐surrender and non‐interference when dealing with the other; and she practices an egoless aesthetics that surpasses her predecessors and contemporaries.
ISSN:0105-7510
1600-0730
DOI:10.1111/oli.12178