중단의 미학과 향유의 시간: 에밀리 디킨슨

Abstract

The critics have examined Emily Dickinson’s moment of stoppage in terms of the finite or eternity. But if we focus on the moment of stoppage as Agamben does, we can give it a wholly different meaning. First, this article emphasizes the fact that Dickinson is very interested in the moment of stoppage itself. For example, she puts the sudden stoppage of chronological time, the compression of time, and the stoppage caused by death into foreground. Second, it argues that her originality lies in showing the time of pleasure at the moment of stoppage. To her the pleasure is made possible at the moment when everything is destroyed. At this time of decreation, Messiah can enter through the small gateway. Thus Dickinson shows the new time, cairos that can be categorized as neither the finite nor eternity. It also has pleasure at its core, which is ‘within each now something whole and complete.’ In her poems, we can see how “man, by his initiative, chooses his own freedom” in cairos.