Cognitive Poetics and the Philosophy of Eternity in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry

Abstract

This paper investigates Emily Dickinson’s poetic depiction of eternity through the interdisciplinary lens of cognitive poetics, emphasizing the roles of conceptual metaphor, image schemas, deixis, and embodiment. Through close readings of four representative poems, the study argues that Dickinson conceptualizes eternity not as a static metaphysical category but as a cognitively enacted. Rather than articulating theological dogma, Dickinson expresses eternity as an embodied, perceptual, and imaginative experience. In this regard, through the interaction of cognitive poetic, this paper aims to analyzes Conceptual metaphors such as death as a journey or eternity as an eternal present; Image schemas like journey, container, and balance further facilitate this translation of the metaphysical into the imaginable bodily experiences. Deictic expressions that immerse the reader in a cognitive state of ontological fluidity and epistemic uncertainty. And, Embodied cognition, particularly in poems like “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” enacts metaphysical disorientation through kinesthetic and tactile simulations. Hence, by using cognitive poetics to analyze Dickinson’s poetry, the paper makes three main points: first, that cognitive literary theory is a strong tool for understanding 19th-century lyric poetry; second, that Dickinson’s thoughts on eternity are more about experiencing timelessness than just thinking about it; and third, that poetry can act as a framework for exploring philosophical ideas, where language and structure represent and express deep experiences. Thus, the paper concludes Dickinson not merely as a poet of death or doubt, but as a cognitive artisan of the infinite, whose work reveals how eternity is imaginatively constructed and sensorially felt.