Poetry and literary theory : a critical reading of three poems using deconstruction

Abstract EN

This paper examines three poems using Derrida‘s theory of deconstruction.

These poems are Andrew Marvell‘s ―The Definition of Love‖ (1681), William Wordsworth‘s ―After-thought‖ (1820), and Emily Dickinson‘s ―A Thought Went Up My Mind Today‖ (1891).

By examining the differential and the deferential nature of language, this paper highlights the multiple contradictions in these poems, and thus they can be considered quintessential examples of what we call deconstructive criticism.

Providing the reader with an overview of deconstruction as a ―method‖ of reading texts, this paper discusses the problems we encounter in defining ―deconstruction‖ in modern critical theory.

The paper, moreover, examines how deconstruction can illuminate the above-mentioned poems by analysing their verbal and linguistic contradictions which the texts yield in their meanings and structures.

Under the scrutiny of deconstruction, these characteristics ultimately uncover the instability of literary language and meaning.

Yet the aim of this deconstructive reading is to allow the reader gain a better understanding of these poems and deconstruction as a literary theory or method.