Troping the Unthought: Catachresis in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry

Abstract

Catachresis is a dominant trope in Emily Dickinson’s poetry, allowing her to revise concepts formerly uncontested. It extends the meaning of one expression toward another, without pointing outside of language. As such, it is instrumental in bringing about non-mimetic poetry. Dickinson’s performances of gender invite two different figures: metaphor and catachresis. While Dickinson reserves metaphor for the performances of familiar gender roles, she employs catachresis for the performance of new gender constructs. As a figure of impropriety, catachresis posits a radical subversion of the production of meaning, allowing for the poetic figuration of formerly unscripted performances. Moreover, the many selves performed in the poems are scattered over experience, whether real life or imagined. In such a way, Dickinson’s catachretic performances of “supposed person[s]” contribute to the construction of particular, real selves, which family, friends, and critics have understood as “poses.” Catachresis allows Dickinson to retain a constative-performative aporia, or a sense of undecidability between the autobiographical and the rhetorical or figurative. This trope, predominantly orchestrated in the context of gender performance, also spills over into poems on various other subjects (God, death, and psychological states). Ultimately, catachresis serves as the quintessential trope that enables Dickinson to lift the unthought into language.

Patafysikk for begynnere

“…Den negative evnen er å vaere i stand til å dvele ved det uforklarlige uten å la det forsvinne gjennom å koble inn fornuft og nytte. På tilsvarende måte som poesi ofte setter ord på det navnløse, fungerer katakreser poetisk skapende: «As a figure of impropriety, catachresis posits a radical subversion of the production of meaning, allowing for the poetic figuration of formerly unscripted performances» (Bollobás, 2012). Katakreser leder oss inn i en sone for det ubeskrivbare, uerkjennbare, ubegripelige og unevnelige (Posselt, 2005, s. 148).…”

Distancing Gender in Contemporary Hungarian Fiction

“…The Hungarian original for "slanted" light [rézsútos] is hardly ever present as a subordinate adjective in noun phrases that have "fény" [light] as their heads in Hungarian except for translations of Emily Dickinson's poetry (Bollobás 2015: 33, 101, 160, 166). Bollobás identifies the poet's metaphor of "slant of light" as poignant description of catachresis in the Dickinsonian oeuvre (Bollobás 2012). Bollobás contends that catachresis as pure nonreferentiality-containing a vehicle stripped of its tenor-is troping the unthought, the unknowable, the unthinkable (Bollobás 2012: 51).…”