Conceptual Metaphor of Death in Emily Dickinson’s I know that He exists

Abstract

Conceptual metaphor is considered as involving structures that linguistically define metaphors. It is considered as being structures that linguistically define metaphors. It is a noticeable tool that represents a considerable difficulty in understanding the meaning exchanged, spoken or written, literary language especially the poetic one is no exception. To the researcher's best knowledge, conceptual metaphor has been tackled from different perspectives; yet a few studies have dealt with conceptual metaphor in the poetry of Emily Dickinson. To this end, this study aimed at analyzing the types of conceptual metaphors of death in Emily Dickinson's I know that He exists base exploring how the concept of death is best conceptualized in the selected poem. The analysis is based on Lakoff and Johnson's (2003) model of conceptual metaphor. The findings revealed that there were 4 structural metaphors and only one ontological metaphor.