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영어

This paper attempts to analyze James Dickey's early poems in terms of his vision of unity. Dickey depicts his inner vision of unity through ordinary and common scenes. He deals with things from a truly animistic point of view and tries to recover the original wholeness that was lost by modern man. Dickey's unified vision is sexual, surrealistic, transcendental as well as shamanistic. This leads to the recovery of wholeness. Thus, Dickey's poetry possesses healing power. Dickey shows his monistic vision in such poems as “Inside the River”, “Tree and Cattle”, and “Common Grave” etc. in which nature and man, earth and heaven, time and eternity, and life and death are merged. He also reveals his sense of unity in “Heaven of Animals”, “Springer Mountain”, “Listening to Foxhounds”, “A Dog Sleeping on My Feet” and “Approaching Prayer” in which predators and prey are unified in a love relationship in the cycle of life and death. Dickey also suggests a continuity of life after death. He depicts shamanistic phenomena in some of his poems that show the poetic speakers possessed with the spirits of the dead.