Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Chapter 1.The Dualistic Nature of Suffering -- Suffering as a dispiriting factor -- Lack of love -- Lack of maternal love -- Lack of romantic love -- Lack of God -- Lack of health -- The Empowering side of suffering -- Suffering as a stimulus to greater self-understandingand creativity -- Adopting an unorthodox feminine role -- Poetry as a sublimation of rage -- New spirituality -- Conclusion: Emotional disturbance as a prerequisiteof a poetic explosion -- Chapter 2. Kristeva's Main Tenets -- Kristeva's concept of abjection and Emily Dickinson's poetry -- Semiotic features in Emily Dickinson's poetic language -- "Unorderable cognitive chaos" -- Ambiguity caused by compression and elision -- Unorthodox treatment of grammar -- Absurd phrases -- Slow delivery -- Repetition and obsessive litanies -- Interruption in speech fl ow -- The pressure for silence -- Mood swings - self belittling to self-confi dence -- Strategies for representing suffering -- Minimalism as a technique for representing despair -- Composition as a technique to present loneliness -- Sarcasm and irony as a tool to illustrate defi ance -- Realism as a technique of humanising pain -- Conclusion: The functions of poetic techniquesin Emily Dickinson's poems -- Conclusion -- Summary -- Streszczenie -- Works Cited.