“황야로의 사명”:포우와 프로스트의 황야 이미지

“Errand into the Wilderness”: A Study on the Images of Wilderness in Poe and Frost

According to Perry Miller’s classical argument, the early puritans were fully aware of the double meaning of ‘errand’ and could not help asking themselves “Are they an errand boy or a doer of errands?” That is, their greatest difficulty in the problem of identity can be said to be hidden under the ambiguity in the word, ‘errand’ which gave birth to the literary productions consisting of anxiety and torment, named ‘American Jeremiad.’ Bercovitch argued that the American Jeremiad had a different function from the European Jeremiad in that it discarded the Old World ideal of stasis for a New World vision of the future. The American Jeremiad created a climate of anxiety that helped release the progressivist energies for the success of the future or the victory of Christ. This peculiar rhetoric of American Jeremiad based on a faith in process can be found in many literary works after the dominance of Puritanism. Especially Poe’s “Nevermore,” and the repeated refrain of “The Raven” can be said to create a peculiar climate of anxiety which can contribute to bringing new meaning or victory in the future as American Jeremiad did. Also Frost’s “Fear” describes a hopeless situation of a woman where she hears only the repeated “nothing” from the darkness, which makes us feel the failure of early Puritan’s errand and the despair of a modern poet in modern times “with no expression, nothing to express.”