Emily Dickinson Research Paper

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Two of the most influential American poets, writing in fundamentally different styles, took separate paths that, when joined, lead to the beginning of modern American poetry. Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, known as the mother and father of American poetry, shaped the future of American poetry by challenging and changing the traditional style of the art form. The differences in their works are directly related to the differences in their personalities, values, and lifestyles which reflect America’s celebration of diversity during the middle of the nineteenth century and can be summed up in four categories: form, voice, subject matter, and purpose. First, the two poets wrote in completely different forms. Emily Dickinson used short …show more content…

Emily Dickinson wrote often of abstract concepts like truth, death and the soul. She often questioned traditional ideas categorized herself as having “no hope” in faith. Dickinson’s works expressed her feelings of science’s power over religion and of people’s relation to nature more than their relation to faith. In Dickinson’s work, she was meticulous in choosing her words as it is evident that each and every word is intentional. Through her nearly eighteen hundred surviving poems, we can observe that she was specifically frustrated with faith and religion. She was not afraid to write of physical pain and joy or of death. Dickinson wrote about the completely ordinary as well as those intensely passionate or spiritual. In my opinion, one of Dickinson’s main concerns in writing was to be openly expressive about all encounters in life. This openness was not translated into a desire for fame because very few of her works were published during her lifetime. Emily Dickinson often sent her poems in letters to friends, and it was not until after her death that her poems were published and her impact on poetry realized. The quality and complex logic of Dickinson’s poem paired with her depth of subject matter led to her success; because in her lifetime, Dickinson was simply concerned with her personal poetic expansion and putting all of her intricate, open ideas on paper for her own pleasure rather than for

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