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Comparative study on emily dickinson and walt whitman
Poetic theory and technique in Emily Dickinson poems
Comparative study on emily dickinson and walt whitman
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Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman both were American poets who lived in the 19th century who strayed from the traditional style of writing poetry and formed their own individual style of writing which became the unique American style of poetry. Their lifestyles and writing styles were extremely different, as they shared little in common. The dissimilarities in these two poets are in the way they composed their poems and possibly in the content of the poems. Whitman established a unique style in the form of using free verse and Dickinson in her peculiar use of punctuation to establish her unique style of poetry.
Walt Whitman’s poems were written in free verse and very lengthy; Song of Myself is over thirteen thousand lines long and has 52 sections. The purpose of using free verse is for the author to create their own form and to emphasize certain words and sounds. Prior to this the author had fit the content into particular form of length and meter (College of the Canyons). Not only are his poems long but they are complex with lines of varying length and he often jumps from topic to topic. He writes from experience and often has Nature and Death as a theme. Emily Dickinson also frequently had death as a theme. Her poems are short, written in four line stanza with an ABCB rhyming scheme. They are lyrics, possibly hymns. An example of this is
“Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess--in the Ring--
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
We passed the Setting Sun--
Or rather--He passed us--
Th...
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...ng styles they were a force that changed the style of writing poetry in American by rejecting traditional writing techniques and developing their own style which is still influential today. Whitman is best known for his use of free verse and Dickinson is best known for her use of odd punctuation.
Works Cited
College of the Canyons. "Walt Whitman." 2011. TLC/College of the Canyons. Web Page. 11 December 2013. http://www.canyons.edu/offices/tlc/Handouts/PDFs/Free%20Verse.pdf
Dickinson, Emily. Baym, Nina, editor. The Norton Anthology: American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 1659-1706. Poem.
"Emily Dickinson." The Academy of American Poets. Emily Dickinson. 1997. Web Page. 11 December 2013. < http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155>
Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." Baum, Nina, General Editor. Norton's Anthology of American Literature.
They both used a lot of imagery and used figurative language to give the clearest detailed descriptions about their writing. For example, Dickinson gives imagery with this phrase, “We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain.” Whitman uses phrases like this one to show imagery, “I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun.” Both poets wrote about death and both had an accepting, calm tone toward death. They both saw death as a natural occurrence. Both poets poems were at a good length, they weren’t really long nor short. They almost had the same amount of length in their poems. Figurative language played a big role in both poems. Dickinson using personification most importantly, and Whitman using metaphors mostly.
Dickinson repeated the words. the “we passed” moment. Whitman repeated several words such as “waking”. “longing”, “withdraw” and “better”. They both used descriptive language.
Though these similarities do exist, there are also several quite obvious differences between the two. The most noticeable distinguishment involves the length of the poems. While Whitman's "Song of Myself" is quite lengthy, giving detailed and wordy descriptions, Dickinson's "This quiet dust was Gentlemen and Ladies" is much more concise and to the point. While Whitman tends to
...in Louisiana a Live-oak Growing and #1510, but also between the lonely lifestyles Whitman and Dickinson led. However one characteristic does shine through in both poems. That being the attempt by both writers to hide the loneliness of their lives by saying that they are happy and have fought through the loneliness. These two works are great parallels of the writer's lives even though they may not have intended to directly relate the poems to themselves.
Walt Whitman’s hard childhood influenced his work greatly, he was an uneducated man but he managed to become one of the most known poets. Whitman changed poetry through his work and is now often called the father of free verse. Especially through Leaves of Grass he expressed his feelings and sexuality to world and was proud of it. He had a different view at life, his hard childhood, and his sexuality that almost no one understood made him introduce a new universal theme to the world. Almost all critics agree that Walt Whitman was one of the most influential and innovative poet. Karl Shapiro says it best, “The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great currents of living people with general government and state”.
In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” she uses the structure of her poem and rhetoric as concrete representation of her abstract beliefs about death to comfort and encourage readers into accepting Death when He comes. The underlying theme that can be extracted from this poem is that death is just a new beginning. Dickinson deftly reassures her readers of this with innovative organization and management, life-like rhyme and rhythm, subtle but meaningful use of symbolism, and ironic metaphors.
By Whitman making his works synonymous it truly recognizes him as a great American Poet. With Whitman using free verse poetry he was able to change the original idea of structure with the rhythm of cadence, this helped people to emphasize poetry as an expression. With Whitman he uses non-orthodox type of structuring his poetry; he traditionally does not have a type of length for his works of stanzas, poems, or his lines. On to the case with Dickinson she did write with a defined structure to her works. Dickinson’s style of writing used a ballad stanza, these were four line stanzas.
Ickstadt, Heinz. “Emily Dickinson’s Place in Literary History; or, the Public Function of a Private Poet.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 10.1 (2001): 55-68.
Recognized for experimenting with poetry, Emily Dickinson is said to be one of the greatest American poets. Her work was an amazing success even after being published four years after her death in 1890. Eleven editions of Dickinson’s work were published in less than two years. Emily Dickenson’s personal life, literary influences and romantic sufferings were the main inspirations for her poetry.
Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost both think that individuality is very important to a person, equally like Ralph Emerson. Although they may have a lot in common, these poets are different in many ways. Both Frost and Dickinson were American poets and were both from New England. A big similarity between Frost and Dickinson. Both talk about death.
Imagery is a big component to most works of poetry. Authors strive to achieve a certain image for the reader to paint in their mind. Dickinson tries to paint a picture of ?death? in her own words. Thomas A. Johnson, an interpretive author of Dickinson's work, says that ?In 1863 Death came into full statue as a person. ?Because I could not stop for Death? is a superlative achievement wherein Death becomes one of the greatest characters of literature? (Johnson). Dickinson's picture to the audience is created by making ?Death? an actual character in the poem. By her constantly calling death either ?his? or ?he,? she denotes a specific person and gender. Dickinson also compares ?Death? to having the same human qualities as the other character in the poem. She has ?Death? physically arriving and taking the other character in the carriage with him. In the poem, Dickinson shows the reader her interpretation of what this person is going through as they are dying and being taken away by ?Death?. Dickinson gives images such as ?The Dews drew quivering and chill --? and ?A Swelling of the Ground --? (14, 18). In both of these lines, Dickinson has the reader conjure up subtle images of death. The ?quivering an chill? brings to the reader's mind of death being ...
Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Editor: Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1995. 186-193.
Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are both considered as the most original poets who has boldly revolutionized the subject and style of 20th-century American poetry. Both the poets come from vastly different backgrounds but they share common inspirations but in a distinctive way. They both lived polar opposite personal lives as Walt was friendly, outgoing and influential, while Emily was very simple, shy, isolate and content. A lot of poems written by them were based on nature, death, and immortality and they focused on the importance of individualism in the society like in “I Hear America Singing” by Walt and “Much Madness is most divine Sense” by Emily. Together, they both have huge hands to shape the American poetry, and their influences
Emily describes a relaxing slow pace towards an unknown destination. On the way, she enjoys the peaceful scenes. “We passed the school, where children strove, At recess – In the Ring-“(Dickinson 9-10). Emily is reflecting on her past, this may also be seen as the beginning of a life cycle. Emily then goes on to say, We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain (11).
Walt Whitman was born the son of a carpenter and farmer and also born into a family of nine. Holloway describes Whitman as having “even less education than their nine children were destined to have, was something of a free thinker.” During his childhood in Brooklyn, the young Walt Whitman “rode back and forth to New York City” (Folsom, Price). His experiences on the ferry boats and with the people who piloted and operated them would have a profound influence on him as he would later write about them in one of his poems. Whitman’s trips across the river first gave him a sense of the journey of life and gave him ideas he would later use in writing his famous poetic works. Whitman enjoyed spending time at Long Island and would often read poetry during the time he spent there. Holloway describes it as “Throughout childhood, youth, and earlier manhood he returned to spend summers, falls, or even whole years at various parts of the Island, either as a healthy roamer enjoying all he saw, or as a school-teacher, or as the editor of a country paper, or as a poet reading Dante in an old wood and Shakespeare, Æschylus, and Homer within sound of the lonely sea, and mewing his strength for the bold flights of his fancy.” Whitman ...