Emily Wilkinson 712 Analysis

Although both poets had different styles of poetry, they both depicted the same attitudes towards the connection with nature and death. In addition, they also had their differences, Dickson was more grave and dark. Whitman wad more content with his poetry and death. Both poets also used different rhetorical devices to show their meaning.

Emily Dickson’s small lines make her poems more receptive. Dickson’s poem “712” she characterizes death as a kindly formal gentleman that often rescues her from her occupied life. She illustrated this by providing figurative language: “Because I could not stop for death/ He kindly stopped for me/ The carriage held but just Ourselves/ And immortality” (lines 1-3). Death is said to be “kindly”, have a carriage,

and wants to give the speaker a ride in his carriage. Not only does she make him sound like he’s a good friend, death is shown to be friendlier than most others picture “him”.
Walt Whitman was more concerned with his poem and how they were constructed. He doesn’t mention death early in his poem. Although the poem, “Song of Myself”, works up to the topic of death. Death doesn’t show up until the fourth stanza. He uses personification in the beginning of his poem, but doesn’t use any other devices in his poem. Death doesn’t appear till the fourth stanza: “I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun/ I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. /”(lines 8-9). When he says: “I depart as air…” gives a better understanding that he’s talking about dying in the poem. He focuses more on nature and being content about dying. Unlike Dickson, she’s more focused on the dark and creepy side.
The differences between both Dickinson and Whitman differ in how they perceive death in their poems. Whitman is more concentrated in how nature is connected with death. while Dickenson, is more focused on the creepy and dark side of death. Although thought their differences in their poetry they both had some connection towards dying.