Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Emily Dickinson were two very different poets of the same era. While Longfellow was a celebrated author in his time that became a celebrity and was critically acclaimed, Dickinson was unsociable and because women of that time could not be writers, was not published until after her death. These two writers are like night in day in their descriptions but wrote in a similar manner.The themes of Longfellow and Dickinson are two separate sides of the same coin, Longfellow’s poem The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls is a somber poem about thelimited existence of man. Dickinson’s poem Success is Counted Sweetest, is a poem about not being able to appreciate something until it is gone. The two poems are both set up in three stanzas, but use different elements, in Longfellow’s poem he repeats the phrase, “The tide rises, the tide falls,” throughout the poem, while in Dickinson's poem there is no repetition of a phrase. …show more content…
Dickinson uses symbolism when she writes, “To comprehend a nectar/Requires sorest need,” in this she uses nectar as a symbol for victory, the sorest need for nectar refers to eating for nourishment but it symbolises want for victory through failure.Both Longfellow and Dickinson were celebrated writers of their time, but Longfellow was celebrated in life and Dickinson was only celebrated in death. Thetwo writers are vastly different but there is so much we can learn from both of them.Essay TwoEmily Dickinson was a recluse that wasn’t a celebrated writer until after her , death, at the time women were not allowed to be writers, Dickinson lived in a world much different than
In Longfellow’s poem, The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls, Longfellow states “The little waves, with their soft white hands, / Efface the footprints in the sands.” By personifying the waves in the ocean, longfellow reveals the truth that all humans eventually die and their mark on the world is erased, like the waves wash away the footprints. In this imaginative way, Longfellow shows how no one lasts forever. Multiple times in other parts of the poem, Longfellow writes “And the tide rises, the tide falls.” Longfellow is expressing that the ocean is continuous, regardless of what happens. After losing his second wife, Longfellow was very depressed, and in this poem he is accepting that life goes on after someone dies. Using his imagination, Longfellow states the truth of the inevitability of death and the fact that life does not stop in the event of
Emily Dickinson’s response to the Civil War was once discounted as nonexistent, but in the last few decades her works have been added to the Civil War canon. The previous belief that Dickinson’s poetry was not influenced by the Civil War is preposterous given that her most successful years as a poet coincided with the Civil War. Like any American during the war, she too experienced loss when a person from her childhood had been killed in a battle, and she kept her correspondence with Thomas Wentworth Higginson throughout the war. No American was left unscathed; the war had influenced the country in many different ways – political, personal, and literary. This is why it would be the most logical to assume Dickinson had written about the Civil
He also made us experience the awe and misery of the mother by describing her “trembling steps” when she went to read. the letter, her “sickly white face and dull in the head”. In addition to her state after her son’s death, she was “presently drest in. black”, “her meals untouched”, “fitfully sleeping often waking” and “sleeping”. her “deep longing.to be with her dead son”. Dickinson uses imaginative and figurative language.
Dickinson's poetry is both thought provoking and shocking. This poem communicates many things about Dickinson, such as her cynical outlook on God, and her obsession with death. It is puzzling to me why a young lady such as Emily Dickinson would be so melancholy, since she seemed to have such a good life. Perhaps she just revealed in her poetry that dark side that most people try to keep hidden.
In both Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman’s works, they emphasize some differences in their writing. In Dickinson’s works she shows that her works are short and simple poems, while Whitman’s poems and often long and complex. With Dickinson showing that her works are short and simple, while Whitman brings on a more sophisticated style, it truly shows that they use their own unique style of writing. In both Whitman and Dickinson works they have been known for being such unique artist and being original, while people try so hardly to impersonate their style, but they are unable to come close to accomplishing it.
Much has been said about Emily Dickinson’s mystifying poetry and private life, especially during the years 1860-63. Allegedly it was during these years that the poetess, at the most prolific phase of her career, withdrew from society, began to wear her “characteristic” white dress and suffered a series of psychotic episodes. Dickinson tended to “theatricalize” herself by speaking through a host of personae in her poems and by “fictionalizing” her inner life as a gothic romance (Gilbert 584). Believing that a poem is “the best words in the best order” (to quote S.T. Coleridge) and that all the poems stemming from a single consciousness bring to surface different aspects / manifestations of the same personal mythology, I will firstly disregard biographical details in my interpretation of Dickinson’s poems 378, 341 and 280 and secondly place them in a sort of “continuum” (starting with 378 and ending with 280) to show how they attempt to describe a “plunge” into the Unconscious and a lapse into madness (I refrain from using the term “journey,” for it implies a “telos,” a goal which, whether unattainable or not, is something non-existent in the poems in question). Faced with the problem of articulating and concretizing inner psychological states, Dickinson created a totally new poetic discourse which lacks a transcendental signified and thus can dramatize the three stages of a (narrated) mental collapse: existential despair, withdrawal from the world of the senses and “death” of consciousness.
Dickinson doesn’t have the speaker complain about dying and be trying to avoid it instead she is calm and just riding along with death. She sort of goes on a date with him and is driving around taking their time to get wherever they need to go. When you get to the end you realize that she is already dead, and that’s why she wasn’t fighting it, because she was already there. The speaker had come to terms with what had happened and was reliving the moment when it happened. As one would expect, dealing with death, it was darker than her poem about hope. This poem was really able to capture emotion of death and portray it in an easy way to
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”. Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2008. 196. Print.
While much of Emily Dickinson's poetry has been described as sad or morose, the poetess did use humor and irony in many of her poems. This essay will address the humor and/ or irony found in five of Dickinson's poems: "Faith" is a Fine Invention, I'm Nobody! Who are you?, Some keep the Sabbath Going to Church and Success Is Counted Sweetest. The attempt will be made to show how Dickinson used humor and / or irony for the dual purposes of comic relief and to stress an idea or conclusion about her life and environment expressed by the poetess in the respective poem. The most humorous or ironic are some of the shorter poems, such as the four lined stanzas of "Faith" is a Fine Invention and Success Is Counted Sweetest.
This use of irony makes the poem more interesting to the reader. Imagery is a big component of 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,.
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 Dickinson’s Poetry.” American Studies at the University of Virginia. 2009. Web. 20 January 2014.
“Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart.” This is a saying Longfellow read in Germany where his wife died. The words gave him hope for the future. It inspired him to want to write a series of psalms. The first one, “A Psalm of Life” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is an uplifting poem that compels us to feel hope for the future. After reading it the first time it had a powerful effect on me. Surprisingly, he wrote this poem few months after his first wife died. Longfellow took his wife’s death and interpreted it as a sign to look at life as fleeting and it passes quickly. I feel that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, after his wife’s death, had an optimistic view on life in the poem, “A Psalm of Life”.
There are many different opinions on how a life should be lived, Henry Longfellow's poem, "A Psalm of Life" is a perfect example of that. There is emphasis on making tomorrow better than today and not conforming to the way everyone else lives. Longfellow's philosophy in this poem is to live for today, however, one should be conscious of the future and lead a life that is good and that will inspire others after we are gone. Longfellow has a distinct outlook on life, using a philosophical approach, "A Psalm of Life" is about life as a whole and how its meaning is to live each day as a new day, be original, and to leave something behind that inspires others.
Many of her poems were a reaction to the rejection of many publishers and other literary critics. This particular poem’s character comes from Dickinson’s reaction to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s statement that “poets are thus liberating gods.” Here she is challenging the established literati by questioning popular Emersonian views. In particular, this poem is a reaction to Emerson’s belief that “the poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty.” Basically, it is a reaction to the idea that the poet is the creator of beautiful words, liberating the common people by giving them words they would not have access to.