Shaping American Poetry

It’s easy to compare two great poets of the late 19th Century. Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman were both authors and had a unique writing style. Although the two have some of the same views on things, their writing styles were drastically different. When put plainly, Whitman likes to use free verse, while Dickinson on the other hand prefers regular rhymes, and complex slants. Dickinson’s poems are also considerably shorter in contrast to Whitman’s. Again, when it comes to word choice, Dickinson has a more plain style, where one could compare Whitman’s to a flashier, bolder word selection. Both poets though, would be apart of the Romantic Era of writing. They also heavily believe in individualism and had some of the same thoughts on death. The two believed in an afterlife, and that said afterlife was a better place. Like many writers at the time, they also took time to compare nature to God, and writing about their findings.

The two can be blamed for the shaping of American poetry. You can clearly see the differences in American poetry and British poetry shortly after their writings. They were very inspiring to writers all across America, and wrote about bold topics. Dickinson questioned God in an unheard of way, and Whitman wrote that you don’t have to be a church to be with God. Both were very inspired by nature, and made connections to it in their poetry. When it comes to style, the two obviously clashed, but they also clashed on some other views too. Whitman liked to use bible quotes or references in his poetry where as Dickinson almost didn’t believe in the church, and went about worshiping in her own way. The two were very different poets, but with that said, they helped shape poetry in America still to this day.

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...he has an original use of meters set her apart from others. Both Whitman and Dickinson use people and common objects of everyday things in a smaller context.

While both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson's works seem to be quite different from the outside, they share many similarities. Religion, death and other common things make them similar, even though their views are different. You can see the similarities while reading both authors’ works. Both of them have forever changed the American views of poetry and style of poetry. They have great voices too, and brought about different beliefs into society that are still around today. You could say that even though the two authors are dead, they are still remembered.

Works Cited

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine, eds. The Norton Anthology: American Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. Print.