What Are The Similarities Between Dickinson And Frederick Douglass

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The American Renaissance was a period in American history where many brilliant and legendary authors released works that expressed very similar themes. Two of these authors are Emily Dickinson and Frederick Douglass. Both authors themed their works around issues and debates which were highly controversial, such as religion and slavery, but their writing styles were vastly different, as Dickinson wrote concise poems such as “Faith Is a Fine Invention” and Douglass was known for his full length autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Both Authors wrote about the most debated topics in America. For example, in her poem titled “Faith Is a Fine Invention”, Emily Dickinson states that “‘Faith’ is a fine invention” (Dickinson …show more content…

Emily Dickinson expressed her thoughts in short poems, refining each word to create precise meter and rhyme to get her point across. She debates faith versus science very strongly in 4 lines in “Faith is a Fine Invention,” and she supports an argument on why you do not have to go to church to be holy in twelve lines with “Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church.” All of these poems are concise, beautiful, and get Dickinson’s point across splendidly in an amount of space that no other person could use so powerfully. On the other hand, Douglass is much more long winded with his writing. Instead of a pile of short snippets, Douglass’s greatest work is a sixty-nine page autobiography, where he tells his story as a slave. He spends plenty of time elaborating on the details of his life as a slave and painting a picture, such as when he describes slaves walking through the woods in the passage “While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness.” (Douglass 8). This passage focuses on using many details to help provide an image of a real scene from Douglass’s memory, contrasting with Dickinson’s typical abstract opinions and arguments. In addition, the two writers’ methods of conveying their argument is very different. Dickinson primarily uses logical arguments, using

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