What Made Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson Part of the Romantic Movement?

What Made Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson Part of the Romantic Movement?

The Romantic Movement, or period, was from the year 1828 to about 1865. The main feature of the American Romantic period was the celebration and praise of individualism. This time is also considered to be the first period of genuine American creativity. Emotion, instead of reason, became the largest source of inspiration and creativity during this period. All of this was a reaction to all of the constraints that were forced on people during the era of Realism. At this time in history, America was in a great period of expansion, the writers of the American Romantic period were discovering that could create a new and vastly different voice for this new era in time.

This new era in time allowed for individual creativity and personal growth. Also, this newfound freedom allowed, for the first time on a large scale, many new women writers and readers. This new sense of independence was largely due to this being the first time the America had really separated itself from Great Britain entirely. The two most important writers of the time period are Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.

Walt Whitman lived from 1819 to 1892, during his time as an author; he was able to create some of the most influential works of literature in American history. Walt Whitman is closely tied to the American Romantic Movement due to the fact that he uses nature in many of his works. He believed that nature was the source of everything that was beautiful in the world. Whitman also had the belief that the natural world had power of himself and everyone else. A great example of this would be from the Walt Whitman poem “When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d” when he says: “O power...

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...th of these writers wrote about it and it was still very important to them. While Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman’s writings appear to be very different, they do tend to share some common themes. Their views differ, however, both write about common people and everyday occurrences. Both of these writers are praised American writers who played an extremely important role in an extremely important time in American history.

References

Dickinson, Emily. “Because I could not stop for Death.”

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177119. Retrieved December 20, 2013.

Whitman, Walt. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174748. Retrieved December 21, 2013.

Werner, Marta L. "Three American Poets: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and

Herman Melville." Leviathan 14.2 (2012): 81-7. ProQuest. Web. 20 Dec. 2013.