Whitman And Dickinson: Nonconformity In Transcendental Poetry

One of the similarity within transcendentalism between Whitman and Dickinson is the nonconformity in their poems. Ralph Waldo Emerson, central figure of the transcendentalism, stated in one of his works, “Self-Reliance,” “what I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think” (Emerson). Emerson stated that each individuals should do what they desired to do, not what society wants them to. With this perspective, Whitman and Dickinson both created their own poetic style that differs from the traditional stanzas and rhyme scheme. Whitman was known as one of the first poet to break away from the traditional poem form and replaced with free verse form. "Leaves of Grass was criticized because of Whitman's exaltation of the

body and sexual love and also because of its innovation in verse form that it, the use of free verse in long rhythmical lines with a natural, 'organic' structure" ("Whitman, Walt"). Because Whitman published his work in free verse which is the first author at the time to do that, many others criticized his work. Similar to Whitman, Dickinson wrote her poem short and compact. Dickinson's are unique from the traditional poem form because most of her poems can be sing to one of the hymns. “Many a poem by Emily Dickinson, when scanned, turns out to be in regular metre and in simple four-three quatrains, and thus represented looks like poems by other New England poets or like the hymns that were sung in the Amherst church” (Powell). In this statement, it shows that Dickinson's poem can be interpreted as hymns of the Amherst church. Even though Dickinson's and Whitman's poem style are not alike, the similar idea of not following the traditional way to write poems defines the nonconformity in their style of writing.