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Comparative study on emily dickinson and walt whitman
Poetic theory and technique in Emily Dickinson poems
Comparative study on emily dickinson and walt whitman
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Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman both were American poets who lived in the 19th century who strayed from the traditional style of writing poetry and formed their own individual style of writing which became the unique American style of poetry. Their lifestyles and writing styles were extremely different, as they shared little in common. The dissimilarities in these two poets are in the way they composed their poems and possibly in the content of the poems. Whitman established a unique style in the form of using free verse and Dickinson in her peculiar use of punctuation to establish her unique style of poetry.
Walt Whitman’s poems were written in free verse and very lengthy; Song of Myself is over thirteen thousand lines long and has 52 sections. The purpose of using free verse is for the author to create their own form and to emphasize certain words and sounds. Prior to this the author had fit the content into particular form of length and meter (College of the Canyons). Not only are his poems long but they are complex with lines of varying length and he often jumps from topic to topic. He writes from experience and often has Nature and Death as a theme. Emily Dickinson also frequently had death as a theme. Her poems are short, written in four line stanza with an ABCB rhyming scheme. They are lyrics, possibly hymns. An example of this is
“Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess--in the Ring--
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
We passed the Setting Sun--
Or rather--He passed us--
Th...
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...ng styles they were a force that changed the style of writing poetry in American by rejecting traditional writing techniques and developing their own style which is still influential today. Whitman is best known for his use of free verse and Dickinson is best known for her use of odd punctuation.
Works Cited
College of the Canyons. "Walt Whitman." 2011. TLC/College of the Canyons. Web Page. 11 December 2013. http://www.canyons.edu/offices/tlc/Handouts/PDFs/Free%20Verse.pdf
Dickinson, Emily. Baym, Nina, editor. The Norton Anthology: American Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 1659-1706. Poem.
"Emily Dickinson." The Academy of American Poets. Emily Dickinson. 1997. Web Page. 11 December 2013. < http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155>
Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." Baum, Nina, General Editor. Norton's Anthology of American Literature.
In conclusion, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman did have some differences in their writing. However, both poets also did have some similarities as well. Similarities such their tone or attitude toward death, and the acceptance they show toward it. These poets had different styles of writing, yet also had similar styles concepts in their
Comparison between Because I Could Not Stop For Death and Coming Up From the Fields Father Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are two of the best poets in America. during the nineteenth century. They were both rebellious in his own way of doing things. They shared some features, especially their abandonment of. the usual form of poetry and their use of free verse instead.
Emily describes a relaxing slow pace towards an unknown destination. On the way, she enjoys the peaceful scenes. “We passed the school, where children strove, At recess – In the Ring-“(Dickinson 9-10). Emily is reflecting on her past, this may also be seen as the beginning of a life cycle. Emily then goes on to say, We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain (11).
She chooses this arrangement of verse in order to ordain a religious aspect into the poem, which does well to suite the theme and what she is fond of. As the recollection of the speaker’s death progresses, Dickinson uses the stanzas to mark the stages of the
The lives of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson have many similarities and differences. Here, we will focus on the similarities in their lives in order to bring to attention a correlation between Whitman's poem I Saw in Louisiana a Live-oak Growing and Dickinson's poem # 1510. Both poets wrote during the time of Romanticism, even though Whitman was Dickinson's senior by some eleven years. This however did not influence the way the writing styles of many of their poems coincided.
Walt Whitman’s hard childhood influenced his work greatly, he was an uneducated man but he managed to become one of the most known poets. Whitman changed poetry through his work and is now often called the father of free verse. Especially through Leaves of Grass he expressed his feelings and sexuality to world and was proud of it. He had a different view at life, his hard childhood, and his sexuality that almost no one understood made him introduce a new universal theme to the world. Almost all critics agree that Walt Whitman was one of the most influential and innovative poet. Karl Shapiro says it best, “The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great currents of living people with general government and state”.
During the time in American history known as the, several poets began to stray from the traditional methods of writing poetry. Among these poets were Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson. While these writer's led drastically different lifestyles and had drastically different styles of writing, the messages they presented through their writing were often surprisingly similar. Whitman's poem "Song of Myself, No.6" and Dickinson's poem "This quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies" are examples of pieces which, on the surface, appear completely different, but in fact contain several similarities. Indeed, several similarities and differences can be found between these two poems.
Recognized for experimenting with poetry, Emily Dickinson is said to be one of the greatest American poets. Her work was an amazing success even after being published four years after her death in 1890. Eleven editions of Dickinson’s work were published in less than two years. Emily Dickenson’s personal life, literary influences and romantic sufferings were the main inspirations for her poetry.
Ickstadt, Heinz. “Emily Dickinson’s Place in Literary History; or, the Public Function of a Private Poet.” The Emily Dickinson Journal 10.1 (2001): 55-68.
Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry. Editor: Jay Parini. Columbia University Press, 1995. 186-193.
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. Whitman wrote in ambitious proportions, while creating a style of rhythmic structure, creating stanzas and complex lines.
Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost both think that individuality is very important to a person, equally like Ralph Emerson. Although they may have a lot in common, these poets are different in many ways. Both Frost and Dickinson were American poets and were both from New England. A big similarity between Frost and Dickinson. Both talk about death.
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
Walt Whitman was born the son of a carpenter and farmer and also born into a family of nine. Holloway describes Whitman as having “even less education than their nine children were destined to have, was something of a free thinker.” During his childhood in Brooklyn, the young Walt Whitman “rode back and forth to New York City” (Folsom, Price). His experiences on the ferry boats and with the people who piloted and operated them would have a profound influence on him as he would later write about them in one of his poems. Whitman’s trips across the river first gave him a sense of the journey of life and gave him ideas he would later use in writing his famous poetic works. Whitman enjoyed spending time at Long Island and would often read poetry during the time he spent there. Holloway describes it as “Throughout childhood, youth, and earlier manhood he returned to spend summers, falls, or even whole years at various parts of the Island, either as a healthy roamer enjoying all he saw, or as a school-teacher, or as the editor of a country paper, or as a poet reading Dante in an old wood and Shakespeare, Æschylus, and Homer within sound of the lonely sea, and mewing his strength for the bold flights of his fancy.” Whitman ...