Compare And Contrast Whitman And Dickinson

Romantic Era was a time of advanced changes in literary works. Whitman and Dickinson daringly changed the style of American Literature. They were the two most famous poets of their time period and with their unique word choices and style they both revolutionized poetry in America. Whitman was known as someone with a social and bold personality. This personality is reflected in his uplifting and positive writing. Unlike Whitman, Dickinson was very isolated and liked to keep to herself. She was more focused on writing for her own benefit then writing for others. Her writings were more dark and depressing. Both of their works are so different but were both so influential. Whitman and Dickinson come from two different backgrounds however, they both share inspired topics that each of them express extremely differently from each other using their own unique ways of writing. Whitman was a very social, outgoing person and always eager to be socially involved. He had an expressive and bold personality and was liked by many among society. Most of the content of his work were meant to be relatable to everyone. He wanted to write about things that people would be able to relate to and somewhat understand because he was very eager for his work to become popular. Most of his work is about patriotism, individualism, nature, the importance of nature and its connection to God, death, and immortality. His writings were very positive and uplifting, as Whitman was always trying to look at the good in life. He focused on individualism and how he believed how individuals should be treated, that each individual is important. Whitman's took a big risk and created a unique style that was very different. He uses free verse in his writings. He uses a lot of repetition, alliteration and stanza breaks. He abandoned the use of regular meter and rhyme patterns which also makes his work very unique. His writings are very long, complex, lengthy and wordy however, they are straight to the point. He uses imagery a lot in his poems so that his readers can imagine what he is saying through all of their senses. In his poem "Song of Myself " we can see his extensive use of imagery using nature. "Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead" "Where the buck turns furiously at the hunter" "Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock" "Where …show more content…
She was more seclusive then most and this seclusion very much influenced a lot of her writings. Most of her writings were very symbolic purposely because she did not write them for everyone to interpret but instead she wrote for her own personal purposes. Most of her writings are intense expressions on her own passions and opinions. She focuses on themes of life like in her poem "I Died for Beauty". Dickinson tends to bring out the darker side of things. She likes to talk about the truth of death and mortality and gets very focused and depressing. Her writing style is very short and seems somewhat simple, but more structured then Whitman's. In comparison to Whitman's style, Dickinson uses complex slant, regular rhymes, and carefully thought out written poems. You can see her use of slant rhyme in again "I Died for