The Wound Dresser By Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, And Paul Lurance Dunbar

Art and emotion, often times, go hand-in-hand with one another due to the generalistic idea that emotions are what fuels the artist drive to produce such wondrous masterpieces. Poetry, is one such art that allows its creator to call upon a variety of emotions. Whether those emotions are a sense of delight, anger, contempt, sorrow, etc, all are forms of emotion and are easily seen throughout the many poems written by Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Paul Lurance Dunbar. When these poets fuse their emotions with their words, we the readers are able to feel a fraction of what they might have felt at the time of the poems creation. It is this component that allows the readers to effectively take away any life lessons that might have been incorporated …show more content…
Instead, a sense of nostalgic sorrow is felt throughout many of his poems. In his written work, The Wound Dresser, the tone is painted almost immediately and we are granted access to a very vivid image of an elderly man entering into a hospital tent. “An old man bending I come among new faces” (71). By stating that an old man is bending down and is among new faces, it allows the readers to infer that the flow of newly wounded are endless and is normal for the old man. While, it is true the poem itself may not bring a sense of delight to the reader, it seemed that through his encounters with the wounded men that the old mans work brought a form of delight to those he was tasked with aiding. “The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand, I sit by the restless all the dark night” (73). It does, however, leave the reader with many lessons to be learned. “(Come sweet death! Be persuaded O beautiful death! In Mercy come quickly)” (73). In this paragraph we see Whitman’s inner thoughts exposed and through this particular thought of his, we are able to learn that sometimes though all life deserves a fighting chance. That depending on the situation, death is the only mercy that can be given. And when it is finally given, it is not done so lightly. While this may not seem like an overly important aspect that would be …show more content…
This could especially be true for a specific demographic. His poems targeted many from the African American race by taking on different personas to relate to different groups. In his poem, An Ante Bellum Sermon, he has taken on the persona of a preacher preaching the gospel of Moses. Yet, hidden within this sermon is lessons he had hoped for others to learn both in his time and perhaps as a friendly remind in the present. “Dat de people e put bref in- Evah mothah’s son was free.” (623). Relates to the fact that every man should be free to live equally as long as they have breath in their lungs. “I will pause right hyeah to say, Dat I’m still a-preachin’ ancient, I aint’t talkin’ bout to-day” (623). This goes to show that the persona, Dunbar, used was careful not to give any indication that his “preachin” was any form of inspirational movement to rise the black people up. He reminds the audience that he is only speaking on the well known biblical story about Moses and the Pharaoh. A clever tactic to use since the idea of freedom lurks in every word of the story. It would be true enough to say that this poem brought about a sense of delight, as it was a funny little read. Life lessons were also plentiful throughout this particular poem just not quite as much as they were in Dickinson’s poems. In Dunbar’s, We Wear the Mask, the readers are graced with a valuable lesson right