Emily Dickinson And Walt Whitman

This reading tells about Americans poets of the nineteenth century, and how these poets laid an important and cultural foundation for American poetry. These different writers developed an audience for poetry in the United States. It begins focusing on two main poets. These poets are Whitman and Dickinson, they overshadowed all the other poets during this century. Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. During his time of writing he was part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. When Whitman began writing, his style was obscure until publishing one of his first editions, after this he became notorious for this type, he was more notorious than he ever was famous. Dickinson …show more content…
The topics of these poems ranged from many different categories, issues in society, the role of women, slavery, and immortality. The poets of this period though, mostly employed conventional forms. It was at this time that Emerson tried his best to expand these different forms while Poe attempted to change these unconventional effects. But these weren’t the popular topics for poetry at the time, the popular topics people wanted were things like rhythm and rhyme. Even the critics of this time did not like the conventionality of the poetry that was being written and published in the United States because it did not have the approach to rhythm and rhyme that was wanted. Although these poets were not the only ones during this time, some other poets were Lydia Sigourney, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Rose Terry Cooke. Sigourney was one of the most popular and prolific writers of this time period, during her remaining fifty years of her life she published more than fifty additional books of poetry and prose. Smith was known during her time for being a writer and a leader of the crusade for women’s