Emily Dickinson And Whitman Analysis

Improved Essays
The opposites reflected in the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are quite often observed in the American way of doing things. These writers shared a respect for nature, desire to seek the truth and belief in individual freedom. Their manner of expression however, was quite different. This difference comes from their unique perspective and life experiences. Individual perspective is formed by family beliefs, religious influences, education and worldly experiences.
As a whole, the American society aspires for universal integrity. It’s is one's’ perspective that defines such integrity. So just as Dickinson and Whitman were writing on a parallel plane their methods and ideals were different.
An example of the opposites reflected in

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Song of Myself is a poem by Walt Whitman’s. This poem introduces a constant stream of human awareness, where he attempts to dissect death as common and transformative process, which should strike everyone. Walt Whitman was an American artist conceived in 1819 and passed on 26th March 1892. The artist was conceived around the local area of Huntington, Long Island, New York, U.S.In one of the sections from the poem, “Song of Myself” Walt Whitman starts out with a child asking a question, “What is the grass?” Grass is a symbol of life.…

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    During Margaret Fuller's and Walt Whitman's era, stereotypes and laws were restricting people to reach their full potential. Sadly till this day, society seems to have the need to place unspoken rules on people. These rules classify what the meaning of success is, how one should physically look, dress, and act. These set of unspoken rules have stripped people from their individualism. Furthermore, these rules have also limited women on who they can become and what they can do.…

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Three Unique Writers Reforming Worldview “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass” (Whitman, v. 1-5). For many eras, authors and poets, like Walt Whitman have attempted to capture what it means to be an individual as a universal theme, and what it means to be an American.…

    • 1701 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Despite being brought up in polar opposite circumstances Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman both made similar statements through poetry regarding the Civil War. In ¨A Hand-Mirror,¨ Walt Whitman describes a person that looks okay from the outside, but it is revealed that the inside of this person is extremely unhealthy. Mr. Whitman uses this person as a substitute for the United States of America during the Civil War. ¨Come up from the Fields Father,¨ is about a mother whose son has died in the war effort and the toll it take on the family. In contrast, Miss Dickinson’s “They dropped like Flakes,” describes the scene of soldiers dying at the Battle of Chancellorsville.…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the last stanza of the poem, Whitman writes, “On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America” and “I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-spendings.” Even though he writes freely about loving men, in this poem, he writes of his belief of the importance of passing on the greatest traits to create new and worthy Americans, to prolong the life of the United…

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Emily Dickinson, a woman of the 19th century, was preoccupied with poetry and the power of words. The opening line of the poem My Life had stood- a Loaded Gun is noteworthy for its liberal use of capitalisation. The capitalisation of “My Life” delineates the life of the speaker as the subject of the poem and establishes the poem as autobiographical, positioning the reader the attribute the speaker’s voice to Dickinson both as a woman and as a poet.…

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many poets are very different and some are revolutionary. Almost all poets before Whitman wrote with a pattern in their poetry, but Whitman changed that and became the father of free verse poetry. In Dickinson 's poetry it reflects her loneliness in her life and most of the people in her poetry are in a state of want. These poets are very different and have really changed the direction of poetry over time. Whitman and Dickinson poems are similar yet very different at the same time.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The early 20th century, a revolutionary time period for poetry, the commencement of a new form of writing commonly known as “modern poetry. ” During this period arose two great poets; Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, who in time were labeled as the ‘father and mother of American poetry.’ The true singularity shown by each of these two poets comes out in there true sense of privacy, or lack-there-of, juxtaposed with the persona that is given off through their writing. Dickinson who wrote to be private and gives off through her material a feeling of this privacy, had no intent of giving off a persona in that she did indeed write in solitude.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    There is a relationship between her and God. This allows the practice of a pure religion, which brings more happiness and blissfulness in religion and life. In “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,” Dickinson explains the various ways religion is vocalized, and she gives her opinion. Emerson said that it is metre-making argument that makes a poem and the poet has a new thought to unfold and share with others that make men richer in their fortune. Dickinson was a nonconformist that believed in self-reliance, nature, and living a simple life – traits of a transcendentalist.…

    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dickinson’s life influenced her poetry to a great extent. The things she experienced and the situations that drove her into seclusion so that she can write shaped her poetry. Her style has influenced other great poets of her time and has also affected American literature. Her life influenced her style and dictation and also was used to express her feelings. The themes of Death, Love, and Friendship can be also seen in her poems because they were impacted by the people in her life.…

    • 1509 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “A Solemn Thing—it was—I said” When one hears the name, “Emily Dickinson,” the image of a famous woman poet holed up in her room writing about death while secluding herself from the rest of the world instantly comes to mind. Contrary to popular belief, Dickinson was actually in-tune with society; she knew of all the politics and social issues that existed in her time period, especially those dealing with women. Her poems are written by the influences in her life, and one could say that “A Solemn Thing—it was—I said” was written with a feminist perspective. The poem focuses on Dickinson’s role in life as a woman, a subspecies creature with a lesser value than that of a man, at least through the eyes of a nineteenth century society.…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    These stanzas reflect Emily Dickinson through the way she wrote her poems and how she was raised. Emily Dickinson was born in Massachusetts in 1830. She attended a female seminary for one year then returned to live at home. Dickinson left her home very few times and had few visitors come and go throughout her life. Her poetry was greatly influenced by the people who came and went.…

    • 165 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, & Emily Dickinson are all individualistic in their own way in their writing. But the one writer that you can real not only see but feel their individualism is Emily Dickinson. In her writing you could tell they way she was feeling when she wrote those poems. I could have done my essay on any of the other 4 writer…

    • 157 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Walt Whitman displays himself as no better than anyone else, even from the most basic unit of life on Earth. He shows the audience that we are all the same no matter how much we differ in appearance, property, and culture. This line was another major example of the sly commentary Whitman used to convey his desire to belong. Through this text Whitman confirmed his belief that…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays