Contrast/comparision of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

Paper: In America’s history, there have been so many writers, but only few are known for changing the course of American literature.  Two writers that fit this description are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.  These two poets have different styles of writing but possess the same themes from the social environment that they are surrounded in.  The poetry reflects these poets’ personality and their own style of writing.  Whitman had an outgoing personality, while Dickinson had a quiet and reserved approach to writing.  
        Walt Whitman, born on May 31st, 1819 is said to be way ahead of his time.  He had the better of two worlds growing up.  He experienced nature, but he was close enough to the city to see the industrialization of Brooklyn, New York.  Walt attended school until the age of 11, then he went on to be an office clerk, and even taught school.  Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 to a religious family from New England. Emily learned to cook and sew as girls were often taught at her age.  She attended boarding school surrounded by girls with high spirits who loved to have fun.  Emily quoted about her personality, “A mourner among the children” (372).
        Even though these two poets are from the same time frame, they each had diversified influences. Some of Whitman’s influences include Sir Walter Scott, the Bible, William Shakespeare, philosophers Homer and Dante.  Emily’s influences were not as broad. She worshipped Charles Wadsworth, but only in her dreams did she dare express her love for him.  
        Whitman’s poems are easy to recognize.  He has a distinct style that can be identified, just like Edgar Allen Poe.  One poem that stands out from all the others is “There Was a Child Went Forth” from Leaves of Grass. This poem is literally about a child who goes forward in life, and absorbs things like the materials in his home, the people surrounding his hometown, and the memories will stay with him forever.  Whitman depicts this idea of walking away with memories from a childhood by describing all these images and recollections and then states the fact by writing, “These became part of that child who went forth everyday, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day” (39).
        Dickinson also has a discrete style of writing poetry. She is very quiet and pacified when writing her poems.  She writes in quick little stanzas and brief thoughts.  A poem that pops up when talking about Emily Dickinson is “Success is counted sweetest.”  This poem tells about how success is so grand to those who have never experienced success.  She says that in order to achieve success you have you have the most extreme need for it.  In the poem, she talks about a soldier who is dying and how he was so close, but at the same time, so far away from success.  Emily writes, “As he defeated—dying--/ On whose forbidden ear/ The distant strains of triumph/ Burst agonized and clear!” 
Whitman is known for his fancy imagery, loading on the adjectives and adverbs.  For example, in line 6-7, Whitman writes, “And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe bird.” This is an example of the images he gives off about the flowers and sounds that this child is hearing.  Writing poems in free verse is another quality of Whitman.  Free verse is poetry written without meter or rhyme scheme.  Meter is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.  Rhyme scheme is the pattern of the rhyme in a poem.  The society that Walt lived in expected to see both of these elements in Whitman’s poetry.  
Emily Dickinson is quite contrary in this perspective.  “Success is counted sweetest” is short, and three neat stanzas.  The rhyme scheme for this poem goes something like ABCB DEFE HIJI. The punctuation is very precise and choppy and put to a stop at each line.  This choppiness is usually expressed through the hyphen at the end, or near the end of the line or stanza.  An example of the use of the hyphen is on line 9, “As he defeated—dying—.” The use of the hyphen allows the reader to linger on that one thought before moving on to the next line.  
Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson differ in a many ways. Emily was quiet and reserved, while Whitman was an out-and-about guy who was more interested in publicizing his poetry than writing it. Whitman was a social man who loved life, everything about it, knew how to have a good time, and loved children. Dickinson, on the other hand, stayed back and kept within her house. A poem from the literature book refers to Emily as “Eccentric as New England weather” (371).  
        Emily’s fame for her skill did not come until after her death.  Dickinson had a limited choice of words when composing her poetry, and Walt chose to put 4 different words in the same line that meant the same thing. Whitman was about breaking expectations, while Dickinson fulfilled them.  The book says this of Dickinson; “She perceived the relationship between a drop of dew and a flood, between a desert and a grain of sand. These perceptions helped her make metaphors that embraced experiences far beyond the limited compass of Amherst village life” (373).  The literature book says this of Whitman, “Suddenly, poetry was no longer a matter of organized word structures that neatly clicked shut at the last line;” (350).  Even though these two writers were so different in so many ways, they obtained what the other had not done. Whitman popularized free verse, while Dickinson cherished the use of metaphors and ideas of comparing two like things to make a deeper meaning to everything in life.