Essay Comparing Dickinson And Walt Whitman

1046 Words5 Pages
Austin Gill Final Draft Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are known as the founders of Modern American Poetry, due to their unprecedented ways of writing poetry. Instead of following the set ways of poetry that were set in place in the times before Dickinson and Whitman, the two opened the poetry world to a more free style of writing.However, sharing the title of founders of Modern American poetry, isn’t the only commodity the two poets share. Although many believe that Dickinson and Whitman are complete opposites, these acclaimed poets have a common theme throughout their poetry and use punctuation in their poetry to add an effect to the flow and how the reader interprets the poem. Punctuation in poetry can completely change how the poem…show more content…
The constant theme that can be found in almost all of Emily Dickinson’s poems is death. She uses death as a theme differently, in some poems she questions whether the soul survives death, belief in immortality and sometimes directly treating God’s concern with people’s lives and destinies. One poem that blatantly shows Dickinson’s attitude towards death is her poem, “I heard a Fly buzz--when I died.” This poem is about a person in their final moments of life and when they are about to die they hear a fly buzzing around. Before she hears the fly the speaker describes the room that she is dying in, the people that are waiting by her in the final moments, and the silence. However, the silence is abruptly interrupted by this fly, which changes the tone of the poem from quiet to eerie and loud. Obviously, this is a poem that is not meant to cheer anyone up, however this is what makes Emily Dickinson different than other poets. The precedent before Dickinson was usually writing about light and happy thoughts in poetry, however she completely changes that way of writing and turns it into heavy, dark, somber type of
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  • Essay Comparing Dickinson And Walt Whitman

    549 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman were very famous poets during the 1800’s, they wrote powerful poetry that is still legendary today. Dickinson was very introverted and shied away from fame, while Whitman was very well known and famous poet. Two poems in particular talk about their perspectives and portrayal of death, a subject that was very bold during their time. In these poems their writings styles are very different. Dickinson is careful and precise, while Whitman is easy-going and simple. Dickinson

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