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Dickinson Vs Whitman

Decent Essays

Have you heard of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman? They are both poets that changed how poetry was written and are still celebrated for their works to this day. With their use of romanticism their poems touched the hearts of others through personification and imagery. Although Dickinson and Whitman both use personification and imagery, they differ in uses of other poetic devices. Dickinson and Whitman both use poetic devices such as personification and imagery to get their points across underhandedly to make you think about topics you’ve never thought about in depth before. An example of this would be Dickinson’s “712” which is about death, “Because I could not stop for Death — / He kindly stopped for me —” (lines 1-2). The author is making …show more content…

In Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” the whole poem can be described as a metaphor, “I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, / Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, / The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, / The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, / The boatman singing what belong to him in his boat, the deck-hand singing on the steamboat deck, / The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, / The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, / The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, / Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, / The day what belongs to the day — at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, / Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs” (complete poem). This can all be considered a metaphor because he is stating each person is singing a beautiful song of individuality, and individuality is what makes up this country. His tone in this poem is also very prominent. You can clearly tell that he is joyous and really is celebrating people that usually go unnoticed in poetry. He is portraying the “american culture” of hardworking and friendly people. Those are just a few examples of how Walt Whitman uses metaphor

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