Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson And Edgar Lee Masters

Walt Whitman is a renowned American poet. He served as an example for all to follow. He put thoughts into peoples head. Whitman was very influential and had a very big effect on people. Langston Hughes was also a very influential American poet. He was known for changing others opinion of race and making their oppression evident to others. Hughes was very influenced by Whitman and he caused him to want to make a difference in people's thoughts on his race. Whitman wrote a poem called I Hear America Singing and some people believe that it influenced Hughes poem, I, Too, Sing America. Hughe builds on Whitman's poems in these categories; structure and technique, themes, and effect on people and society.

In literature, themes shape and characterize an author’s writing making each work unique as different points of view are expressed within a writing’s words and sentences. This is the case, for example, of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” and Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Both poems focus on the same theme of death, but while Poe’s poem reflects that death is an atrocious event because of the suffering and struggle that it provokes, Dickinson’s poem reflects that death is humane and that it should not be feared as it is inevitable. The two poems have both similarities and differences, and the themes and characteristics of each poem can be explained by the author’s influences and lives.

Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both

To begin with, both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson spoke about not only a person dying, but the people who were left to live through that person’s

First, Emily Dickinson’s poetry1 continuously rejected society’s perception of death. As death approaches, the one entering eternity and those nearby are often scared

Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.

Around the world, people of all cultures, religions, and so on, each acquired their own beliefs on unique aspects of spirituality, and the life of a human and what happens after life on the planet. Though most people believe in a universal definition of life as being joyful, fruitful, and a positive subject, death, on the other hand, has numerous definitions between each person. Some people consider death to be morbid, horrifying, and a negative thing, whereas others celebrate death and believe that their soul will live forever. Each of the countless observations of life and death are portrayed in diverse types of literature. One contributor and writer of such literature includes Emily Dickinson. In her poems “Because I Could Not Stop for

Regardless of race, caste, religion, or age, every human has wondered about the one fact of life that unifies us all: What is death? Both poems, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood and “Because I could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson share a common subject of death. Using figurative language, both poems illustrate distinct takes on a similar topic.

When so much of one’s life is left up to chance, it is nice to know that one can find certainty in death. Whereas life can be moulded to perfection and death is a guarantee, there is no way to tell what one will face following death. There are millions of different cultures, religions, and individual beliefs pertaining to the afterlife, but a definitive answer will never be known. The works of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson express two very unique interpretations of death and what follows. Both Whitman’s and Dickinson’s views of death include an idea of an afterlife, or of a continuation of the soul post death, but where Whitman welcomes the idea of demise without a trace of fear and his overall view of death is more mystical, Dickinson has a negative view of death and, at times, questions the possibility of an afterlife entirely.

Emily Dickinson concentrates many of her poems on the theme of death, predominantly her own. These “poems about death confront its grim reality with honesty, humor, curiosity, and above all a refusal to be comforted (“Emily Dickinson 1830-1886” 1659). While this was not an out of the ordinary topic during the American Romantic era, Dickinson seemed near obsessive in her focus. Additionally, Dickinson seems questionable in her thoughts on religion, another theme popular during the American Romantic era. Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for death” and “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” both explicitly examine the concept of death, the afterlife, and the author’s obsession with the melancholy.

Renowned poets and philosophers Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, although being from different schools of thought, actually shared many of the same views about nature and mankind’s role in society. Whitman, being more of a ‘romantic’ poet, praised nature’s beauty and majestic qualities. Thoreau, on the other hand, was more of a Transcendentalist; The Transcendentalism school of thought emphasized individualism as a common theme and celebrated the ‘self’ as a separate, but equal, counterpart to the nature of our environment. While both of these poets had their opinions on the landscape around us, they were quite similar in their beliefs about mankind’s existence and skirted the line between both schools of thought.

Nature has an undefinable meaning as the theme is utilised in literature, and it has been a topic of reflection within the Romanticists since the beginning of the era. Romanticism and nature and inextricably linked ideas. Poets; Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman wrote during the romantic era, and both drew heavily from aspects of nature in their work. Nature can be paralleled against several things, including humanity and the idea of life and death. The contrast between the natural world and the artificial world, and what this means for society, is also strongly eluded to in Dickinson and Whitman’s poems. Each poet uses nature as the backbone to their poetry in several instances. Dickinson’s, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”, (Dickinson, 19) and “My Life Has Stood A Loaded Gun”, (Dickinson, 69) are strong examples of this. Whitman’s, “Song of Myself”, (Whitman, 29) and, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, (Whitman, 255) are also poems that show the connection between nature and romanticism. Poets, Dickinson and Whitman engage with romanticism in a creative and constructive manner through the utilisation of the natural world.

Whitman has a philosophical approach about religion, religion practices and the journey of the soul. He uses the imagery of nature and other every day attributes to question life beyond death, rebirth and the unison of individual and nature. He is not afraid to die and admits ".... there is really no death, /and if ever there was it led toward life" (Whitman line…. )He finds the Devine power in nature and everything around him rather that in the altar of a church, which

Human nature is something that never seems to change. While humans all seem to be different from one another through physical and emotional attributes, their psychological behaviors are all mostly very similar. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, many authors successfully could explain the characteristics of human nature and the effects that it has on everyone and everything surrounding human beings. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe all convey the behavior of human nature in separate ways. These three authors show the curiosity, drive for perfection, and fear of human nature throughout their texts in detail. With these characteristics being prominent in human nature itself, it

The nineteenth century produced many esteemed authors, including Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman who became two of Americas most popular poets. While vastly different in style and personality, both Dickinson and Whitman relate to many people on an emotional level through their poetry, even in the twenty-first century. The works of poetry by Dickinson and Whitman can be compared on levels of style and form and both writers composed beautiful verses of high quality. Through the following comparisons, it will become apparent how Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman influenced American literature and culture both in similar and diverse ways.