Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

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Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson
Two of the greatest American poets of the 19th
century!
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Walt Whitman

• personality - sociable and gregarious. He was a
  traveler.
• expectations - wanted his message to be carried
  to the world.
• famous - during his lifetime (Leaves of Grass
  published in 1855.)
• poetic style
• - public spokesman of the masses
• - prophet of progress
• - extravagant with words and careless with
  repetition and self-contradiction

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Walt Whitman

• used long lists (catalogues)
• used cadence (the long easy sweep of sound that
  echoes the Bible and speeches of orators and
  preachers.)
• often wrote in free verse (no rhyme or meter)
• importance - model for 20th century poets
  (public)
• personal life
• born in May 1819
• at the age of twelve, Whitman began to learn the
  printer's trade
• at the age of 17, he began his career as teacher
  in a one-room school house in Long Island
• continued to teach until 1841 and then turned to
  journalism as a full-time career
• struggled to support himself through most of his
  life
• at the outbreak of the Civil War, Whitman vowed
  to live a "purged" and "cleansed" life
• died in March 1892

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Emily Dickinson

• personality - very shy and a recluse
• expectations - message was to die in oblivion
• famous - after her death
• poetic style
• found in nature a metaphor for the spirit and
  recorded them with no thought for an audience
• wrote with precision of a diamond cutter
• meticulous focus on diction (choice of words)
• aimed to evoke the feelings of things rather than
  simply to name them
• economical technique
• uses rhyme and meter

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Emily Dickinson

• Importance - model for 20th century poets
  (private)
• Personal life
• Lived a life of self imposed seclusion in her
  familys home after college (gradual shift to
  secluded life)
• Born December 1830 in Massachusetts
• Family was a pillar in the community (politically
  active family)
• was a bright and intelligent student as a child
• father was very strict he censored her reading
  (Whitman too inappropriate)
• was a descendent of early Puritan settlers
  (religion important)
• Emerson had a great influence on her writing
• wrote over 1,700 poems and many letters
• died at the age of 55 from Bights disease, which
  is caused by kidney degeneration
• after her death her sister found a boxful of
  Emilys poems and letters
• First set of Dickinsons poems published by her
  sister (Vinnie) and family friend (Mabel) in 1893