Whitman and Dickinson Case

Whitman & Dickinson

When discussing American poets, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are often mentioned in the same breath. They're heralded as the first two modern poets, but the ways in which they were influential were vastly different.

The most obvious distinction between Dickinson and Whitman is the difference in their styles. Whitman tends to write long, sprawling poems in blank verse, eschewing rhyme and classical form in favor of other poetic techniques as evidenced in “Song of Myself” and “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” Dickinson is much more brief, oftentimes utilizing rhyme schemes and Quatrains like in “754.” “712” illustrates Dickinson's willingness to use classical forms in that it is a ballad (and as a result can be sung to the tune of Gilligan's Island).

One area where Dickinson and Whitman are very similar is the imagery they use. Both rely heavily on nature to make their points. “1624” by Dickinson develops a metaphor for death around a flower, “Apparently with no surprise to any happy flower The Frost beheads it at its play...” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” by Whitman uses a flower as an elegy for President Lincoln.

The real difference between Dickinson and Whitman is their scope. Dickinson focuses on domestic things, things that could be found in a house and a well kept garden. In “324,” she discusses how everything she needs can be found at home. “Some keep the sabbath going to Church- I keep it, staying at home...” Her subject matter doesn't drift far from her own house, whereas Whitman attempts to catalog everything he can. “Song of Myself” is a prime example of this, Whitman goes from “Houses and rooms are full of perfumes” to “Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt...” to “twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore” all before the poem is a quarter of the way done.

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