More thoughts on Dickinson and Whitman

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are considered the two “original voices” in American poetry. Their themes and styles would become the bedrock of future American poetry. Note, however, how vastly different Dickinson and Whitman are in style. Dickinson’s verses read like hymns. She also made use of unconventional capitalization and the frequent use of the dash, especially at the end of verse lines. Whitman’s verses, on the other hand, are almost prose like and have a strong conversational feel to them. Whitman’s themes also differ in that he focused more on relationships and is considered to have been bisexual – his attraction to both men and women seeps through in his poetry.

For self-study try to answer the following exercise questions:

• Read Kamilla Denman’s short essay “About Dickinson’s Use of the Dash” and then in your own words describe how you understand Dickinson’s use of the dash.

• Discuss Dickinson’s unconventional use of capitalization in “Apparently with no surprise”.

• Whitman often uses juxtapositions and paradoxes in his poems. See if you can find juxtapositions or paradoxes in the following poems: “Had I the Choice”, “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing”, and “When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer”.

• Discuss the use of androgynous imagery in Whitman’s poem “To a Stranger”.