2.1.

10 Practice

Every poet has their own ways and techniques of writing. After all, that’s
what’s making their poems and skills so powerful and mighty! Out of
hundreds of outstanding poets in the world, in this essay, I will analyze
similarities and differences between Emily Dickinson’s and Walt Whitman’s
methods of writing. Why don’t you join me along on the journey of
inspecting two talented poets’ resemblances and dissimilarities?! 

When it comes to poetry, similarities and differences come in many

different categories, not just about the topic the poets mainly write about.
For instance, it could be the rhyme scheme used in the poem, use of
different kinds of figurative languages in their works, the number of lines in
each of their stanzas, and possibly even more!  

One basic difference is, for example, Emily Dickinson uses a consistent
amount of lines in every of her stanzas making it her own unique style of
poetry; however, when it comes to the length of each line, Whitman has a
longer length whereas Dickinson sticks to a similar length for most of her
poetries! Are you seeing the differences here? Then, let’s carry on to the
next information I have for you! Dickinson has a precise pattern for most of
her work when it comes to the length of the lines or the amount of lines in a
stanza, but let’s just say Whitman is a bit more casual. He has different
styles for each of his work rather than sticking to a strict method. 

I’ve mentioned a couple of dissimilarities above. Now, let’s see some things
they have in common! In particular, they both have themes that are alike.
Both of them write mostly about death. 

As for Dickinson, she mainly uses this particular literary device to describe
death. She stated in one of her poems that death has a carriage and even
kindly stopped to offer the reader a ride! If you put the pieces together,
you’ll figure out that having a carriage, being ‘kind’, and even stopping to
offer a ride for someone are not really the real characteristics of death
because death is not a human. Giving features of a human to a non living
thing is called a personification. Dickinson uses personification mainly in
her poems! 

Both talk about death now and then, but Whitman uses similes inspired by
nature to create his masterpiece! Here’s an example, in one of his poems,
he wrote, “I depart as air.” We all know the word ‘as’ determines the use of
a simile; however, we should dig a little deeper to figure out what “I depart
as air” actually means! As I have mentioned before, the poem is about
death. Depart means leave which leaves us with a less complicated
phrase, “I leave as air.” Perhaps, Whitman could be indicating that when
we die, we practically become air! He focuses on expressing how death is
basically nature and humans should simply accept that.

Furthermore, I want to talk a little more about each of their tones. The tone
indicates a specific feeling of the piece of writing. It can be happy,
humorous, optimistic, pessimistic, sad, funny, etc! If I have to express my
opinion, I personally believe Dickinson’s tone in her poems is rather dark
compared to Whitman’s. The reason why I’m saying this is because in most
people’s views, nature is a beautiful thing but death isn’t. Whitman
comparing death to nature makes death a lot less frightening. 

Well, to sum up things, I’ve mentioned the similarities and differences

between Dickinson and Whitman. You now know a lot more about their
uses of figurative languages and literary devices, uses of rhyme schemes
and even the specific amount of lines in each stanza. I’ve also talked about
my opinion on their tone and explained why I felt the way I said I did.
However, before I end this, I would like to say both of these two poets are
amazing and unique in their own ways making their works beautiful and
outstanding! How about you? What are your opinions on this?