Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman

1
Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman

• Transitional Poets

2
What does Transition Mean?

• A transit from one stage to another
• A movement or development from one form to
  another
• A change in style

3
Romanticism

• Nature
• The Individual
• Intuition rather than Reason
• Creativity

4
Realism

• Focus on the common, average man
• Extreme Detail
• Class (social groups) becomes important
• Pessimistic, Negative
• Materialism

5
Emily Dickinson

• Reclusive
• Published only a handful of poems
• Left instructions for her poems to be destroyed

6
Dickinson is Unconventional

• Use of dashes
• Capitalization
• First edition corrected her forms, but
  Johnsons version in 1955 restored the original
  elements

7
Techniques

• Slant rhyme final sounds are similar but not
  identical
• Paradox a statement that seems contradictory but
  is actually true
• Ballad Stanza stanza of four lines, rhyme
  scheme of abcb

8
Because I Could Not Stop for Death

• P. 524
• Who is he in line 2? What is this?
• Describe him.
• In lines 9-12, what do School, Fields, Setting
  Sun suggest?
• Elliptical phrasing in lines 15, 16
• Last stanza, how long has it been? Suggests?

9
I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died

• P. 531
• Slant rhyme?
• Would you think to include the buzzing of a fly
  in a poem from a dying persons point of view?
• What does the inclusion suggest about death?

10
My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close

• P. 529
• Paradox
• What tells us about Heaven and Hell?
• What is the final close?
• How did her life close twice before?
• Explain the paradox on 415.

11
Walt Whitman

• Poetry broke every poetic tradition of rhyme and
  meter.
• Leaves of Grass abandoned traditional poetic
  devices and forms.
• While critics panned him, Emerson admired him.
  Why?

12
Leaves of Grass

• Lifes work
• Continuously revised (9 editions)
• 12 poems (first edition)
• 383 poems (death-bed edition)

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Transcendental Focus

• Poetry conveys belief in democracy, equality,
  spiritual unity, and the potential of the human
  spirit.
• Captures the diversity of the American people.
• Conveys energy and intensity of all forms of life.

14
American Epic Leaves of Grass

• Expresses national ideals.
• Epic theme All people of all times connected by
  shared experience of life.
• ALL people are the hero of this epic.

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Techniques

• Free Verse irregular meter and line length
  sounds like natural speech. Every line shaped to
  suit poets meaning.
• Catalogues (Lists) create a colorful parade of
  images that suggest each element is of equal
  worth.
• Anaphora repetition of phrases with similar
  structure or meaning (at the beginning of the
  phrase) (p. 425)
• Onomatopoeia (grunting, gab, yawp)

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Selections

• Page 508, Excerpts from Leaves of Grass
• Look for catalogues, anaphora, diction, and
  onomatopoeia
• Page, When I Heard the Learned Astronomer
• What is the message?
• Whose message is this?