Emily Dickinson Poetry Comparison Essay

One of the prevalent themes of Emily’s work is death. Since she wrote about her inner world and troubles, death as a theme could not be avoided. Emily Dickinson had to face the losing friends to death. Several deaths of family members, including her mother, father and a nephew helped contribute to the theme in her poetry. These events affected her health but she found a way to cope with the idea of death with her poetry. She developed an attitude towards death, seeing it as a transition from mortality to immortality. She accepted its inevitability and tried to make peace with the idea itself. This kind of comprehension was something Emily needed in order to cope with the loss of her loved ones who had been her only support and company in her isolated lifestyle. The theme of death is shown in the poem I picked for the research paper. In the poem called “How Far Is It To Heaven”, by Emily Dickinson it again deals with death but heaven and hell is included. This poem has only a few lines but it gets straight to the point and the theme of the poem hits you right in the face. One example is clear from the first two lines where it asks “How Far Is It To Heaven?” (Line 1) and “As far as Death this way” (Line 2). The poem is so simple but portrays a powerful message to the reader. Another huge theme of

One poet uses the poetic device “meter” seen as not an ordinary conversation but a specific beat in music, creating a regular beat that reflects on a calm and steady perspective, while Whitman uses no rhyme nor pattern of meter more like an ordinary conversation. Furthermore, the mentioning of the theme itself death, come at different times of both poems, Dickinson introduces the theme in the first stanzas of her poem while Whitman inkling that the poem is about dying towards the fourth stanza of his poem. The rhyme schemes for both poems is different while Emily Dickinson poem has a rhyme scheme of “abcb” Whitman’s poem has a rhyme scheme of “acbc”. Although the attitudes of poems may be similar they express themselves in their way. For example, the attitude in Whitman poem, is about death, drifting away like air and then his body being reborn like grass, death being part of nature and needed to be accepted as such. Dickinson attitude in her poem is calm, relaxing, and inviting which may seem ironic since both poems are portraying death but from whole different feel and

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson’s poetry is very different; however death seems to be a familiar topic amongst both poets. Opposites attract, and you could say the same for Whitman and Dickinson because though they have different writing styles both repeatedly write about death. Once more, although both Whitman and Dickinson have many different feelings about death, they also share many similar feelings about it as well. Although Walt Whitman's poetry is rather long and quite simple and Emily Dickinson's are often short and complex, the theme of death strongly ties their works together.

This paper will define imagery, metaphors, rhyme and structure and will also discuss the importance of figurative language in poetry and how it communicates to the reader.

Emily Dickinson is the definition of poetry. Within her poems lies numerous underlying meanings and symbols from her lifetime. When she was just a teenager she left school and became a recluse on her family’s homestead. Where she would begin to write some of the greatest poems in history. It is recorded that she wrote hundreds of little poems on random pieces of paper. Some of her greatest poems were about society during her time period, and they can even relate up to today’s society. Some of her best poems about society are “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” and “Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant”. Both of these poems contain a lot of similarities. However they differ slightly, in saying that, the other really compliments the other within their deeper meanings. Within each of these poems lies metaphors, personification, and inverted syntax.

departure as the prime reasons for the sorrowful tone Dickinson used in her poems in the

Ms. Dickinson seemed very at ease with death as if it were but another point of our existence. In her later works she concentrated more on death because her own personal life was marked by a succession of deaths, loosing those that she was close to and these events in her life caused her to write about death as if it

The theme operates to join the setting and speaker into a lucid representation. Emily Dickinson’s choice of style in her two poems, “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” and “After great pain, a formal feeling

In “There’s a certain Slant of light”, she uses similes and personification. These things help to enhance the emotion because they are used to paint a different picture and to compare what the speaker is feeling to something else. For example, the Dickinson writes, “When it comes, the Landscape listens - / Shadows – hold their breath -” (13-14) this personification along with the simile at the end “When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance / On the look of Death” (15-16) helps to describe the loneliness the speaker is feeling. These give the feeling of loneliness because when someone feels lonely they most likely feel as though death is coming when no one is around.

Her love for dashes a creates madness at end or midline. Critics say Emily Dickinsons works are not with her time espeacially for a woman in the 19th century. Edgar Allan Poe was a gothic poet with a unique style which makes his work even better to some. Poe’s poems are characterized by a musical effect of words to the reader’s emotion as in the poem The Raven. Poe’s poems are characterized by a gloomy and threading tone. His poems lean towards tradition while maintaining gothic aspects and evil happenings. Poe’s horror and lack of love themes are believed to have been his personal reflection per the lonely life that he lived. The theme of death is attributed to his sorrows after he lost his parents at a very tender age of three. Poe and Dickinson’s pomes were characterized by traditional writing styles and they all reflected upon the poet’s lonely lives. Both poets exhibited good poetic writing styles with a theme of death and lack of love. The pomes’ excellent writing style resulted in emotional poems. On the contrary, Poe was an excellent gothic poet whose poems are characterized by death, horror and uncertainty. Dickson’s poems are characterized by themes such as death, nature, religion, eternity or love although

When one thinks of Emily Dickinson, they usually think of the untitled works that seem to revere life, death, and the ever-present questioning of Gods existence. Edgar Allan Poe on the other hand, the name itself calls to mind the macabre and the dark yet loving way he drafts his poems and short stories. Though they both question, love, and revere death, there is some significant difference between the way that these two authors compose their work. Poe never seems to come to the light with his writings, instead the ever-present sense of death permeates his work. Dickinson, however, constantly calls into question what lies beyond death and almost seems to have a love-hate relationship with death and God.

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are considered to be two of the best poets in the 19th century. These two poets have written many stories, poems, and books throughout their lives. They are each know for a different aspect. Dickinson is known for writing poems which question immortality and death, meanwhile Whitman is recognized for continuing the tradition of Transcendentalism. although they might have different ways styles of writing, these two often depict similar views for certain themes of life. In this case Whitman and Dickinson describe death in almost identical ways but yet still have dissimilarities which distinguishes their style of writing. Their definition also happens to be more fully explained and improved than that of the dictionary. To add more to that Dickinson also does a great job explaining the meaning of the brain in a more indepth and specific way. So one can say that authors, poets, and writers, have a unique and specific method of explaining the full aspects behind a word.

Dickinson uses light to express happiness and freedom from all hardships in life. When we are feeling down exposure to light will allow our soul to be free again. For example, in “There’s a certain slant of light,” Dickinson claims that light oppresses upon us on winter afternoons. This tells us that Dickinson is relating light to happiness which we may see in the winter. Many do not like the cold winter days but light

Emily Dickinson’s poem There’s a certain Slant of Light is a powerful reflection on the pain of depression and other internal struggles. As a recluse, Dickinson most likely was familiar with these feelings and conveys them in a way we can all relate to. Although cryptic at first, this poem communicates many universal emotions as well as an insight into Dickinson’s state of mind. Stanza one opens with Dickinson referring to “a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoon -”.

Emily Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense