Weaks - Whitman - Dickinson - Blog

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were two early American poets that I am having a little trouble understanding, especially Dickinson. Both chose free verse as their method of expression and Dickinson’s use of punctuation and capitalization is somewhat of a mystery to me. Like many great artist, Dickinson was not recognized in her time and not really appreciated until the early twentieth century. To the untrained, such as me, her writings seem dark and for the most part she appears to be a woman unfilled in many areas. Melancholy is a word that comes to my mind in describing her. Whitman on the other  hand had somewhat of a gregarious personality and was a patriot that wrote poems supporting the United States and the Union, though some people of the time felt some of his poems were a little to sexually expressive. One thing that they had in common was in their own way, they were individualist, albeit on different levels, but nonetheless individualist.

The first commonality I observed in Dickinson and Whitman is their views on the finality of death and a lack of belief in heaven and hell. Dickinson writes in her poem, “My life closed twice before its close” Dickinson appears to express no belief in heaven or hell when she writes,

My life closed twice before its close --
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell. (Dickinson)

Whitman appears to share similar sentiments in Section 21 of “Song of Myself” when he writes,

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with
me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into new tongue. (Whitman)

A little research revealed that in Dickinson’s time, hunting runaway slaves was sometimes compared to hunting deer. It is written that Dickinson abhorred slavery and in more that one of her poems used symbolism to express that. In her poem “A wounded Deer—leaps highest she writes,

A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest --
I've heard the Hunter tell --
'Tis but the Ecstasy of death --
And then the Brake is still!

The Smitten Rock that gushes!
The trampled Steel that springs!
A Cheek is always redder
Just where the Hectic stings!

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish
In which it Cautious Arm,
Lest anybody spy the blood
And "you're hurt" exclaim! (Dickinson)  

If one reads this poem several times, one might come to the conclusion that it is not a great stretch to interpret this poem as a condemnation of slavery and the hunting of runaway slaves.

Whitman also hated slavery but was more overt in his disgust of it. He writes in Section 10 of “Song of Myself” the following words.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak, 

And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill'd a tub for his sweated body and bruis'd
feet, 

And gave him a room that enter'd from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes, 

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean'd in the corner. (Whitman)

Though Dickinson used symbolism to express her disgust of slavery and Whitman used language all could understand, they shared common ground on the evils of slavery and both, in their poetry, expressed that.  

Dickinson and Whitman also shared a yearning for sex. In Dickinson, she uses her poem, “Wild Nights – Wild Nights” to express her desire for a lover. Dickinson was writing during the Victorian era and for a woman to write such a sexually explicit poem in that era must have been uncommon. I quote,

Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile -- the Winds --
To a Heart in port --
Done with the Compass --
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden --
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor -- Tonight --
In Thee! (Dickinson)

In Section 11 of “Song of Myself” we find Whitman expressing his feelings on sex, though more erotic than Dickinson, they share commonality in both their interest and their writings. Below is an excerpt from “Song of Myself”

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them. (Whitman)

If we submerge ourselves in the poetry of Dickinson and Whitman, we find certain qualities in their work shared by both. It is sometimes difficult to identify their commonalities, in that Whitman was more inclusive and Dickinson was more exclusive, more elitist, but a close examination of their work will reveal some common traits in their poetry and a better understanding of each poet. As previously stated, one of the main things they had in common was that they were individualist and who knows, Whitman’s gregarious personality might have been a “pasteboard mask” (Melville).