Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• --- Romantic Poetry

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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• Whitman and Dickinson
• Similarities Both of them were distinctively
  American poets in theme and technique. Both of
  them were part of American Renaissance.
• A. Themes both extolled in their different ways,
  an emergent America, its expansion, its
  individualism, and its Americanness.
• B. Techniques breaking free of the poetic
  tradition and pioneering American modernist
  poetry with their poetic innovation.
• Differences
• A. Whitman kept his eye on society at large while
  Dickinson explored the inner life of the self and
  individual.
• B. Whereas Whitman is national in his outlook,
  Dickinson is regional.
• C. In formal terms, Whitman is characterized by
  his endless, all-inclusive catalogs while
  Dickinson by her concise, direct, and simple
  diction and syntax.

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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• I. Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
• 1. Literary Status
• Father of American Poetry
• Precursor of Modern American Poetry
• Father of American Free Verse
• Celebrant of America as a Poem
• 2. Life
• Working-class background on Long Island, New York
• Five years of schooling, loafing and reading
• Rich life experience office boy, printers
  apprentice, carpenter, schoolmaster, printer,
  editor (of 8 successive papers), and journalist

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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 3. The Publication of Leaves of Grass Whitmans
  his lifetime literary endeavor
• A. It first edition of 12 poems in 1855
• A stir broke with the poetic convention
• sexuality and exotic and vulgar language
• harsh criticisms on it noxious weeds,
• poetry of barbarism, a mass of stupid filth
• B. Nine editions in all
• (1855, 56, 60, 67,71, 76, 81, 89, 91-92)
• Began to be celebrated with the fifth edition
• C. His deathbed edition containing all of his
  400-odd poems

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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 4. His ideas
• a catalog and great acceptor
• A. Enlightenment, humanitarianism and
  cosmopolitanism
• C. Idealism and Transcendentalism
• D. German philosophy and Newtonian pantheism
• E. Jacksonian laissez-faire individualism and
  Civil War Unionism
• F. Emerson and Whitman
• Emersons letter of praise of the first edition
• the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom
  that an American has yet contributed
• Whitman dear Master, I was simmering,
  simmering, simmering, Emerson brought me to a
  boil
• He shared many similar ideas with Emerson
• America itself was a poem the greatest poet is a
  seer, complete in himself. (P.90)

Whitman and Doyle
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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 5. Whitmans Poetic Experimentation
• He was a daring experimentalist who broke the
  new wood
• He began to experiment around 1847 which lead to
  a complete break with traditional poetics.
• Features
• A. parallelism or rhythmical unit (the Bible)
• B. phonetic recurrence (systematic repetition of
  words and phrases)
• C. his long catalogs of lines, his piling up of
  nouns, verbs, or adjectives,
• Whitman broke free from the traditional iambi
  pentameter and wrote free verse.

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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 6. Masterpieces
• Song of Myself
• There was a Child Went Forth
• In Crossing Brooklyn Bridge
• Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (p.93)
• When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed (p.94)
• 7. Whitmans Influence
• Whitmans influence over modern poetry is great
  in the world as well as in America. His best work
  has become part of the common property of Western
  culture.
• Many poets in England, France, Italy, and Latin
  America are in his debt, esp. by his optimism and
  innovation as a poet-prophet and poet-teacher.
• T. S. Eliot, Pound, Hart Crane, Carl Sandburg

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Walt Whitmans Poetry

• Song of Myself
• I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
• And what I assume you shall assume,
• For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to
  you.
• I loafe and invite my soul,
• I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of
  summer grass.
• My tongue, every atom of my blood, formd from
  this soil, this air,
• Born here of parents born here from parents the
  same, and their
• 
  parents the same,
• I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health
  begin,
• Hoping to cease not till death.
• Creeds and schools in abeyance,
• Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are,
  but never forgotten,
• I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at
  every hazard,
• Nature without check with original energy.

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Out
of the Cradle Endlessly RockingOut of the cradle
endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-birds
throat, the musical shuttle,Out of the
Ninth-month midnight,Over the sterile sands and
the fields beyond, where the child leaving his
bed
wanderd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,Down form
the showerd halo,Up from the mystic play of
shadows twining and twisting as if they were
alive Out from the patches of briers and
blackberries,From the memories of the bird that
chanted to me,From under that yellow half-moon
late-risen and swollen as if with tears,From
those beginning notes of yearning and love there
in the mist,From the thousand responses of my
heart never to cease,From the myriad
thence-arousd words,From the word stronger and
more delicious than any,From such as now they
start the scene revisiting,As a flock,
twittering, rising, or overhead passing,Born
hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,A man, yet
by these tears a little boy again, Throwing
myself on the sand, confronting the waves,I,
chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and
hereafter,Taking all hints to use them, but
swiftly leaping beyond them,A reminiscence song.

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Once Paumanok, (Long Island)When the
lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass
was growing, Up this seashore in some
briers,Two featherd guests from Alabama, two
together,And their nest, and four light-green
eggs spotted with brown,And every day the
he-bird to and fro near at hand,And every day
the she-bird crouchd on her nest, silent, with
bright eyes,And every day I, a curious boy,
never too close, never disturbing
them,Cautiously peering, absorbing,
translating.Shine! Shine! Shine!Pour down your
warmth, great sun!While we bask, we two
together.Two together!Winds blow south, or
winds blow north, Day come white, or night come
black,Home, or rivers and mountains from
home,Singing all time, minding no time,While we
two keep together.
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Till of a sudden,May-be killd, unknown to her
mate,One afternoon the she-bird crouchd not on
the nest,Nor returnd that afternoon, nor the
nextNor ever appeard again.And thenceforward
all summer in the sound of the sea,And at night
under the full of the moon in calmer
weather,Over the hoarse surging of the sea,Or
flitting from brier to brier by day,I saw, I
heard at intervals the remaining one, the
he-bird,The solitary guest from Alabama.Blow!
blow! blow!Blow up sea-winds along Paumanoks
shoreI wait and I wait till you blow my mate to
me. Loud! loud! loud!Loud I call to you,
my love!High and clear I shoot my voice over the
waves, Surely you must know who is here, is
here,you must know who I am, my love.
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What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?O
it is the shape, the shape of my mate!O moon do
not keep her from me any longer.Low-hanging
moon!Land! land! land!Whichever way I turn, O I
think you could give me my mate back again if you
only would, For I am almost sure I see her dimly
whichever way I look.Hither my love!Here I am!
Here!With this just-sustaind note I announce
myself to you, This gentle call is for you my
love, for you.Do not be decoyd elsewhere,That
is the whistle of the wind, it is not my
voice,That is the fluttering, the fluttering of
the spray,Those are the shadows of leaves.
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O darkness! O in vain!O I am very sick and
sorrowful.O past! O happy life! O songs of
joy!In the air, in the woods, over
fields,Loved! loved, loved! loved! loved!But my
mate no more, no more with me!We two together no
more.The aria sinking,All else continuing, the
stars shining,The winds blowing, the notes of
the bird continuous echoing,With angry moans
from the fierce old mother incessantly
moaning,On the sands of Paumanoks shore gray
and rustling,The yellow half-moon enlarged,
sagging down, drooping, the faceof sea almo
touching,The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet
the waves, with his hair the atmosphere
dallying,The love in the heart long pent, now
loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,The
arias meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly
depositing,The strange tears down the cheeks
coursing,The colloquy there, the trio, each
uttering, The undertone, the savage mother
incessantly crying,To the boys souls questions
sullenly timing, some drownd secret hissing,To
the outsetting bard.
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Everlasting Singer of the Leaves of Grass
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Whitman's House at Camden, NJ.
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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• II. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
• 1. Literary status
• A secluded poetess
• Mother of American Poetry and American Modern
  Poetry
• 2. Life
• a Calvinist family
• Her father, a Whig lawyer and treasurer of
  Amherst College
• Read widely such as the Bible, Shakespeare, Keats
• Began writing seriously in her twenties
• 1775 poems altogether, 7 published in her life

Dickinson at 9
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The Evergreens where the Dickinsons lived
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The Dickinson Homestead
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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 3. Her Ideas
• Calvinism Tragic in basic tone
• Death leads to immortality.
• Doubt the loss of faith and the religious
  uncertainty
• 4. Themes life, death, immortality, love, nature
• 5. Analysis of her masterpieces
• My Life Closed Twice before its Close (p.98)
• Wild Nights Wild Nights (p.99)
• Because I could not stop for Death
• I heard a fly buzz when I died(p.99)
• Death is a Dialogue between (p.100)
• A Narrow Fellow in the Grass
• Ill tell you how the sun rose

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Emily Dickinsons Poem249 Wild Nights Wild
Nights!

• 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!

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Dickinson with her friend and editor Thomas
Wentworth Higginson
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465 (I heard a Fly buzz when I died - )

• I heard a Fly buzz when I died
• The Stillness in the Rooms
• Was like the Stillness in the Air
• Between the Heaves of Storm
• The Eyes around had wrung them dry
• And Breaths were gathering firm
• For that last Onset when the King
• Be witnessed in the Room
• I willed my Keepsakes Signed away
• What portion of me be
• Assignable and then it was
• There interposed a Fly
• With Blue uncertain stumbling Buzz
• Between the light and me
• And then the Windows failed and then
• I could not see to see --

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Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 6. Dickinsons Aesthetics
• She holds that beauty, truth and goodness are
  ultimately one.
• 7. Her poetic innovation
• A. She broke free of the conventional iambic
  pentameter
• B. She explored the inner life of the individual
• C. She was regional (New Englander)
• D. She was idiosyncratic in her frequent use of
  dashes and
• unique use of capitals.
• E. her concise, direct, and simple diction and
  syntax

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