Emily Dickinson was a great poet of her time. She is one of the best known women writers of all time. She is also just like Whitman, a unique writer. She was also in between the Realism period and the Modernism period. She falls into the same category as Walt Whitman just because of he fact that they are known to people as the "tweeners". Emily Dickinson was different from Walt Whitman in a way because unlike Whitman Dickinson used rhymes in her poetry. She was a very organized lady who had new how much she was going to write and how long she was going to write it ("Whitman"). That is one way that these two writers were different but there were many other ways that they were different. I can not name them all, but that first difference is probably the most efficient. Here is a quote that I had found very interesting that has made Emily Dickinson the kind of poet that she is known for today, "Dickinson wrote poetry for nearly thirty years. In that span of time, she created approximately 2,000 poems, fewer than a dozen of which were published in her lifetime. Therefore, she had little feedback from either an appreciative or an uncomplimentary audience" (McChesney). I found this interesting because Emily had written so much in her lifetime and she was only able to publish a dozen in her lifetime. Now to this day, she is a very important poet and is known for the many good stories that she has written. I also found this sad because she was not recognized for her achievements that she has been known for to this day. Here is a quote that I found in that same criticism, "The themes of her poetry do not always leap immediately to the eye, and sometimes Dickinson packs layer upon layer, theme upon theme, into a few lines. Richard Sewall, a noted Dickinson biographer, describes this dilemma in his essay Teaching Dickinson: Testimony of a Veteran: the first editors in the 1890's divided the poems into four categories-Life, Love, Nature, Time and Eternity..." (McChesney). I found this quote interesting because it talked about Dickinson's themes that she put into her poetry. It seems like she kept packing each and every theme into each of her lines in her poetry. Here is an example, "A Wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell; 'T is but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still" (Dickinson). Here she packs so much information just in the first couple lines of her poem "A Wounded deer leaps Highest". It has so much that you can get from in the first couple lines. She does not really rhyme in the first couple lines but she still has gotten to packing in the themes like I had said earlier in the blog. Emily Dickinson was a great poet during her time even though people did not know it and she is still a great poet to this day. Emily Dickinson will always be a great poet just by her having her own unique writing style.
Bibliography
McChesney, Sandra. "A View from the Window: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson." In Harold Bloom, ed. Emily Dickinson, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.
Dickinson, Emily. "8. “A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest.” Part One: Life. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems." 8. “A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest.” Part One: Life. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
"Whitman and Dickinson Poetry." Byzantine Communications. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
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