Abstract This paper examines how Ralph Waldo Emerson's association with the transcendental movement can be linked to the ideas he expressed in his essay, "Nature," where he emphasizes being true to oneself, individuality, and nonconformity. Emerson also explains his ideas regarding the soul and its connection with nature and God. It looks at how two poets whose work reflects this type of thinking are Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman and how these writers discover a path to self, soul, and identity through their experiences, ideas that can be traced to Emerson's writings.
From the Paper "In his essay, "Nature" Ralph Waldo Emerson urges man to think independently. He opens his essay with by advancing the idea that that we consider for ourselves a "philosophy of insight and not of tradition" (Emerson 994). With this idea, he builds upon the theory that much of life is still left to be discovered, we must only be open to it and connect with it. The wide universe, according to Emerson, is composed of "nature and the soul" (994). Emerson held a profound respect for nature and its beauty. He states that when he is in the presence of nature, he "become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God" (996). Here we see how Emerson attempts to focus on nature as it manifests itself through his senses."
Abstract This essay considers how philosopher and essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and poet Emily Dickinson, each reveal important revelations on the values of solitude. Emerson sees the person in isolation as a person who is nearer to his own soul, and so nearer to God; Dickinson reveals her isolation as a site for inspiration with the natural realities of life and death. While Emerson states clearly his ideas of the value of solitude for reflection, Dickinson poetically portrays her life of isolation in verse that reveals her inspirations of divinity.
Abstract This literary study compares and contrasts the various aspects of war that are depicted in "Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd" by Walt Whitman and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. In similar ways, Whitman's work is an elegiac poem that honors the death of Abraham Lincoln, which Bierce's short story also exemplifies in his tale of the execution of Peyton Farquhar. However, both stories reflect contrasting sides of the Civil War conflict in how they remember and honor those that fought for both sides. In essence, both of these wartime literary works depict death, but have profoundly different points of view in relation to the ideological duality of the Civil War.
Abstract This essay analyzes three of Emily Dickinson's poems. The poems reveal contradictory struggles with ideals of heaven, eternity, and Dickinson's own struggles for proof, and how to trust in faith. The poems are also compared to Psalms 63 and 139, to locate a biblical reference for the struggle to not be deceived in true faith.
Abstract This paper examines the techniques employed by Emily Dickinson in the poems "I Dwell in Possibility" and "They Shut me up in Prose." The paper examines the author's background as an orthodox Calvinist and examines the effect that her childhood religious influences had on her poetry. The essay makes the point that Dickinson's poetry was often a vehicle for her criticisms about organized religion and the role of the church. Both poems are cited within the essay.
From the Paper "The limitlessness of the imagination is symbolized in both poems by metaphors that represent the power of creativity and how it can be spiritually enlightening. By relating the ordinary to the extraordinary, Dickinson shows the power of the mind to see beyond the mundane and find deeper meaning within it. The house in "I dwell in Possibility-" is portrayed as ethereal and divine. The roof is "Everlasting" and it has "Gambrels of the Sky" (7 - 8). The roof is described as being impossibly tall, reaching up towards the sky, symbolic of the imagination's ability to find spirituality within everyday existence. In the poem, she also is figuratively able to hold Heaven in her hands: "The spreading wide my narrow Hands/ to gather Paradise - "(11 - 12)."
Abstract This paper analyzes how the author T.S. Eliot evaluated the highly private life of the poet Emily Dickinson. It looks at how T. S. Eliot evaluated Dickinson as a private individual that refused to be tainted by society and literary norms within 19th century poetry.
From the Paper "This study will analyze how the author T.S. Eliot evaluated the highly private life of the poet Emily Dickinson. In her poetic career, Dickinson was a private individual who refused social contact with her neighbors. By isolating herself from the community, her inward 'eye' of the soul could focus to a greater degree on her poetry. In this manner, T. S. Eliot evaluated Dickinson as a private individual that refused to be tainted by society and literary norms within 19th century poetry. Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and resided in Amherst, Massachusetts for all of her life. She was considered talented in her studies at Amherst Academy and Holyoke Female Seminary, forging an education that gave her the writing skills that would eventually become poetic masterpieces in American literature. "
Abstract This paper examines Elizabeth Dickinson's poem"Because I Could Not Stop for Death" and John Donne's poem "Death Be Not Proud," evaluating the technical style of each poem in terms of rhyme scheme, meter, syllables per line, etc., and comparing and contrasting them with regard to theme, appeal and interpretation.
From the Paper " Emily Dickinson's Because I could not stop for death and John Donne's Death be not proud are both poems that reflect upon the poets' personal concept of death. Both poets speak of death as if it were a person Dickinson speaking of it in the third.."
Tags: John Donne, Elizabeth Dickinson, Because I could not stop for death, Death be not proud, poetry
Abstract In this article the writer discusses Emily Dickinson's poems and letters and explores the issue of desire and sexuality. The writer contends that the images and metaphors in the letters suggests a writer vulnerable to strong emotions and sexuality.
Abstract This paper analyzes the personal lifestyle of the reclusive soul in the poetic works of Emily Dickinson. The author points out that, her various poems reflect her definition of the soul, through which the reader can understand her Puritanical upbringing that refused to be tainted by society at large. The paper relates that her privatization of poetry remains her identifying mark within her verse because she felt pre-destined to realize the purity in her ideology of the reclusive life.
From the Paper "This literature analysis presents the "reclusive soul" that was part of the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson. By analyzing her life in a biographical perspective, one can understand the deeply private and reclusive nature of Dickinson's life. Through a refusal to interact with society at large Dickinson felt that the soul should not be tarnished by external society, especially in preserving the poetic sanctuary of the individual. In this study, there will be an analysis that reflects the reclusive soul in Dickinson's life through biographical means, as well as through her poetry. Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and resided in Amherst, Massachusetts for all of her life."
Abstract The paper discusses how the various stages of Emily Dickinson's life tell a story about her ability to write great poetry. The paper explains that by being a young girl with a good religious education, she was able to take that learning into her early adult writings. Although she was not published a lot, she was able to gather a collection of poems that reflected her idea of the Puritan soul. The paper relates that by her old age, she was able to realize her best poetry by taking her life experiences and writing them down.
From the Paper "Her life in Massachusetts will help give an idea to how she suffered depression and isolation, but also how she was able to realize her soul through her writings. In this paper, the biography of Emily Dickinson will help the reader understand how important her story is to American poetry and to our national identity. Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and resided in Amherst, Massachusetts for all of her life. She was considered talented in her studies at Amherst Academy and Holyoke Female Seminary, forging an education that gave her the writing skills that would eventually become poetry masterpieces in American literature."
Abstract The following paper shows how the works of Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson all have an unreal quality about them as they are removed from real life and are emotional rather than intellectual.
From the paper:
"The subjects of Walt Whitman are wider ranging than Poe and Dickinson. They are also often on less emotional and more concrete subjects. Some of these subjects include the futility of war, love and separation, first love as well as more spiritual topics. What Whitman shares with Poe and Dickinson is the emotion levels of his work. In form, Whitman's poems are long. They are also more structured than Poe's, whose sentences tend to be short and stanzas tend to be irregular. Rhyme is used by Whitman though rhyme is sometimes unstructured and chaotic".
From the Paper "However, where Whitman characteristically moved to specify Identity in Variety, Dickinson characteristically found variety in her uniqueness. As a result, despite the fact that Whitman boasted with good cause that he had put a person down on paper, the sum total of Dickinson's poems comprises, in many respects, a more complete and immediate expression of an individual consciousness than Whitman ever achieved or, in a sense, wanted to achieve."
Abstract The writer compares the work of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson to draw similarities as well as differences in the styles, the tones and the themes of the poems. The paper shows how the poems have similarities in rhythm, pattern and theme, and yet they differ in delivery and context. Each is about pain and loneliness while they diverge in whether that loneliness causes anger or sadness for the narrator.
From the Paper "Walt Whitman was known for his ability to put prose into action and make the reader feel that they too share the narrator's body, mind and soul. His words whisper across a page and enter the depth of the reader's heart before the brain even realizes what the words have actually said. One of his most well loved works was Crossing Brooklyn Ferry in which the reader is given a peek into the soul and depth of pain that Whitman suffered through while he reflected and analyzed his own life. It was well known that many of his works were autobiographical in nature and this poem was another example of the things he lived and felt as he graced the world with his talent. Emily Dickinson was also known for her ability to spell out pain and emotion in the form of a poem. Her loneliness and depression are commonly accepted facts at this point in history but the way she displayed them gave the world classic words of pride to enjoy for all time. Her work often reflected the same type of deep and inner longing for connections to the world that Whitman wrote in his works."
Abstract This paper examines how nineteenth century American poets Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson project individual identities that achieve their power from within, thus placing a premium on the individual self. The paper shows how both poets also challenged the cultural assumptions on gender in the late nineteenth century. The paper analyzes and compares several works by both poets.
From the Paper "Like Whitman, the individual identity projected in this poem of Dickinson's achieves its power from within, from the solitary life, not from society. In many of Dickinson poem's she puts a premium on the individual self as something that is above being touched, it is, as she says in poem# 1351, "that indestructible estate"(584). In many of her poems the individual identity of the speaker achieves its power from within. For example, poem #540, "I took my power in my Hand and went against the World"(263-264). The significance of this similarity between Whitman and Dickinson is that it demonstrates how their poetry is very much in dialogue with the culture they wrote in, more specifically the intellectual milieu of late 19th Century New England. The fact that they share similar ideas about the individual self and project in their poetry an identity defined in opposition to society, is surely no coincidence."
Abstract This paper compares the works of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman in terms of their relative importance, and sense of self-importance, within the literary world of their time. Selected works of each author are discussed and compared for imagery and scale.
