Chapter Six

Whitman and Dickinson

--- Romantic Poetry

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.

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, printer’s apprentice, carpenter, schoolmaster, printer, editor (of 8 successive papers), and journalist

Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

3. The Publication of Leaves of Grass – Whitman’s 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

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:

• Emerson’s 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)

Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 5. Whitman’s 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”.

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. Whitman’s Influence • Whitman’s 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

Walt Whitman’s Poetry

• Song of MyselfI 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, form’d 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.

Out of the Cradle Endlessly RockingOut of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,Out of the Ninth-month midnight,Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,Down form the shower’d 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-arous’d 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.

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 feather’d 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 crouch’d 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.

Till of a sudden,May-be kill’d, unknown to her mate,

One afternoon the she-bird crouch’d not on the nest,Nor return’d that afternoon, nor the next

Nor ever appear’d 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 Paumanok’s shore;I 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.

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-sustain’d note I announce myself to you, This gentle call is for you my love, for you.

Do not be decoy’d 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.

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 Paumanok’s 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 aria’s 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 boy’s soul’s questions sullenly timing, some drown’d secret hissing,

To the outsetting bard.

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

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”

• “I’ll tell you how the sun rose”

Emily Dickinson’s Poem:249 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!

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 --

Chapter Six Whitman and Dickinson

• 6. Dickinson’s 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