1. EMILY DICKINSON AND WALT WHITMAN THE BRIDGE POETS – ROMANTICS & REALISTS The Introvert and The Extrovert

2. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) Wrote 1,175 poems and only 7 published before her death Very reclusive and dressed only in white few people outside of her family knew of her poetic genius Her poems were published by her family after her death

3. Dickinson’s Style Unique capitalization Unconventional punctuation – dashes Concise word choice Shortness of lines and stanza Unconventional rhymes  slant rhyme: final sounds are similar, not identical (ex. glove/prove, add/read, up/step) Untitled poems Lots of figurative language and imagery Themes  death/afterlife,  madness/suffering  Nature  love (often unrequited) Paired images  Light/dark, mind/body, bee/flower, life/death

4. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Widely recognized as one of the greatest and most influential US poets Opposed slavery Broke every poetic tradition of rhyme and meter Celebrated America and the common man Leaves of Grass – life work

5. Whitman’s Style (the way he uses language) Free verse – poetry that has irregular rhyme and meter Cadence – the rising and falling rhythm of speech Use of catalogs or long lists (usually as similes or metaphors) Imagery Parallelism – repetition of phrases or sentences with similar structures or meanings Repetition (also called “Anaphora”) Sound devices:  Alliteration - repeated use of consonant sound at the beginning of several words in the same phrase (ex. Few flocked to the fight.)  Assonance - repetition of vowel sounds (ex. purple curtain)  Consonance - repetition of two or more consonants in the middle or at the end of a word. (ex. All mammals named Sam are clammy.)  Onomatopoeia – imitation of sounds (ex. bang, boom, crack, meow)