2. Two Transitional Writers Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are included in the Romantic Period in our textbook. Yet they could also be placed comfortably in the post-Civil War era of American Realism. This is because they were both involved in making the transition between Romanticism and Realism.

3. “The Poet of the Inner-Soul” Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and was destined to become one of the greatest poets of all time. Like many authors, Dickinson was not known until after her death in 1886. She was, in fact, a very reclusive and quiet woman who hardly ever left her home town. The picture you see here is one of two known photos of Emily.

4. 7 Poems During her lifetime, only seven poems of Emily Dickinson’s were published. These, in fact, were poems that she had written to other people who then had them published. It is not known if she even knew that any of her poems had ever been published.

5. Possible Answers to the Mystery Emily’s sheltered life may have been the result of the death of family members and friends. The more likely notion is that she had had some failures in love. Even though she shut herself away from the world, it is clear that she valued the few friends that she had.

6. Failures in Love There were at least three men in her life that could have “broken her heart.” But her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert, to whom she wrote hundreds of letters, might have also been a love interest. Though there is no proof of homosexuality, it is easy to see why something like that, which was so frowned upon in the 1800’s,could have driven her into her private world.

7. Another Possibility Emily was educated at Amherst Academy which had started taking female students two years before she enrolled. The she entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. The founder, Mary Lyon, ranked students of the basis of those who would receive God’s grace, those who had some hope, and those who had no hope at all. She placed Emily in the last category.

8. Her Own Religion Not having “conventional” religious views may have also contributed to Emily’s isolation. She refused to sign an oath to dedicate her life to Jesus Christ and she dropped out of school. Even so, she clearly had a belief in God and heaven, but it was different than the views held by her peers.

9. The Men In Emily’s Life Her father, a lawyer, to whom she was very close was probably the model for what she looked for in male friendship. His death was a devastating loss. The first man was Benjamin Newton who studied law under her father. He taught her to see what was “good and beautiful” in nature and encouraged her to write poetry.

10. Man #2 She began a friendship with Charles Wadsworth of Philadelphia. He was married and they corresponded regularly. He visited her twice. She called him her “dearest earthly friend.” In 1862, he moved to San Francisco, and she was devastated. Soon afterwards, she withdrew from Amherst society. Even her best friends rarely saw her unless it was out working in her beloved garden.

11. Man #3 The third man was the writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson who was known for encouraging younger writers. She sent him a brief note with four of her poems with the message: “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive?” He was fascinated and asked for more poems.

12. Her Poetry Emily probably wanted to have her poems published but on her own terms, and it seemed that publishers were unwilling to take a risk with them—they were very unconventional at the time. Higginson thought that Walt Whitman (next) influenced her poems, but she said that she never read his poetry because she heard his poetry was “disgraceful.”

13. Her Own Style sing-song quality similar, in many ways, to the old ballads of the English and Irish people. alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. There is a gem-like depth of thought in her simple lines. She knew what she wanted to say and was precise in her ways of saying it.

14. Her “Letters to the World” Without a publisher, Emily kept on writing her poetry privately. In one poems she calls them “my letters to the world which never wrote to me.” She tied them up in little blue ribbons and hid them away in drawers and boxes.

15. Emily’s Death in 1886 When Emily died, her sister Lavinia was in charge of Emily’s estate. Lavinia knew that Emily wrote some poems, but imagine her surprise when she started going through Emily’s stuff.

16. Abandoned literary convention recluse/ shy Confident self-published allowed for a future of poetic experimentation precise language Message to the future Catalogue Slant Rhyme Cadence

17. Walt Whitman “I celebrate myself…” Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on South Huntington, Long Island, New York. He was almost entirely self-education, especially admiring the work of Dante, Shakespeare, and Homer. His mother described him as “very good, but very strange.” His brother described him as being “stubborner [sic] than a load of bricks.”

18. “I celebrate myself…” Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819 on South Huntington, Long Island, New York. He was almost entirely self-education, especially admiring the work of Dante, Shakespeare, and Homer. His mother described him as “very good, but very strange.” His brother described him as being “stubborner [sic] than a load of bricks.”

19. Career Apprenticed to a printer. Taught school at 17. Editor of The Brooklyn Eagle, a respected newspaper, but was fired for his outspoken opposition to slavery. Civil War nurse.

20. Whitman’s Poetry Whitman declared his poetry would have: Long lines that capture the rhythms of natural speech. Free verse. Vocabulary drawn from everyday speech. A base in reality, not morality.

21. What’s his deal? Why were so many writers shocked by Whitman? His lack of regular rhyme and meter (free verse) and nontraditional poetic style and subject matter shocked more traditional writers. He also wrote poetry with unabashedly sexual imagery and themes.

22. O Captain! My Captain! Whitman wrote poetry in praise of Abraham Lincoln “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” (an elegy written after Lincoln’s assassination). “O Captain! My Captain!” memorializes Lincoln’s passing as the death of a great man and the death of the era he dominated. It was used to great effect in Dead Poets’ Society.

23. Whitman’s Influence Along with Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman stands as one of two giants of American poetry in the nineteenth century. Whitman’s poetry would influence such Harlem Renaissance writers as Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson. Whitman influenced Beat poets such as Allen Ginsburg. Chilean writer Pablo Neruda claimed to have been influenced by Whitman. Whitman’s poetry was a model for French symbolists, such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud. Modernist poets such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and W.H. Auden were also influenced by Whitman.