Reddon 1 Meagan Reddon Dr. Chalmers Survey of American Literature I 15 December 2010 Whitman and Dickinson as Emerson s Poets Ralph Waldo Emerson calls for the rise of the true American poet in his essay The Poet. He is not asking for just any poet, though, who can put words onto a paper and claim it to be an expression. Emerson had very specific ideas about what it takes to be the kind of poet that America needed. This poet must be free from distraction, isolated from material motivations, and must see the potential for perfection -the potential for something greater than what lies on earth - in the beauty of nature everywhere. It is this poet s duty to be the seer and the sayer of humanity by expressing the human existence through language. The poetic duties are a great responsibility, for the poet is representative (Emerson 551). Emerson exemplified these qualities himself as a poet and he even quotes his own poetry in his essay, but ultimately, his writing in The Poet serves as a direction for poetic duties and a calling for one to rise. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were two who answered this call, but in very different ways. Although they found the extraordinary in the ordinary, their differences are apparent in their writing. In his poetry, Whitman set out to list anything and everything beautiful in sight. Some of his work almost screams I am here! I am the poet that you ve all been waiting for! He clearly laid out the things he wanted his reader to pay attention to and made obvious the things that he felt were important for the reader to take from his poetry. He wrote with arrogance in the sense that he felt as though he knew exactly what was required or wanted of a poet, at least from Emerson s kind of poet, and as though he was setting out and
Reddon 2 accomplishing just that. Whitman almost force feeds his meaning to his readers so that there is not a chance that they might miss something critical. He also intends to get his poetry to his reader one way or another; he took Emerson s instruction of publication very seriously, almost to a fault when he published with his work a letter that Emerson write to him personally and privately and [declared] his ambition to be the American bard ( Walt Whitman 1819-1892 993). Dickinson rose with more humility, however, as she captured smaller moments of life with her work and she is intentionally ambiguous in order to leave much definition to the imagination of her reader. Dickinson wants to generate intellectuality. Even though she was not as much dedicated to the idea of publication as Whitman was, she herself was devoted to the idea of reading great works of writing, such as by Shakespeare and Milton, and her own poetry is intended to be read as well. She creates her expression and then leaves the rest up to the reader to make of it what they will. Emerson calls for the poet to write down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though imperfect, become the song of nations and all men will be the richer after the experience of a poet s expression (Emerson 552, 553). Whitman and Dickinson are poets who rose and, with their poetry, created an intellectual response within their readers that I think was important to Emerson. Although Whitman was more externally motivated while Dickinson was driven more internally, both ways of looking at the world cause the reader to consider who they are and what their place is in terms of the larger scheme of nature. Emerson described this distinction between the self, as in the soul, and everything else, as in the body, other men, and all of nature, as the Me and the Not Me (Emerson 493). It is difficult to read Whitman s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry without a picture in the mind s eye of the very scene that Whitman himself drew his inspiration from. He writes with a
Reddon 3 purpose in the sense that he wants his readers to understand exactly what he is trying to say. He holds nothing back. Some, such as David Lehman, may say that Whitman is naturally gabby (which makes me think of a group of high-class mothers sitting around patio furniture, chatting about the latest neighborhood gossip, drinking mimosas while the toddlers play together in the backyard) and can t keep a secret about his private life, but I think most of Whitman s readers, and even Emerson himself, would disagree (11). Whitman sets out specifically to bear everything on his pages so that his readers take exactly what he wants them to take from his writing and he then expects a certain level of thoughtful reader response. By examining Whitman s poems, it is easy to see that Whitman is not simply gabby. Time and a sense of ongoingness are common tropes used by Whitman in his poetry. In Crossing Brooklyn Ferry there is a sense of a generational or time link that connects all people and all time. Already in sections one and two of the poem, Whitman introduces this link and uses repetition in his cataloguing technique to recreate an image, in this case, of crossing the river on the Brooklyn ferry. It may seem redundant The impalpable ; The simple ; The similitudes ; The glories and so on, and The others will enter ; The others will watch ; The others will see and so on, as seen in section two, among other places, as well as his listing off of as many details that his eyes can possibly encounter but it has a purpose; therefore it is not gabby (Whitman 1058). He concludes it with a personified connection to nature in you dumb, beautiful ministers and ties all of the preceding sections together into one cumulative meaning, whereas before the conclusion, each section seems almost independent from the others (Whitman 1061). In Song of Myself Whitman exemplifies Emerson s poet by his desire to connect to other men, also another aspect of the nature surrounding him that Emerson speaks so much of. In
Reddon 4 the first three lines in section one Whitman shows a desire for reader connection in saying For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. The same recurring theme of a generational link, a connection beyond space and time, shows up again right after this in the same section, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same (Whitman 1011). Whitman is Emerson s poet because he creates a meter-making argument instead of merely meters by putting together a pattern of pretty words (Walt Whitman 1819-1892 991). Emily Dickinson does the same kinds of things as far as creating an expression through a meter-making argument, but in a very different way. She took her poetry very seriously even though she did not place the importance on publication that Whitman did and she thought of Whitman as arrogant because of the way he intentionally demonstrated his poetic talents and assumed the role of Emerson s poet specifically. Dickinson was not necessarily a purely confessional or biographical poet, but it seems like she created expression out of the things that she knew and the things that she experienced herself, such as death and smaller observable moments that she witnessed in nature. Whitman did the same thing, but he was constantly connecting himself to the big picture, to all of time, while Dickinson captures a single moment in time and leaves the rest up to the reader. Her poetry is about a more internal connection with nature, as with emotions and her own more humble place in the world, and I think her intention is to create a thoughtful pondering in the reader about their own emotions, their own internal processes and places in the world. It is different for Dickinson, though, because, unlike Whitman who wants his readers to see and think exactly what he is seeing and thinking, she wants her readers to draw upon their own intellectuality and make up their own minds. Although she directly asks for her readers to judge tenderly, almost
Reddon 5 everything in her work is ambiguous, allowing for virtually any interpretation possible (Dickinson 1215). Her poetry is puzzling because [it is] deliberately obscure and this, along with the way she completely captures such ordinary moments and turns them into extraordinary things through her expression, is precisely the way Dickinson answers the Emerson s call for an the poet (Emsley 250). For example, I heard a fly buzz when I died she captures one small moment, the one right before death, and creates an image of a deathbed scene with relatives standing around and then, all of a sudden, the buzzing of a fly breaks the silence of the grief. This poem can be read as simply as a remembrance from beyond the grave that recreates this last dying minute in time or, when looking deeper, it can be read as complexly as a story that shows how life goes on even in death (Dickinson 1215). Also, Tell all the truth but tell it slant is a poem that can be read in so many ways. Readers may take it as a poem about the tangled web of lie after lie after lie or they may read it as a proclamation that sometimes lying is not so bad, that the entirety of the pure truth is too overwhelming, and therefore we should not tell all truth to others, or, therefore we, as humans, do not have the capacity to handle the ultimate Truth (Dickinson 1221). Whitman rises with an external answer to Emerson s calling as he reacts to the nature that surrounds him and reporting on it for the world to see, while Dickinson answers internally with poetic accounts of human emotions. Whitman s poetry teaches a very specific moment and causes readers to think about where they stand in the world in regards to other men and the rest of nature. Dickinson s poetry leaves a tiny piece of time on the table of the reader and causes them to think about who they are to themselves and to their emotions. Emerson s vision of the American poet came to life in two very different forms in Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson.
Reddon 6 Work Cited Dickinson, Emily. I heard a fly buzz when I died. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1215. ---. Tell all the truth but tell it slant. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1221. ---. This is my letter to the world. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1215. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Poet. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 550-565. Emily Dickinson 1830-1886. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1197-1200. Emsley, Sarah. Is Emily Dickinson a Metaphysical Poet? Canadian Review of American Studies 33.3 (2003): 249-265. Lehman, David. The Visionary Walt Whitman. The American Poetry Review (2008): 11-13. Ryan, Michael. Dickinson s Stories. The American Poetry Review (2009): 5-6. Walt Whitman 1819-1892. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 991-995. Whitman, Walt. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1057-1062. ---. Song of Myself. The Norton Anthology: American Literature, Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. 1011-1057.