Whitman & Dickinson-Nature Death & Immortality Essay Example

an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass—And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass”.

Her words are deep, but simple she makes it easy for her readers to understand and relate to what she is saying. Watching a Bird from a far, admiring his way of life, she sees the bird hunt for food and then ate it raw. Just like humans, the bird was thirsty and needed something to drink, she watched as the bird drank dew from the blades of grass. Nature has a way of capturing the audience and Dickinson’s words enhance the imagination of what is being processed. Two Butterflies went out at Noon—and waltzed above a Farm— then stepped straight through the Firmament, and rested on a Beam—and then—together bore away, upon a shining Sea— though never yet, in any Port—their coming mentioned—be”.

Two Butterflies went out at Noon, was another poem written by Dickinson about nature and its way of life. Her observance of nature and time spent writing about nature she never becomes one with nature. Walt Whitman has a different love for nature in his writing. His poems are narrated with him becoming nature.

A Song to Myself was a poem written by Whitman, “My respiration and inspiration.... he beating of my heart... the passing of blood and air through my lungs, The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark colored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn, The sound of the belched words of my voice.... words loosed to the eddies of the wind”. Whitman’s written words

of nature are similar to that of Dickinson’s but different in that the meaning is much deeper. In this passage he speaks of life, how ones respiration system operates by the beat of his heart, the blood and air passing through his lungs allows him to breathe and smell the leaves, the ocean, and the barn.

It is far more than an observance of nature but acting on nature’s behalf and being able to live and breathe in air himself. This was one style of nature writing for Whitman, in his poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” he takes a different approach and finds himself observing nature as well finding himself in nature, “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”.

The boy narrating this poem finds himself watching birds over a period of time. He sees the same routine day after day, between the love birds, and without disturbing them, he admires them from a far. One bird leaves the nest and the other bird is left wondering, and crying out to the other. The boy looks to the ocean for an answer to the birds cry. The ocean confirms the birds mate has died. Whitman may have seen himself in the boy that has experienced nature, love, and death in the same poem. This is one poem that he has touched all bases and just a touch of Whitman’s work ending with death.

Life after death was often a highlight that both

Whitman and Dickinson wrote about. Death impacted those that were still left on earth more than the deceased. Emily Dickinson’s poetry became famous after she passed away. She was a private person and very introverted, so those that knew of her poetry, were close family and friends in letters she had wrote to them. The irony of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson writing about death is that they both wrote poems about death and life after death, but when they both passed away their work became well known and now they are well known across the globe.

Whispers of Heavenly Death was written by Whitman a few lines from this poem that combine death and nature, “Whispers of heavenly death murmur'd I hear, labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals, footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low, ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing, (Or is it the plashing of tears? The measureless waters of human tears? )”. Death here is meant to be gentle, and Whitman compares it to the ripples of the ocean, soft breezes, and tides of flowing water which is actually the tears of those mourning this death he is speaking of.

A slightly different approach to death is A Voice of Death. “Yea, Death, we bow our faces, veil our eyes to thee, we mourn the old, the young untimely drawn to thee, the fair, the strong, the good, the capable, the household wreck'd, the husband and the wife, the engulfed forger in his forge, the corpses in the whelming waters and the mud, the gather'd thousands to their funeral mounds, and thousands never found or gather'd”.

This voice of death is not so calm and peaceful, it’s full of sorrow, and sadness. He speaks of death for all ages, people of good, strong, and fair nature, death has no time limit, it can happen to anyone at anytime.

At the end of this passage, Whitman mentions the corps in the waters and mud, referring back to nature and where the body goes after death. He speaks of death but quite often mentions nature as one cannot stand alone without the other. Emily Dickenson has a different approach to death than Walt Whitman. Her style is more simplistic yet abrupt. In Drowning is not so pitiful, Dickinson writes about death verses a life of misery. “Drowning is not so pitiful, as the attempt to rise, three times, 'tis said, a sinking man, comes up to face the skies, and then declines forever , to that abhorred abode, where hope and he part company”.

In the first two lines of this poem Dickinson speaks of death being better than a person living their life in high hopes but can never get ahead and still doesn’t rise. He loses hope that his life will be any better and dies. Dickinson had the choice of keeping hope alive for this man but chose for him to give up hope, drown in his sorrows and for his life to be over. The double standard in this poem is that of religion. One should not be afraid to die that believes in God because you will be welcomed by Him in His kingdom and live life eternally in heaven, but is it better to live holding on to hope

or to die and leave the earth?

This may be a reflection of what Dickinson was experiencing in her life at the time she wrote this poem. Straddling between life and death during times of depression, and unsure what her life had to offer at the time. A poem similar in tone, There’s a certain slant of light, reads “Heavenly hurt it gives us; We can find no scar, but internal difference, where the meanings are…when it comes, the landscape listens, shadows hold their breath; when it goes, 't is like the distance, on the look of death. Dickinson writes about death and how it effects those left behind. The hurt is not something seen but the pain is internal, death has a silence that it brings to those surrounded by it and as time goes by, the death of a loved one becomes more distant in the minds of those left behind. It has been shown that these two poets have their own unique style, whether it’s that of Whitman, a complex rhythmic structure, or of Dickinson, a more simplistic, yet bold punctuation and grammar style, they both have changed the way American poetry is perceived.

The issues of life then can still be applied to the lives of those reading their poems centuries later. Today, life and death still exist, and reading of the everyday life’s of people, birds, the ocean, and all that nature holds then, is all still true now. We can relate to depression, mourning, love, and hope, even with two different styles of writing, Dickinson and Whitman both achieved the same goal of being a great American poet that any human

being can read their works and in some way relate to the words these poets once wrote many years ago.