Emily Dickinson’s life was not that of a conventional young lady of the nineteenth century. The men of her family were all lawyers, many turned to politics as well, and she often felt the limitations of her gender, writing to her future sister-in-law and friend Susan Gilbert, "Why can't I be a Delegate to the great Whig Convention?—don’t I know all about Daniel Webster, and the Tariff and the Law?" (Crumbley ¶ 2). Another incident that showed and likely promoted her individuality occurred in the years 1847-1848 while she studied at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary; when she “acquired limited notoriety as the one student unwilling to publicly confess faith in Christ. Designated a person with "no hope" of salvation, she keenly felt her isolation” (Crumbley ¶ 4).
Over the years, Dickinson removed herself from society, but kept up her close personal friendships and lively conversations through letters with friends and other literary figures such as Helen Hunt Jackson (Crumbley ¶ 5). She never published a collection of poems in her lifetime; it is likely she was well aware of the non-conformist nature of her poetry when she wrote lines such as “Assent, and you are sane;/ Demur,--you’re straightaway dangerous,/ And handled with a chain” (Dickinson 8). Her inability due to gender to follow the family’s vocation as well as her experience with notoriety at Mount Holyoke led her to realize that she could enjoy the most freedom in her writing if she did not share it, did not publish, and did not aspire for literary fame. This is reflected in poems with lines like, “The soul selects her own society,/ Then shuts the door;/ On her divine majority/ Obtrude no more” and “His is the halcyon table/ that never seats but one,/ And whatsoever is consumed/ The same amounts remain” (Dickinson 9, 20). Although in 1862, she sent a letter including four of her poems to essayist Thomas Wentworth Higginson for “a professional opinion,” he rejected the poems, most likely because of their unorthodox style and form (Dickinson xvii). Fortunately, after her death, her sister Lavinia found Dickinson’s large collection of poetry, and in 1890 a collection was published to great acclaim (Dickinson xvii).
Non-conformity does not mean artists ignore what is going on in the world during their lives. Walt Whitman, though non-conforming in his style, was very much immersed in his world and writing before, during, and after a crucial time for America, the Civil War. Born in his family’s farmhouse on Long Island in 1819, the predominantly self-educated Whitman grew up proceeding through a multitude of careers including printing, school teaching, journalist, newspaper editor, self-publisher, bohemian, nurse to northern and confederate soldiers, and government worker (Price and Folsom). However, no matter what his particular career was at the time, his undying passion was writing poetry and seeing to the publication and promotion of the various editions of Leaves of Grass. Paging through Leaves of Grass and comparing it to the poetry of Whitman’s contemporaries shows the vast difference between his poetry and that of the others; the free-form almost looks like prose, but the words and rhythm are definitely poetry.
Perhaps part of the reason why Whitman broke away from the traditional forms of poetry is because he saw himself as an American poet, and America was a relatively new country, therefore deserving a new kind of verse. In the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, he writes, “As if the opening of the western continent by discovery and what has transpired since in North and South America were less than the small theatre of the antique or the aimless sleepwalking of the middle ages!” (McQuade 2427). Whitman saw the greatness of America as being the product of the efforts of the common man and not an aristocracy, and as a poet, he could put their emotions and accomplishments into words “without aristocratic airs, without elite schooling, without the weary formalities of tradition” (Price and Folsom).
A particularly intriguing aspect of Whitman’s poetry is his focus on the self and his use of “I” throughout his work. For instance, a few lines he writes in Leaves of Grass are, “Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?/ Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel’d with doctors and calculated close,/ I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones” (McQuade 2455). Though the “I” he refers to can mean Whitman himself, the poet, it also is meant to represent an American, the great common man constructing the country.
Looking back at my own life, I remember one particular instance when I went against the norm in high school. I was a student on the “academic” or college-bound track, and it was a given that such students would take the complete course of science classes offered at the school, from biology in 10th grade to a finale with Physics in the senior year. My older sister who graduated the year before followed this route, and from this I learned that the only Physics teacher at our high school was a terrible instructor; he rarely talked about Physics in class, preferring to rant about articles he read in the National Enquirer and other superficialities. My sister, who was salutatorian of her class, needed to tutor outside of school to be able to pass that class. As I made my schedule for senior year, I decided that the Physics class was not worth my time, and took Art I instead. My friends were shocked and appalled that I made this decision. As Dickinson wrote in her poem, “The Duel,” “I took my power in my hand/ And went against the world ;/ ‘T was not so much as David had,/ But I was twice as bold” (Dickinson 55). However, unlike Dickinson’s subject I did not lose my “duel,” and have never regretted my decision.
Works Cited
Crumbley, Paul. Emily Dickinson’s Life. Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois, 2001. Web. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dickinson/bio.htm
Dickinson, Emily. Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. Eds. Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson. Avenel, NJ: Gramercy. 1982. Print.
Gilbert, Sandra. The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Tradition in English. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 1985. Print.
McQuade, Donald. The Harper American Literature, Vol 1. New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1994. Print.
Price, Kenneth M. and Folsom Ed. About Walt Whitman. Modern American Poetry. University of Illinois, 1998. Web. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/whitman/bio.htm
