Good Example Of Essay On Emily Dickinson And Walt Whitman

IMAGERY IN THE POEMS OF

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, the prolific American poets, enchant their readers through their excellent poetic compositions. The poets are keen observers who inspect nature and judiciously choose appropriate images that highlight the key aspects of their poems. The poems written by these two poets draw on exceptional imagery that helps the reader to perfectly visualize their envisioned feelings and implications.
Emily Dickinson exuberantly writes about nature, love, death, immortality, pain, miseries, God and faith. “Because I could not stop for Death” portrays an incredible gentleman who takes a comfortable carriage ride along with the poet to her grave. The incredible gentleman is none other than the personified death, who makes the appearance as a nobleman. The poem’s aesthetic charm lies in its profuse manifestation of symbols, imagery, and allegory that convey the essence of Dickinson’s ideas. The verbatim “death” is linked with fear and panic, but the poet’s “Setting Sun,” Gazing grain,” the children, etc. enlivens the ambience and death becomes a comfortable companion who “knew no haste” and “kindly stopped for” the poet. The splendid pictorial description makes the somber theme, lyrical and poetic.
Walt Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider” radiantly melds vivid imagery. “A NOISELESS, patient spider, / I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; / Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding” (“A Noiseless Patient Spider” Lines 1-3) portrays the picture of a spider that stands alone. The poet brilliantly brings in his sense of loneliness through this spectacular image of the spider on the web. The poet, even brings out his predicament in the vast universe by hinting at the spider’s condition, “Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;” (8). The poet fails to relate to and discover any meaning in his life. It is amazing to read through the lines that say: “Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold; / Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul” (9- 10). The poet compares the spider to his soul and the whole poem is like a beautiful painting that enthralls the readers.