Wild Nights And Plunging Tongues Emily Hellip 
Shelby Pletcher
American Literature Since Whitman
Dr. Hada
1/27/2015
“Wild Nights and Plunging Tongues”: A Comparison of the Incomparable
Emily Dickinson, a well-regarded poet from the 19th century, once wrote in her poem titled Tell all the truth but tell it slant - , “The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind - “. (lines 7-8) These two simple lines connect two otherwise very different poets from across the board. For anybody whom has not read anything from Dickinson, or perhaps even from her -- as rather arguable this may be -- poetic revolutionary counterpart, Walt Whitman, these two lines well summarize decades of works. Whitman and Dickinson were two different people and artists who came from two different backgrounds. However, all of these things become irrelevant as you plunge into their writings. Unmistakably, both of these American poets defied the culture’s literature and ultimately, its ideals. While their styles reflected it differently, both authors were gifted in finding the lines that best spoke the longings of a generation that pushed the turn of a great cultural period. And they both did in ways that truly “dazzled gradually”.
More often than not, Dickinson found herself writing more about the doubts, fears and darkness of the human spirit, clear as day and succumbed as it was to her conscious. While Whitman chose to put into a specific language the deepest passions of the human soul, ideally and rather optimistically described. Both poets accomplished these writing styles in ways that weren’t like a smack in the face to its reader, but rather more like a curtain slowing opening to a whole new world of questions and ideas. Especially in a time where war was on the central agenda of their society, Dickinson and Whitman used their writing styles to express the questions they were asking themselves and the desires they felt prickling at their spirits. And eventually, ended up expressing such ideas and thoughts to an entire
American Literature Since Whitman
Dr. Hada
1/27/2015
“Wild Nights and Plunging Tongues”: A Comparison of the Incomparable
Emily Dickinson, a well-regarded poet from the 19th century, once wrote in her poem titled Tell all the truth but tell it slant - , “The truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind - “. (lines 7-8) These two simple lines connect two otherwise very different poets from across the board. For anybody whom has not read anything from Dickinson, or perhaps even from her -- as rather arguable this may be -- poetic revolutionary counterpart, Walt Whitman, these two lines well summarize decades of works. Whitman and Dickinson were two different people and artists who came from two different backgrounds. However, all of these things become irrelevant as you plunge into their writings. Unmistakably, both of these American poets defied the culture’s literature and ultimately, its ideals. While their styles reflected it differently, both authors were gifted in finding the lines that best spoke the longings of a generation that pushed the turn of a great cultural period. And they both did in ways that truly “dazzled gradually”.
More often than not, Dickinson found herself writing more about the doubts, fears and darkness of the human spirit, clear as day and succumbed as it was to her conscious. While Whitman chose to put into a specific language the deepest passions of the human soul, ideally and rather optimistically described. Both poets accomplished these writing styles in ways that weren’t like a smack in the face to its reader, but rather more like a curtain slowing opening to a whole new world of questions and ideas. Especially in a time where war was on the central agenda of their society, Dickinson and Whitman used their writing styles to express the questions they were asking themselves and the desires they felt prickling at their spirits. And eventually, ended up expressing such ideas and thoughts to an entire