The Identity Of Edgar Allan Poe And Emily Dickinson

American literature has been evolving since the dawn of the Puritan exploration and colonization in the early 1600s. From John Smith's books and descriptions of Native American life to the revolutionary ideas of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, literature has had many forms and has taken many ideas across time to interpreted by scholars of today. The early Americans were very successful in creating a style of literature that has a complete web of genres to be examined, as well as some genres being sourced more than others. These distinctions only help to prove the diversity of American literature from 1607 to the present day.

Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe were histories most proficient writers and their work speaks for itself. They were born in the same time frame and they knew a lot about each other’s work. Their life lessons are what contributed to their remarkable poetry writing and what made them who they are today. Poe and Dickinson do share similar topics in their poetry writing, some are also dissimilar in which all of them focuses a lot on pain, death, love and nature.

The nineteenth century produced many esteemed authors, including Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman who became two of Americas most popular poets. While vastly different in style and personality, both Dickinson and Whitman relate to many people on an emotional level through their poetry, even in the twenty-first century. The works of poetry by Dickinson and Whitman can be compared on levels of style and form and both writers composed beautiful verses of high quality. Through the following comparisons, it will become apparent how Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman influenced American literature and culture both in similar and diverse ways.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe are two of the biggest poets in American Literature from the 1800s. They had many things in common from their writings about death and sadness, because of their unfortunate losses in life, to the fact that they were both born in Massachusetts. They were also different in many ways. They were different in the way they looked at life and wrote about their experiences from it. While it is obvious they had many differences, they also had many things in common from their lives to their styles of writing making them amazing writers.

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe is an example of Dark Romanticism. This poem is a form of Dark Romanticism because it depicts what can happen to some people if you push them to their limit, they may resort to madness. It also shows the evil side of people and the sins they can commit while in their state of madness. These are just some of characteristics of Dark Romanticism.

Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were American writers who are said to belong to the Dark Romanticism. This literary subgenre of Romanticism is featured by the representation of individuals as prone to sin and self-destruction. It does not deal with man as innate perfect creatures who are devine and full of wisdom. Moreover, it sees nature not as divine, but sinister. The natural word is dark, decaying and mysterious. In my opinion, The Masque of the Red Death and Young Goodman Brown are great examples of Dark Romanticism.

Since the emergence of written history, many fables regarding war have encompassed a significant portion of prosodic literature. Two of the foremost war poets of the 19th and 20th century—Emily Dickinson and Rupert Brooke—have both written about profound implications of war on society and also upon the human spirit albeit in two very different styles. The book, Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, theorizes through Allie, that Emily Dickinson was indubitably the superior war poet. Furthermore, when we analyze their works as well, we realize the invariable fact that Dickinson’s work delves into war with a much more holistic approach as well. She not only honours the soldiers for their valiant efforts, but also deftly weaves notions of liberty and civilian duty in regards to war as well as compared to Rupert Brooke who carried a romanticized imagery of martyrs within his poetry. In summation, Emily Dickinson is a superior war poet for her incisive analysis of death, and human nature in correspondence to war as compared to the patriotic salvos of Rupert Brooke’s poetry.

War poetry displays an accurate representation of the sensations felt during the horrid times of battle. In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, D.B. asks Allie, “who was the best war poet, Rupert Brooke or Emily Dickinson” (140). The question proposed can be answered with many different opinions, as the individual's knowledge and understanding of each poet will impact their decision. In contrast to Rupert Brooke, Emily Dickinson is clearly the superior war poet as she portrays soldiers and the idea of death in an insightful manner, which causes the reader to go beyond their comprehension of the words to recognize the full potential of the poem.

Dark Romanticism is a literary subgenre which emphasizes on a sinful side of a human; the authors who followed this movement were interested in psychology and morality. Edgar Allan Poe, who was strongly interested in self-destructive human nature, and Herman Melville, whose themes of mystery and madness are also very remarkable, were other famous representatives of this literary movement. Sometimes Dark Romanticism is said to be close to the Transcendentalism literary movement, though they are quite different. Transcendentalism

The American Literature was formed by the history of the state that produced it just like in other nationwide literature. America was just a cluster of colonies scattered alongside the eastern seaboard of the North American continent for approximately a century and a half. After they had succeeded in the rebellion against the motherland, it was named the Unites States (Skipp, pg. 45). The rise of science and industry during all these struggles of power as well as changes in the ways of thinking and feeling created many alterations in people’s lives. All these factors led to the molding of the American literature.

I'm Nobody! Who are you? by Emily Dickinson reminds me of the song, "You belong with me" by Taylor Swift. These two works speak of the author being behind the scenes in life. The writers are unnoticed by society and watch life from the back of the room. Content to watch life play out for others, without the inconvenience of social rules and etiquette. Swift proudly sings "She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers" (Swift). Dickinson and Swift, in reality, are nothing alike, Swift is a brash famous woman, while Dickenson was a recluse. This work is excitedly unemotional while imparting wisdom. Dickinson's poem playfully speaks of human's social fears through voice, conventional symbols, and stanza.

Over time, American literature endlessly altering, captured various forms of ideologies and perspectives of society. In the 19th and early twentieth century, American Literature took on different stages and outcomes of the time from realism, naturalism, imagism, and modernism.

Dark romanticism is a subgenre of writing that took a different approach to the fantasy, and it submerged into American literature in 1800-1860. And it emphasized humans weakness and vulnerability to sin and destruction. The main characteristic of this genre was horrific themes and creepy symbols. Since many famous writers wielded it into their writings such as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Emily Dickenson.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson is one of the best poets in America. She is known for her uncommon way of writing poetry. There was a great deal of problems going on in her life. She spent mostly her entire life living in her home and only left unless she needed to do so. Unlike other poets, she did not have any order to her writings. She just wrote what she was feeling. Her work was anonymously published and later became known after her death.

In America, the American Renaissance was the period in 1835-1880 in which United States literature came of age as an expression of a national spirit. Literature became one of the most historically significant effects that occurred throughout the time period of the American Renaissance. The American Renaissance is also characterized by renewed national self-confidence new ideas and technologies. Politically and economically, this era coincides with the Gilded Age and the New Imperialism. By the end of the eighteenth century, Enlightenment secularism made profound progress into American thoughts. “…the United States in the nineteenth century was an infant republic swaddled in the rational ideas of the Enlightenment.” (Tindall 492) The