American Literature / Unit 10 AML 0924 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Telling Whitman From Dickinson on Sight
The idea
No two American poets are easier to separate, and three features settle it in seconds. The line: Whitman's run long, often past the width of the page, unrhymed, built from parallel grammar and repeated openings, while Dickinson's are short, usually four-line stanzas alternating eight and six syllables. The punctuation: Whitman uses commas and semicolons to keep a catalogue moving, while Dickinson uses dashes that break the line open and capitals in the middle of sentences. The scale of address: Whitman speaks outward to a nation, a crowd, a reader he claims as part of himself, while Dickinson speaks inward from a single consciousness, often about one moment, often about death. If the poem lists, it is Whitman; if it stops, it is Dickinson.
In practice
Long and outward, or short and inward.
Where people slip
Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" is rhymed and regular, so a rhymed Civil War poem in stanzas is not automatically someone else's. Check the scale of address before the shape.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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