How History Influences Texts

1. How History Influences Texts American Masters: Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson

2. Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) • One of the most influential poets in the American canon • Called “the father of free verse,” but he did not invent it • Concerned with politics, opposed to slavery

3. Free Verse TWPS (Think Write Pair Share) • On your own, describe what you think “free verse” might mean…

4. Free Verse • Verse composed of variable, usually unrhymed lines having no fixed metrical pattern. • Follows the natural pattern of speaking.

5. Philosophical / Political Assumptions Whitman’s Poetry . . . • Presents all humans as brothers and sisters (an egalitarian view of the races) • Celebrates America’s democratic spirit and the heroism within common Americans • Has a distinctly American voice (he is called America’s first “poet of democracy”)

6. What is egalitarian? • Adjective: Affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people.

7. Style • Breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like • Includes unusual images and symbols, such as rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris • “Taboo” subjects such as death and sexuality are discussed openly

8. How is the symbolism similar and different to the Romantics? TPWS • Similar • Different

9. Whitman’s Poetic Elements • Cadence – the natural, rhythmic rise and fall of language as it is normally spoken • Catalog poem – a list of things, people, events or ideas • Free verse – poetry without rhyme or meter • Repetition – repeating words, sounds, syllables, or other elements

10. Category Poem: Use one of the following words to write a category poem of 7-10 lines: • School • Obama • Facebook • Nature

11. Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) • Published only seven poems during her lifetime, and even these were significantly altered by publishers to bring them in line with conventional poetic rules of the time • Most of her remaining poems (nearly 1800 of them) discovered in attic after her death • Editors and critics were skeptical of her talent during her lifetime and into the early 20th century • Now considered to be a major American poet

12. Philosophical / Political Assumptions • Left no formal statement of her aesthetic intentions • Her work does not conveniently fit into any one genre • Her poetry often deals with themes of death and immortality

13. Style • No titles • Short lines • Slant rhymes • Unconventional capitalization & punctuation • Extensive use of dashes • Idiosyncratic vocabulary and imagery

14. Types of poems • Flower / Garden: in these poems, flowers are often symbols of emotions or actions • Master (or Signor): many poems address an unnamed “Master,” “Sir,” or “Signor,” who she calls her “lover for all eternity” • Morbidity: numerous poems reveal fascination with illness, dying, and death • Gospel: poems addressed to Christ or concerned with his teachings • Landscape of the Spirit: poems describe conversations with her own soul or visits to an imaginary landscape where her soul or spirit reside

15. Dickinson’s Poetic Elements • Analogy – A comparison made between two things to show how they are alike • Irony – A discrepancy between appearances and reality • Slant rhyme – A rhyming sound that is not exact

16. Common Poetic Elements • Imagery – the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, thing, place, or experience • Symbol – A person, place, thing or event that has meaning in itself and also stands for something more than itself • Metaphor – A figure of speech that compares two unlike things without using like,as, than or resembles • Simile – A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using like, as, than, or resembles • Personification – A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes

17. Quick Write • Of American Masters, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, which one are you most looking forward to reading ? Explain why.