Poetic Innovation In Whitman's Song Of Myself By Emily Dickinson

However, while Emily Dickinson is credited with a certain amount of poetic innovation in the nineteenth century her influence was less direct than Whitman (Pöhlmann). Whitman took a more intellectual journey in his departure from a more classical poetical style Compared to Dickinson. He rejected the notion of using stereotypical language as well as the limitations poetic metre placed on poets (Rehman), preferring to use the vocabulary of Americans at the time over the more refined vernacular of a more elite class. This had the effect of bringing poetry closer to a more realism poetical style as well as making poetry easier to comprehend by American readers. This gave Whitman something Dickinson did not really have while she was alive, an audience. At the heart of Whitman’s Plethora of poetry is the collection Leaves of Grass Which Whitman constantly edited and changed throughout his life. The collection contained one of Whitman’s most famous poems Song of Myself. The collection can be a metaphor for Whitman’s poetic innovation. Undergoing constant revisions by Whitman the poem shows the changes and the developments that he would make to his poetry throughout his long career as a literary author. While other contemporary writers at the time such as Edgar Allan Poe who wrote literature such as The Raven and Henry Wadsworth “would use a first person singular only as a generic speaker in their poems” (Casale). Whitman instead choose to write about the first person with which he