Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Journal#42: Dickinson or Whitman?

If I lived at the same time that Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were writing, I really don't think I would like either of them very much. The time period has nothing to do with anything. The only bearing it would have on my opinion would be that it was new poetry, rather than the "classic" stuff that it is taught as today. Sure, it might have been shocking to some people, but whether it was shocking or not, it doesn't really effect the overall quality of the poem. Personally, I don't think that I would have been able to read the poetry of the time. If I was actually in that time period, and that poetry was really considered that shocking, I doubt that my mother would have let me read such things. I doubt that anyone's mothers would approve. Especially because Whitman's topics include such things as homosexuality and incest. My mom doesn't even like me reading anything like that nowadays. I can't even imagine what she would be like almost a hundred years ago. I have a feeling that I would still find them boring. I would probably have to say that - if I really had to choose - I would like Whitman better. I think I enjoy reading maybe five or six of Whitman's poems as opposed to three or four of Dickinson's. Also, Dickinson's subject matter seems boring to me. Honestly, how much life experience can a shut in have? At least Whitman was out in the world doing things. Dickinson was just watching the birds in her garden. They were both pretty pompous in their writing though. They probably thought they were so cool, being a bridge between Realism and Modernism. In the words of Shania Twain, "That don't impress me much." Also, the fact that I was forced to read their work in class puts a damper on my enjoyment of their work. Had I read them of my own volition, I might have actually enjoyed them.

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