Emily Dickinson Vs. Walt Whitman: Comparing Themes Of Desire And Fulfillment
Emily Dickinson’s and Walt Whitman’s confessional poems, which express their inner urges and desires, are the best-known works of American poetry. They both express their sexual longing and dissatisfaction through their choice of language, style and form. Dickinson, Whitman, and other poets are on the opposite end of the literary spectrum in their desire-expressing poems. Dickinson’s “Wild Nights — Wild Nights!” and Whitman’s 11th section of “Song of Myself” each express a desire in a very different way. Although the two poems are quite different, they have one thing in common. Dickinson & Whitman express the same feelings of separation & expulsion as they do in their respective poems.
Emily Dickinson’s “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!” has been called her most erotic poetry. The title implies a sense sexual and psychological release. The title includes an exclamation-point, which conveys intensity and forcefulness. As if the poet is filled with passion, anger, or excitement. Dickinson uses this model to describe a singular, specific and unique desire for a lover/individual that is not named. The speaker feels great disappointment and frustration because the person is not there. The speaker can only be satisfied if her lover is physically present: “Wild night… Were i with thee.” (3-4). Dickinson employs nautical imagery to describe a rough, sensual breeze and an ocean-like feeling that the speaker would like to have with her lover. The winds are futile…Ah! the sea!” (3-10). If the lover of this speaker were present physically, they would create a stormy night filled with sexual pleasure, indulgence, privilege, and passion. Their love is stable, allowing the speaker to keep her heart “in port,” like a boat on calm water. The love of the speaker does not require any “compass” nor “chart”, meaning that it can be uncontrolled like nature. The speaker imagines the sensuality of “Rowing in Eden” (9) and how it connects eroticism with earthly paradise. The poem is closed with an urgent and forceful line: “Mighti but moor- -Tonight- -In thee!” The speaker does not want to wait until tomorrow for this pleasure, but wants it tonight. She is therefore left without sexual satisfaction, as her lover’s presence would provide it.
The subject of “Wild Nights—Wild Nights!” might not be conservative, but Dickinson does a good job at hiding the carnal and provocative content beneath nautical elements. These elements appear to have no sexual connotations. The poem has a short structure, with just a few words on each line. Dickinson wished to keep the poetry and her thoughts private. Dickinson uses compression to draw attention to the silence and unspoken. Multiple dashes are used throughout the poem to formalize silence. This poem, like many others by the same author, is a lyric solo. The poem is dominated by the speaker’s lover, but there isn’t any conversation between the two. This creates a feeling of remoteness, as though the mind were thinking alone. Dickinson uses silence to master feelings. This intensifies both the speaker’s desire for erotic delight and his tortuous pain at not receiving it.
Walt Whitman’s poetry is not a repression against eroticism. The eleventh chapter of “Song of Myself”, a section that includes many anatomical details of the masculine body, is dedicated to physical and bodily desires. The speaker is an anonymous observer who is identified as female by using the pronouns, “she” or “her”. A dramatic scene is described in the first line: “Twenty eight young men bathe on the shore”, while a lonely woman hides behind the blinds at her window. The woman in the poem is of an upper-class background, since she has a “fine home by a rise of a river” and “hides handsomely and richly dressed” (4-5). The woman fantasizes about joining in on the fun and joy of men, referring herself to as “the twenty-ninth swimmer” (10). Whitman enjoys the observation of others and finds sexual satisfaction in conjoining them. Whitman then begins to describe how the men bathed: “the hair of the young boys glistend, the beards shone with moisture, and streams of water ran all over them” (12-13). As she imagines an “unseen touch” sensually touching the bodies of each man, her fantasy becomes more intense. She can only experience sexual pleasure in her mind, just as Dickinson did in the poem. The poem does not end in a sexual fantasy, but she doesn’t seem to feel any frustration.
Whitman’s poet experiences some kind of fulfillment by the end, while Dickinson leaves her speaker in discontent. Whitman is not shy about expressing his eroticism. He refers to all of the bathers, including himself, as the poetic counterpart. The poem has a free-flowing structure with multiple short lines. The lack of periods or dashes indicates an air of openness. He uses a language that is purely observational, describing only the physical and real aspects of his surroundings. Whitman is expressing his desire to communicate with the world, and there’s no concern for propriety or regularity. Whitman’s desire to find pleasure in the everyday world is reflected by the final lines of his poem. Dickinson uses a first person narrative to keep her desires repressed. This transforms the speaker’s physical yearnings into a strong, spiritual longing. Whitman’s dramatic scene transforms Whitman’s speaker into a living entity by expressing his speaker’s urges and wants. Each poet has a very different way of fulfilling their desire. Both poems have a limited ego, whether voluntarily of involuntarily. It causes the speaker to be detached from his or her desires.
Both speakers can imagine their satisfaction once they are separated. This is a different form of pleasure, but it’s still exciting. Dickinson’s “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!” is a sensual piece that portrays Dickinson’s speaker’s intense passion and desire for physical intimacy. Dickinson, like Whitman uses images of water and wind as a way to show the allure and beauty of somatic movement and contact. The same yearnings are felt by both speakers, but they are not met. Dickinson has her speaker yearning more because her lover is not present. She does not search or contact her lover, but remains distant and removed. This suggests a feeling of shame towards her desires. Whitman’s Speaker portrays similar behaviors as she stays hidden in her home and does not go out to bathe with the other women. She is only able imagine what it would be like to have her desires fulfilled. Both speakers, despite their different erotic expressions, act on their desires by physically detaching themselves and experience similar feelings of loneliness and restlessness.
Emily Dickinson demonstrates a sense of privacy and compression in expressing one’s desires, while Walt Whitman demonstrates publicity and expansion. Dickinson uses a private, compressed way to express her desire while Whitman is more public and expansive. There is a similarity in that both poets display the same behavior when they are faced with their sexual desires and choose to distance themselves.
