Poe And Emily Dickinson Comparison

Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson, both so similar and yet so different. One lived a life of despair and loss as the other when from hopeless to hopeful, turning a new leaf. While Poe and Dickinson differed in tone and structure, they shared a similarity in the theme of their poems which circulated around life and death.

Starting with theme, Dickinson and Poe shared aspects of their lives in a handful of poems. “From childhood’s hour I have not been / As others were—I have not seen / As others saw—I could not bring” (Poe, “Alone” 1-3). These lines represent the lonesome childhood of Poe, who had trouble fitting in with others. Despite a change in tone, the topic is the same in the following lines, “Yet - never - in Extremity, / It asked a crumb - of me” (Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers” 11-12). Dickinson uses a pronoun here, making the poem about her. She talks about being given hope and how that it has never asked for anything in return, causing her to have more of that hopefulness where even if her life may have been strict or

Dickinson romanticized death, showing no fear whilst Poe had a more candid tone. To illustrate, “We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – / We passed the Setting Sun –” (Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for death” 11-12) in contrast to, “The mimes become its food, / And seraphs sob at vermin fangs / In human gore imbued” (Poe, “The Conqueror Worm” 30-32). Dickinson’s lines seem to be light hearted when dealing with death as she is lead to the after-life, to her it was more of a trip down memory lane. On the other hand, Poe described a scene of death in which it isn’t happy. Those lines from him demonstrate the darkness that surrounds it and how humans can die mercilessly, he also shows passion in how he creates the scene of death, in this case it was being eaten up and decayed which was a metaphor for the downfall or destruction of