Write a comparative analysis of one of these pairs of poems, either (A) Dickinson/Whitman or (B) Donne/Lowell. Pay attention to the particular stylistic signatures of both poets, and explore the potential meanings of the poems in connection with their poetic methods. You should write about 800 words in total. This assignment constitutes 75% of your module mark.Pair A: Dickinson-WhitmanWalt Whitman “We Two Boys Forever Clinging”WE two boys together clinging,One the other never leaving,Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,Fulfilling our foray.Emily DickinsonThe Soul selects her own Society —Then — shuts the Door —To her divine Majority —Present no more —Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —At her low Gate —Unmoved — an Emperor be kneelingUpon her Mat —I’ve known her — from an ample nation —Choose One —Then — close the Valves of her attention —Like Stone —c. 1862PAIR B: Donne-LowellJohn DonneHoly Sonnet : “Death, Be Not Proud”Death, be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,And soonest our best men with thee do go,Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,And poppy or charms can make us sleep as wellAnd better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?One short sleep past, we wake eternallyAnd death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.Robert Lowell”Sailing Home from Rapallo”[February 1954]Your nurse could only speak Italian,but after twenty minutes I could imagine your final week, and tears ran down my cheeks….When I embarked from Italy with my Mother’s body, the whole shoreline of the Golfo di Genovawas breaking into fiery flower.The crazy yellow and azure sea-sleds blasting like jack-hammers acrossthe spumante-bubbling wake of our liner, recalled the clashing colors of my Ford. Mother traveled first-class in the hold; her Risorgimento black and gold casket was like Napoleon’s at the Invalides….While the passengers were tanning on the Mediterranean in deck-chairs, our family cemetery in Dunbarton lay under the White Mountainsin the sub-zero weather.The graveyard’s soil was changing to stone—so many of its deaths had been midwinter.
