Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson have often been contrasted in literary criticism. Both poets are credited with an expansive body of work that is both ambitious and provocative. Dickinson has been characterized as the aristocracy to Whitman's democracy, the seclusion to his crowd, her doubt opposite his certainty. (Sherman3) Dickinson may be more complicated and aware of the deception of many hopes. She discovers many planes between self and nature. She pushed to a greater …showed first 75 words of 1704 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1704 total…amp;#61623; Myerson, Joel, "Walt Whitman," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 3: Antebellum Writers in New York and the South, edited by Jeffrey Helterman and Richard Layman, Gale Research Company, 1979, pp. 350-371. DISCovering Authors. Online Edition. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SRC  Sherman, N. "Eligible to burst forth": Whitman and the art of reticence. Massachusetts Review, Spring92, Vol. 33 Issue 1, p7, 9p  San, Debra. "Dickinson's I am alive--I guess--. Explicator; Winter94, Vol. 52 Issue 2, p83, 4p