Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are two Modern American Poets and their poetry contains similar themes and ideas. Both poets attempt to romanticize nature and both speak of death and loneliness. Although they were more than fifty years apart, these two seem to be kindred spirits, poetically speaking. Both focus on the power of nature, death, and loneliness. The main way in which these two differ is in their differing use of tone.
Dickinson is simply unlike any other poet; her compact forceful language, characterized formally by frequent use of dashes, regular capitalization of nouns, off rhymes, broken metre, and unconventional metaphors contributed her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of 19th century American literature whereas Frost had experiences in many poetic forms. He has used different metres and figures of speech. He has experimented in blank verse, sonnets, heroic couplets and free invented forms.
While there are some comparisons between the two poets, when it comes to death as a theme, their writing styles were quite different. Robert Frost's poem, "Home Burial," and Emily Dickinson's poems, "I felt a Funeral in my Brain," and "I died for Beauty," are three poems concerning death. While the theme is constant there are differences as well as similarities between the poets and their poems.
The obvious comparison between the three poems is the theme of death. Both poets, in these works and many others, display a fascination with the death of themselves as well as the death of peers, and loved ones. Both Frost and Dickinson experienced a great deal of death throughout each of their lives. Frost's greatest loss was the death of his son, which is greatly depicted in his poem "Home Burial." Dickinson suffered the loss of many friends and family. She spent a lot of her time in her room looking out upon the headstones of these people.
The only strong comparison between the poets, in terms of structure and technique, is that the...