Emily Dickinson (and Walt Whitman): The Escape from Locksley Hall Symbiosis 7.1 56-75

about

Richard Gravil’s essay, "Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman: The Escape from Locksley Hall," explores the literary connections and contrasts between two of America's most influential poets, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. This essay delves into how both poets were influenced by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s "Locksley Hall" and how they used their unique voices to engage with and diverge from Tennyson's themes and styles. Gravil examines the ways in which Dickinson and Whitman each carved out distinct poetic identities in response to the pervasive influence of Tennyson, creating a dialogue across the Atlantic that enriched their works and American literature as a whole. This insightful analysis is essential for readers interested in Transatlantic literary relations, Romanticism, and the evolution of American poetry.

Author

Dr. Richard Gravil taught at the University of Victoria, B.C., the University of Lodz, Poland and the University of Otago, New Zealand. He concluded his teaching career as Course Leader of the University of Exeter MA in Anglo-American Literary Relations.

He was co-founder of the ground-breaking journal, Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations was Chairman of the Wordsworth Conference Foundation. He edited The Oxford Handbook of William Wordsworth which was published in 2015.