Langston Hughes And Emily Dickinson

De'atra L Jolly

Word Count

Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson comparison

10/04/06

Lit. 3200

It is amazing how the poets Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes have massive differences in their cultural and educational backgrounds yet they have writing styles that are so much alike in the poems Wild Nights - Wild Nights by Dickinson and Desire by Hughes.

In Dickinson's poem she begins by asking a question." Were I with thee?" she is asking the person she is longing for, were you thinking of me while you were out? Or was I with you in spirit while we were apart? She expresses that their wild nights should have been spent together for both of them to experience the luxury of love being one. Dickinson expresses her anger for the winds that took her love in another direction while she remained loyal and "in port". The line "Might I be moor - Tonight" is her way of telling her love that her feelings of love for him / her are secure and stable and for their love to be together would mean security and stability for their feeling and their relationship with each other. This poem is very sensual, sexual and erotic. The entire poem could be viewed as a metaphor for sexual intercourse with the usage of the word rowing and the line "Might I be moor in the tonight," specifying the object of the preposition in. Dickinson uses repetition which adds a sense of excitement to the poem. Also take to note that in each stanza there are only four lines. The second and fourth lines of these three stanzas all seem to rhyme, even in the second stanza the words "port" and "chart" have ending consonants that seem to rhyme these methods are defined as exact and slant rhyming, two styles that Dickinson is well know for. Dickinson truly seems to be expressing her desires and complete happiness in her closing lines. It is quite vivid that she wants to physically be with the one she loves and she wants it to happen right away. Dickinson uses the staggered placement of words and her famous dashes instead to imply a vague ending and to express the importance of her capitalization of her words.

This is one way of perceiving the poem but, with a person knowing the history of Dickinson and her use of the concept of spirituality, she could have also been questioning God. Dickinson could have been asking God if he was with her as she encountered her wild nights when she asks "Were I with thee." The futile winds could have been used as a metaphor for the ruff and hard times in her life explaining that no matter how hard times got her heart remained with God searching for direction and instructions to reach the promise land of the paradise Eden. The poem could be interpreted as her plea begging that God blesses her life with his spirit forever living