Although difficult and challenging, I have compared and contrasted the works of two American poets, Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson, based on literary elements used in their writings. Their differences in both style and subject matter are contradictory to the fact that both Poe and Dickinson are writers/poets of the same personal nature. The use of literary elements shows the iconic status of writings created by reserved but fame-dependent poets such as Poe and Dickinson. To some extent, the elements chosen are what create their uniqueness. Furthermore, it establishes a uniform perception that they are similar poets but different in personal essence. Through their writings, readers are able to understand the concept that they are rarely attracted to the fact that their lives were perfect. Dickinson seemed to be a writer of distinct but subtle characteristics. Poe, on the other hand, was considered a writer dependent on fame and fortune. In comparison, Edgar Allen Poe and Emily Dickinson share explorations of the same themes including but limited to aspects of life, love, death, and concerns for civilization. For example, Poe's "The Conquering Worm" is all about death and how it happens. The last stanza of the poem which begins "Outside are all the lights out!" Poe portrays the fact that the narrator is about to experience the pain that occurs after the body decomposes. (Edgar Allen Poe) Poe's “The Raven” uses imagery to convey death; “And the silken, sad and uncertain rustle of every purple curtain” (Edgar Allen Poe). In Dickinson's “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” he talks about death as Poe does in his writings. She states that she was approached by death and that it came to take her “for the eternal… middle of paper… Dickinson, on the other hand, was a writer of free style. She was light-hearted about the fact that her writings did not include any kind of meter or structure. He didn't use standard punctuation. Instead, he referred to the use of hyphens, unsystematic capitalization, and broken meter. It's unclear why she chose such a unique writing style, but it worked for her. He was not concerned with fairness but with a structure that included thoughtful features. In "Defrauded I a Butterfly", Dickinson left little room for the meter or style used by European models in his time: it consisted of only two lines. Furthermore, in “I am Nobody! Who are you?" the reader may recognize that he has not used a traditional rhyme scheme that he would normally be able to identify in the poem. He has used AABC instead of the more obvious and more often used ABAB or a rarer scheme ABCB.