Tregre, Sex, Death, Dickinson and Whitman, in the 1800s?!

Both of these poets, Dickinson and Whitman, were controversial poets. Both of them had themes of sexuality or death in their poems. Each poem of Dickinson is full of death. Her poems are about dying, being buried, funerals, etc. She explores the beyond fact. In "I Heard a Fly Buzz" while she is dying, instead of basking in the white light, she is paying attention to God's lowest creation making an irritating buzzing noise. This is not a clean, pure animal, but an insignificant insect. In "I Felt a Funeral" by Dickinson, she describes a funeral perfectly. She talks about the mourners and being buried. They are completely morbid and gothic. In Whitman's poem he discusses sex. In his time (1800s) one did not explicitly write about sex like Whitman did. In "Leaves of Grass," Whitman definitely drove the theme of sex home. While others misunderstood it, Whitman viewed sex as spiritual. It is the single most intimate, greatest act one could share with another. Whitman even wrote "the body, he teaches, is beautiful. Sex is also beautiful. . . . Sex will not be put aside; it is a great ordination of the universe. He works the muscle of the male and the teeming fibre of the female throughout his writings, as wholesome realities, impure only by deliberate intention and effort." Whitman wanted to communicate this through his poems and not to be seen as that secret, dirty act that many critics understood it to be.
Both these poets wrote about uncommon themes making them surpass the other poets in their times. They were honest and deep and nonconformists which made them surpass centuries of decay.