The death of romance?

I must admit I don’t think I had ever before read anything by Walt Whitman. I know, how could that be possible? Oh, I'm sure I’ve read a snippet here or there in school, but nothing of note comes to mind. When the question arose in my American Literature class: Is Walt Whitman a Romantic or a realist?—I thought I don’t know. I’ve never met the guy. Upon reading his “Song of myself” (a nice introduction to Mr. Whitman) I think he’s actually both. 

He writes of all the glory to be found in himself (and everyone else), but as the poem continues I got a feeling of the change the Civil war brought to his comfort zone. He seems angered and political towards the end. He is the voice of the people who never had a voice before. He's on the side of humanity.

In reading Emily Dickinson's (another writer whom I knew by name but had never read.) Poems #202, 236, 340,448, 479 and 764, I believe she is a romantic writer—a morbidly romantic writer. She romanticizes death and the afterlife. She feels that she was more dead than alive and goes through life locked away in her own funeral. Was she a realist in the sense that she knew she would one day die, so why not accept it and write about it? Maybe.

*Revised* Questions I ask of you:
If the Civil War caused the Literary change from Romanticism to Realism, what change has September 11 cause in the Literary world today?

Was Emily Dickinson a girl who lost her love causing her to become depressed or was she a victim of her own fear of heartbreak that kept her from letting herself love.