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Walt Whitman’s styles and themes
Walt Whitman's contribution to literature
Walt Whitman’s styles and themes
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Farm, Life, and Allusions of the Future Walt Whitman is the Author to many well-known poems. In his poem, “A Farm Picture”, the meaning goes well beyond a barn and field. Whitman uses this timeless poem to allude to life. In just three short lines compacted in one stanza, he makes references to the excitement of a young perspective on the new adventures of life that awaits, the comfort of the everyday routines once one’s life has begun, and finally the countdown to one’s life fading away in the final days. Whitman’s poem has a universal emotional tie to each reader, including myself and my own journey through life and future goals. The first line, “THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn”, is an expression …show more content…
When one can form a daily routine, this means that the person has stability in life. The “sun-lit pasture field”, represents this stability. The third line, “And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away.” represents the end of life’s journey. When one begins to look back on their life, some parts may become hazy to them. Their memories may be slightly blurred. The vista, which means pleasing view, would be the good memories in life. The far horizon, is the sense of future. When one reaches the end of life, the future no longer seems within grasp, but rather that it is fading away. Lastly, the “fading away”, represents dying. Whitman ends this iconic poem with those three words showing that life fades away, and does not last forever. His poem is short and sweet, but packed with rich meaning. Relating myself to the poem, “A Farm Picture”, I find myself connecting to the first line. As a senior in high school and a part time freshman in college, I know that this spring means my life will truly be starting. I am on the right path to go “THROUGH the ample open …show more content…
I am taking the initiative to make a career and a name for myself like what I believe to be the meaning behind Whitman’s initial line. After college, I would like to travel for two years before settling down and starting a family with my Marine, Cameron. Our plans are to travel to Europe, and to all fifty states, including our favorites, Hawaii and Alaska. We plan to inherit his family farm in upstate New York, where he will work in agricultural jobs and I will teach. This future stage in my life is where I hope to build the routine and stability alluded in line two of Whitman’s poem, “with cattle and horses feeding”. Life’s circumstances often persuade our judgement and perspective. There are always two sides to every story. While I find Whitman’s poem, “A Farm Life”, to allude to new beginnings, constancy and routine, and the looking back of memories, someone else may derive a completely different meaning from these three lines. My personal standing has helped me to understand what I believe is the significance behind Whitman’s
Throughout most of his childhood, Whitman and his family were in constant financial duress. At the age of eleven, Whitman finished his formal education and started to look for a job. Whitman finished school at such a young age, so he could get a job and help his family with their financial crisis. Walt Whitman’s poem “Patroling Barnegat” fits with his life and has an interesting technique.
A cold stare, and a hand on his hip, is how Walt Whitman introduced himself to his readers in 1855. The style of Whitman’s frontispiece was uncommon for its time, a man with a loose collar and a worn hat would have been found more commonly on a farm than adorning a literary scholar in the mid-nineteenth century. Whitman wanted to show that he was no better than anyone who would read his poetry. Whitman conveyed himself to his audience by showing himself as an everyday workingman; his wrinkled shirt shows that he is use to working hard for everything that he has. The stare he gives back to his audience looks as if he is examining the reader the same way they may be examining him or his work.
Walt Whitman is one of America’s most popular and most influential poets. The first edition of Whitman’s well-known Leaves of Grass first appeared in July of the poet’s thirty-sixth year. A subsequent edition of Leaves of Grass (of which there were many) incorporated a collection of Whitman’s poems that had been offered readers in 1865. The sequence added for the 1867 edition was Drum-Taps, which poetically recounts the author’s experiences of the American Civil War.
(A critique of Walt Whitman’s themes and ideas in Song of Myself 6, 46, 47)
Born into a working-class family in the city of New York, Whitman’s literary inspiration arises from his explorative outlook of the culture and environment in which he lives. In the midst of success as an uprising, influential writer, sudden troubles emerge. Decline in the government affects Whitman, along with his publicist’s, William Thayer and Charles Eldridge, in an unexpected downfall of business; resulting in bankruptcy and crucial depression of sales of Whitman’s text, Leaves (Beginning of the Civil War 1). In February of 1861, Whitman reads a newspaper discussing the reasoning of the downfall and society and the bitter extent in which it reaches—the firing of Fort Sumter and beginning of the Civil War. Promptly, the war weighs upon him to the point of seeking a change in his life. Correspondingly, he sacrifices his time to visit and nurse the casualties of war, resulting in the greatest inspiration of Whitman’s career; notably producing works within the uprising, evolving era of American
Death is a reality that can be interpreted in many ways. Some people fear the possibility of no longer living and others welcome the opportunity for a new life in the afterlife. Many poets have been inspired by death, be it by the approaching death of loved ones or a battle for immortality. Just as each poet is inspired differently, each poem casts a different hue of light on the topic of death giving readers a unique way to look at death.
Overall, dwell on this process of changing throughout the poem, it can be understood that the poet is demonstrating a particular attitude towards life. Everyone declines and dies eventually, but it would be better to embrace an optimistic, opened mind than a pessimistic, giving-up attitude; face the approach of death unflinchingly, calmly.
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere” (Whitman 33) is Walt Whitman’s first and one of his most popular works, Leaves of Grass. It was and still is very inspirational to many people including Ralph Waldo and many others after him. He had a major influence on modern free verse. Following a hard childhood in and around New York, Walter Whitman was well known and received in his time for Leaves of Grass which did not use the universal theme, which he became known for in the eighteenth century as well as his way of seeing the world in a view that very few could comprehend in his time.
These three metaphors exemplify beauty, but also an end to nature and life. Death is slowly creeping up to him and taking over his life as realized in this comparison of him to nature. The poem shows the need to seize the moment in life before death. The last couplet talks about the topic of love and the power of it. Love lasts through the struggles in life, and the changes of seasons. Love of life keeps us from realizing that an end will eventually come. “This thou perciev’st, which makes thy love more strong.” Encompasses the idea that although everything comes to an end, love still fuels everything within a person. He realizes everything will come to an end and death is inevitable but the passion is still
Robert Frost wrote poetry about nature and it is that nature that he used as symbols for life lessons. Many critics have been fascinated by the way that Frost could get so many meanings of life out of nature itself. Frost‘s poetry appeals to almost everyone because of his uncanny ability to tie in with many things that one is too familiar with and for many, that is life in itself. “Perhaps that is what keeps Robert Frost so alive today, even people who have never set foot in Vermont, in writing about New England, Frost is writing about everywhere” (294).
Walt Whitman was a man that served as a nurse helping wounded soldiers in the Civil War. While he was there, he took what he saw and wrote them in his poems. Every aspect of each poem related to the time that he was in and he wrote about every experience and feeling he had about what he saw. Whitman had three themes that he used to focus all of his poems on and these themes were individuality, democracy, and freedom. With writing with these themes, Whitman could make an impact on what the reader imagined in their head while reading and he was also able to convey a certain feeling through his poems that he wanted the reader to feel. Whitman had a unique style of writing, which was free verse. Through free verse, Whitman could direct and write a poem in a way that he liked and in a way where he was able to give more detail rather than writing in a rhythmic way. Through Walt Whitman’s themes of individuality, democracy, and freedom, Whitman was able to express his feelings about war and leaders in the poems that he wrote during the Civil War time.
Although Whitman uses a great deal of structural ways to stress his ideas, he also uses many other ways of delivering his ideas. First of all, Whitman portrays himself as a public spokesman of the masses. The tone of the poem is a very loud, informative tone that grabs ones attention. The emphasis placed on the word “all” adds to the characterization of Whitman as a powerful speaker. Furthermore, Whitman takes part in his own poem. Participating in his own poem, Whitman moreover illustrates the connection between everything in life. Lastly, Whitman, most of all, celebrates universal brotherhood and democracy.
The slow feeling of the ending life is shown when the poem states, “we paused before…” with other terms like “and immortality” having its own line to emphasize the destination. The writer narrates the cause of death in the six-stanza poem in a journey form that depicts some interesting life experiences that people should have fun of during their lives. It is common that many individuals cannot stop for or wait for death that is if they can “see
Whitman's Poem "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," is not, at first glance, an obvious love poem. Most readers would probably consider this a tragic poem about death and love lost. In spite of the fact that the poem is about intrinsically sorrowful events, or perhaps because of it, Whitman is able to capture a very unique and poignant portrayal of love. There are three major perspectives to examine how Whitman develops the theme of love in Out of the Cradle, and by examining each reoccurring theme in the poem separately, we can come to a more complete understanding of how they work together to communicate Whitman's message about love.
Whitman of all that it endures and does for Earth and its importance. It speaks of