Through the use of simple diction, Whitman is able to traverse both time and distance and connect with his readers as so few other poets can. His mastery of verbiage draws readers into the poem, as few other poets can. In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Whitman creates a vignette into the Brooklyn of the past, and he connects it to the present, though in surprising ways. The omnipresence of Whitman allows the reader to envision themselves into the settings he created- and to interpret them into modern language. By creating a path through the cities of the past, Whitman connects with his readers in a fascinating and deeply personal way.
Whitman’s mastery of language and is apparent in the poem narrator’s ability to speak directly to those who will read his poetry, long after he has died. Whitman's obvious delight in nature is so great and awe inspiring that he is able to traverse time and share his experiences with those who will come long after him through use of imagery of landmarks he believed to stand the test of time. In 1849, Whitman pondered this in his poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” the durability of the Croton Reservoir, which is located at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, when he describes the sight of a sunset over the water and the colors that the rays of light create. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" is divided into nine sections or “chapters”. The first five lines of the first “chapter” begin with an allusion to some of the physical phenomena Whitman has encountered such as the flood-tide, the clouds scene in the western sky, and the busy crowds scene on the ferry, and "you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence" (CITE). The brief opening stanza introduces the poem's main themes ...
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...man beseeches the multitudes of natural phenomena he already mentioned—the tide and waves, clouds, current and future ferry patrons, masts of Manhattan and hills of Brooklyn, the ships, and the sea birds to continue doing what they do best, their natural activities. This recapitulates the main themes of the poem and Whitman's own consciousness which both connects him to future generations and separates him from his present. Without being apart from the whole, Whitman would have no individual consciousness and no ability to seek out the complex connections he creates in his poetry. As he says in the last four lines:
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us,
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also
You furnish your parts toward eternity,
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul (CITE).
“Patroling Barnegat,” is a poem about Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. This poem fits with Whitman's life because Whitman lived in New Jersey during the last years of his life. The technique of this poem is special because every line rhymes. The rhyming of every line makes the poem flow very nicely. Whitman beautifully describes the waves on the bay. He describes how the sand on the beach flows and moves on the shore. For example in the first line of stanza two, he says, “Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wedding.” This description of the sand really helps you visualize it. This is how Walt Whitman’s poem “Patroling Barnegat” fits with his life and has an interesting
American poetry, unlike other nations’ poetry, is still in the nascent stage because of the absence of a history in comparison to other nations’ poetry humming with matured voices. Nevertheless, in the past century, American poetry has received the recognition it deserves from the creative poetic compositions of Walt Whitman, who has been called “the father of American poetry.” His dynamic style and uncommon content is well exhibited in his famous poem “Song of Myself,” giving a direction to the American writers of posterity. In addition, his distinct use of the line and breath has had a huge impression on the compositions of a number of poets, especially on the works of the present-day poet Allen Ginsberg, whose debatable poem “Howl” reverberates with the traits of Whitman’s poetry. Nevertheless, while the form and content of “Howl” may have been impressed by “Song of Myself,” Ginsberg’s poem expresses a change from Whitman’s use of the line, his first-person recital, and his vision of America. As Whitman’s seamless lines are open-ended, speaking the voice of a universal speaker presenting a positive outlook of America, Ginsberg’s poem, on the contrary, uses long lines that end inward to present the uneasiness and madness that feature the vision of America that Ginsberg exhibits through the voice of a prophetic speaker.
The plot in Whitman’s poem quickly takes a depressing turn. The beginning entices readers with a vague sense of excitement. The narrator, a girl,
Walt Whitman poem is about the marvel of astronomy. He wanted to learn about the stars. He went and heard an astronomer. He tells, “When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me.” All the data about astronomy was laid out in front of him, but this did not captivate his interest or filled his curiosity. It mad things worst. His plan to see the beauty in the stars was turned to boredom and sitting in a tiresome, lackluster lecture. He writes, “How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick.” The lecture, data, and astronomer were not the beauty he wanted to see. The visual experience is what he wanted to see. The silence and view of the stars was better for him than the lecture and data. The beauty is what he really wanted. He did not want the hard facts.
“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.
In Walt Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Whitman section three and section nine parallel, but section three demonstrate’s Whitman’s objective observations while section nine demonstrates his commands. In both sections, he references what he notices while crossing the Brooklyn Ferry, but in the first scene he sets himself up as solely an observer. Though transitioning to a commander in section nine, he commands most of the scenes to stay the same as how he depicted them in section three, with only one main exception being a scene involving seagulls. By using commands in section nine and changing the actions of seagulls, Whitman draws a parallel between himself and the seagulls, showing that he is not just an idle observer, but capable of commanding
In this passage, Whitman talks about being a spirit, being greater than the stairs, and being in an intimate relation with God, being kept safe while traveling through a great expanse of nothing. As he does many places elsewhere in his poem, Whitman uses much repetition in his poem, although they rarely last very long, as shown when he writes words and lines such as, “I am an acme of things accomplished, and I am an encloser of things to be”, here repeating the word ‘things’ in one line. There are other repetitions of words, such as his saying of “mount and mount”, “Rise after rise”, and “long and long”. By using the repetition of these words, Whitman is emphasizing that these actions and nouns are with him for a long time. “All below duly
(A critique of Walt Whitman’s themes and ideas in Song of Myself 6, 46, 47)
Towards the end of his poem, Whitman says “the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud” (38). Whitman shows us here that sometimes our sense of place can be made up of intangible things that we cannot touch. Instead the simple presence of them helps to form our sense of
Explication Through a multitude of literary devices and techniques, Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself," is one of his most famous contributions to American literature. He uses simile and metaphor, paradox, rhythm, and free verse style, to convey his struggle between the relation of the body and soul, the physical and the spiritual being. He continues to disobey all social restrictions of the romantic time period. From the beginning, Whitman begins by stating, "What I shall assume, you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you," proposing that the reader listen to him, for he possesses all of the answers to life. The setting is somewhat naturalistic, and offers an image of the speaker, relaxing, possibly sprawled out across a blanket, philosophizing about life, while in the middle of a peaceful meadow. As the poem later shifts in tone, and setting, Whitman starts to think about the answers to life he has come up with, based upon the past, and decides that the reader should hear him out, one final time, as his ideas have changed. This brings us to #44 of "Song of Myself." In section #44 of, "Song of Myself," Whitman's first stanza begins: "It's time to explain myself…let us stand up. What is known I strip away…I launch all men and women forward with me into the unknown. The clock indicates the moment…but what does eternity indicate? Eternity lies in bottomless reservoirs…its buckets are rising forever and ever, they pour and they pour and they exhale away." Whitman is simply stating that he wants to tell the purpose of his madness. The madness that Whitman expresses is that of power and self-confidence. Whitman has written this based upon his experiences in life. Through these experiences, he has grown to know certain things about life and tries to pass them down to the reader. Throughout the beginning of the poem, Whitman takes the reader by the hand and demands that he follows Whitman and his ideas, because based on his own life Whitman holds the answers to the reader's questions. But now, he asks the reader to erase everything that he has previously said - forget the past. Why don't we try something new? We have to focus on the present, not on the past, but also to focus on what we are going to experience in the future, what can we expect?
"look in vain for the poet whom I describe. We do not, with sufficient plainness, or sufficient profoundness, address ourselves to life, nor dare we chaunt our own times and social circumstances. If we filled the day with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it. Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom all things await" (Emerson 1653). Emerson is stating how everything can be a poem and a poet can reflect on valuable resources like nature to draw on and write. Whitman clearly uses this guide in order to write his poetry. He agrees that nature is a valuable tool.
In “On the Beach at Night Alone,” Walt Whitman develops the idea that everyone has a connection with everything else, including nature. Whitman uses a variety of writing techniques to get his point across. First, the repetition and parallel structure that his poems contain reinforce the connection between everything in nature. The usage of “All” 11 times emphasizes the inclusion of everything in the universe. The sentence structure remains the same throughout the poem, without any drastic change; however, the length of the lines in the poem vary. In addition, Whitman’s’ extravagance with his words further illustrates his idea of the Over-Soul. For example, “A vast similitude interlocks all” (4) shows his verbose nature. Whitman does not do directly to the point, but gives every little detail. Most importantly, Whitman’s’ use of catalogues stands as the most recognizable Whitman characteristic that illustrates his beliefs. These long lists that he uses set the mood of the poem. “All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,” (5) shows the idea that everything is connected in nature. Similarly, “All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations languages.” (10) furthermore emphasize Whitman’s belief in the Over-Soul.
Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people that there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature to connect us all, and encourage people to become less materialistic and more appreciative of life itself. There are many themes in Emily Dickenson’s poem that are very reminiscent of Whitman’s popular themes. Although there were some consistency with the themes Whitman’s used in his own work, there were still a lot of ideas Whitman would not have agreed with. The poem starts off with something Whitman would have unanimously disagreed with.
Whitman and Stevens similarly structured "On the Beach at Night" and "Sunday Morning," in that their narrators answer to their characters' concerns by explaining, or at least hinting at, the beauty of the perpetual cycle of mortality. "Something there is more immortal even than the stars,/(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)" (lines 28-29) whispers Whitman's narrator. "Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,/Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams/And our desires," (lines 63-65) echoes Stevens. Through their suggestions of this death-rebirth cycle, Whitman's and Stevens' narrators assuage their characters misgivings. Further, both poets utilize Jove/Jupiter as a metaphor for seeming immortality, and perhaps more famili...
He crossed the boundaries of the poetry literature and gave a poetry worth of our democracy that contributed to an immense variety of people, nationalities, races. Whitman’s self-published Leaves of Grass was inspired in part by his travels through the American frontier and by his admiration for Ralph Waldo Emerson (Poetry Foundation). He always believed in everyone being treated equally and bringing an end to slavery and racism. Through his poetry, Whitman tried to bring every people in America together by showing them what happiness, love, unison, and real knowledge looked. His poetry and its revolution changed the world of American literature