Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
POetry representation
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: POetry representation
Leaves of Grass: Unbridled Spiritual Realization by the Credulous Man
In this excerpt of Leaves of Grass, Whitman seeks to develop an archetype of “the credulous man,” whose purpose is to represent the personal spirit that leads one to unrestricted faith. By connecting specific formal features, which range from a first person narrative voice to specific diction related to spirituality, Whitman develops a persona that calls to all audiences, linking them to this “credulous man” in a moderately religious context.
Whitman employs a first person narrative voice throughout the excerpt to connect himself and all around him to this persona of “credulous man.” By starting the stanza out with “I am the credulous man” rather than “I am a credulous man,” he sets a precedent within the poem, and we can see that the phrase is not intended to simply describe himself but to describe men of all qualities, ages and races. He later emphasizes this range of inclusion by calling out to all with the words, “Omnes! Omnes!” We can note, however, that Whitman never uses the pronoun we; yet the simple repetition of the pronoun I in this inclusive context allows each member of the audience to visualize themselves as the speaker, further solidifying the appeal to all audiences.
In addition, the religious context throughout the poem is underscored by diction with emphasized self-determined faith. The phrases “I advance from the people in their own spirit,” “here is what sings unrestricted faith,” and “I make the poem of evil also” suggest that religion, or more accurately spirituality, is defined by personal actions, both good and evil. By not explicitly discussing religion, Whitman deems faith a personal choice--but spirituality a necessity. Togethe...
... middle of paper ...
...e state of waste is not perpetual, we can find strength and hope for a better future. The ability to convey these messages with such strength along with the ability to powerfully effect his audience and have a tangible effect on the world is what sets T. S. Eliot and The Wasteland apart, and truly gives his poetry the power to change the world.
The poetry of Brian Turner, Charlotte Mew, and T. S. Eliot all turned poetry from the status of great to world re-making; they transformed the poetry of their era to poetry that could be read decades later yet still have a profound impact on its audience. I believe that world making lies in a poet’s ability to take any situation, any speaker, and any context that is personally important to them, and create a poem that deeply affects its audience--one with the ability to completely transcribe emotion from a text to the heart.
Eliot, T.S. The wasteland. In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1447-1463.
Whitman’s approach to poetry is a reflection of his thought. These thoughts are free and wild, and his typical run-on sentences and his endless litanies of people and places represent the thoughts trying to be conveyed. The overall effect of these run-on sentences provides the reader with a feeling of greatness and of freedom. All of the feelings that are evoked from Whitman’s style can be classified as quintessentially American democratic feelings. The belief that Whitman had no style would imply that Americans as a society have no style, a statement that not only Whitman but Emerson and Thoreau as well fought against through their writings. Whitman and Emerson fighting for the same cause is not coincidental, Whitman has often been viewed as the “child” of Emerson, his work being greatly influenced by Emerson. Whitman’s technique of looking at everything as a whole and always opposed to breaking up the whole can be linked to his belief of unity within our country and the reason why he took the Civil War extremely hard and personal.
The Modernist era of poetry, like all reactionary movements, was directed, influenced, and determined by the events preceding it. The gradual shift away from the romanticized writing of the Victorian Era served as a litmus test for the values, and the shape of poetry to come. Adopting this same idea, William Carlos Williams concentrated his poetry in redirecting the course of Modernist writing, continuing a break from the past in more ways than he saw being done, particularly by T.S. Eliot, an American born poet living abroad. Eliot’s monumental poem, The Waste Land, was a historically rooted, worldly conscious work that was brought on by the effects of World War One. The implementation of literary allusions versus imagination was one point that Williams attacked Eliot over, but was Williams completely in stride with his own guidelines? Looking closely at Williams’s reactionary poem to The Waste Land, Spring and All, we can question whether or not he followed the expectations he anticipated of Modernist work; the attempts to construct new art in the midst of a world undergoing sweeping changes.
Walt Whitman’s hard childhood influenced his work greatly, he was an uneducated man but he managed to become one of the most known poets. Whitman changed poetry through his work and is now often called the father of free verse. Especially through Leaves of Grass he expressed his feelings and sexuality to world and was proud of it. He had a different view at life, his hard childhood, and his sexuality that almost no one understood made him introduce a new universal theme to the world. Almost all critics agree that Walt Whitman was one of the most influential and innovative poet. Karl Shapiro says it best, “The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great currents of living people with general government and state”.
Although his poetry is typically not characterized as religious, Walt Whitman’s admiration towards the human body can be interpreted as a form of worship. For Whitman,
He pronounces in previous stanzas, "You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself," and, "Not an inch nor a particle of a... ... middle of paper ... ... sp; By projecting his sexual self against such broad parameters, Whitman generates a decidedly transcendental experience. With such vivid imagery in his celebration of the sensual, he elevates the limited faculties of man to being capable of limitless understanding. The role of the sexual in his work is integral to this sense of active, individual discovery.
Whitman's radical ideas of individualism have a great deal to do with his Quaker background. The Quaker religion is one in which the authority was Inner Light. "Whitman himself was not only personally familiar with, but deeply impressed by, a religion whose only authority was the Inner Light" (Canoy 481). The Inner Light is a special influence, which made Whitman's poetry unique. This certain influence did such things as guide Whitman down his soul searching path as well as help him define within himself the characteristics of an individual. In section fifteen of "Song of Myself," Whitman discusses people from every class and every profession. He goes on to say "the young fellow drives the express-wagon... love him though I do not know him;" (2753). ...
A technique Whitman used in his poetry was to write in free verse, making his poetry unrestricted and easy to read. Whitman's unique way of writing poetry that was easy to read made it inclusive, this fits in with his themes of democracy as a democracy includes everyone. In conclusion, “Leaves of Grass” embodied the spirit of democracy that Whitman was so fond of. The theme of democracy is evident in Walt Whitman's poetry. Walt Whitman had liberal values for his time as he was a supporter of rights for women and homosexuals. Whitman wanted an equal democratic America which was what the Founding Fathers of America had set out to create.
The poem has set a certain theme and tone but no definite rhyme. In this poem, the poet explores into a thought of the self, the all-encompassing "I," sexuality, democracy, the human body, and what it means to live in the modern world. He addresses that the human body is sacred and every individual human is divine. Hence, Whitman was known for writing poems about individualism, democracy, nature, and war.
...to subjects relevant to today, such as religion.Eliot argues that without religion we are all lack direction and more importantly we lack substance in our lives. Without religion, we are superficial and it is due to this that we turn to pop culture. Pop culture is a filler for that which is intellectually rewarding. Eliot recognized this and for this reason he wrote “The Wasteland”. Eliot’s poem made bold statements about what was really happening in the modern world. Whether one argue with Eliot’s positions or not, his work joins the canon of the classic and ironically provides an opportunity for readers to plug into something greater.
The poet was fascinated with the realization that masses of unique individuals construct a single democracy under which everyone is amalgamated. As aforementioned, this paradoxical concept of individuality coexisting with unity and equality is evident in “Song of Myself” (Chase 132). Whitman believed the theme of unity is a common link embracing all humanity. Whitman also felt that “one of the founding beliefs of American democracy is the fundamental equality of all people” (Casale 49). In “Song of Myself,” the people portrayed as a collection of distinct individuals with their own soul and
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?
Whitman asks about to meaning of life to himself between “endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish” (2). The specific diction such as “endless,” “faithless,” and “foolish” in his poem creates a negative connotation, clearly trying to express
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.
T.S. Eliot peppers "The Waste Land," his apocalyptic poem, with images of modern aridity and inarticulacy that contrast with fertile allusions to previous times. Eliot's language details a brittle era, rife with wars physical and sexual, spiritually broken, culturally decaying, dry and dusty. His references to the Fisher King and mythical vegetation rituals imply that the 20th-century world is in need of a Quester to irrigate the land. "The Waste Land" refuses to provide a simple solution; the properties of the language serve to make for an ambiguous narrative and conclusion, one as confusing and fragmented as Eliot's era itself.