Walt Whitman Style Analysis

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Walt Whitman’s writing is often argued about how he exhibits very little style, due to his free form sense of poetry. Though the structure he writes with is unconventional to say the least, he definitely has a sense of style and form that he writes with, and his style isn’t nearly as messy and thoughtless as most pundits would suggest. Whitman’s writing does not have an arrangement that can be easily confined, and give credit that he does not conform to the usual realm of literary style (much like Dickinson). Even though Whitman’s poetry doesn’t follow the conventional poetic protocol, the way other poets like Bradstreet and Longfellow do, it definitely has a certain structure and general themes that he tries incorporating , in spite of it’s sometimes hectic looking technique. Whitman’s method of examining each subject as a whole can be possibly explained by his belief of national pride. His hope of unity within our country during the Civil War, can be illustrated in his piece titled, “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night.” The disappointment Whitman felt after witnessing the brutality of the Civil War while he volunteered as a member of the medical staff, can be evidenced in a great deal of his work, and none better than this tremendous Civil War poem. The speaker of the poem doesn’t seem to be Whitman, as the narrator fought beside his friend in the war, instead of working with the medical staff. The relationship between the narrator and the deceased soldier isn’t very clear. While it’s obvious that they have a tight bond, outside of using the term “son,” the reader has to decide for himself exactly what their bond was. While it’s unlikely that Whitman wrote about a father and son, since some of his passages depict the ... ... middle of paper ... ...e who are killed at war were usually buried at the battle field in which they died in. Whitman wrote, “I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket, And buried him where he fell.” (25) Overall, Whitman does a great job of portraying the honest brutality and depressive nature of war, especially the Civil War, where it was a battle between countries. The personification of the Civil War was a great touch and a fitting addition to Whitman’s poem. The gloom of the war and subject matter of course, offered the reader a glimpse of what was to come of the narrator. The war gave every soldier the stark feeling of hopelessness at times, though the bonds they made with each other were what got them through the rigors of war. Now that the narrator’s comrade was dead, the poem’s tone gave the idea to the reader that the soldier had little to fight for.

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