Walt Whitman's Use of the Theme of Death in His Poetry
Walt Whitman uses the theme of death in his poetry. Whitman's use of death is unlike any other poets. He draws upon his own experiences with death and this makes his poetry real.
Whitman spent time as a wound-dresser during the Civil War. During this time, Whitman learned and saw so much. The death that he saw during this time provided him with inspiration in his poetry and ideas and thoughts about death.
Throughout Whitman's poetry, the reader can witness his own feelings of death changing and evolving. In "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" Whitman uses one of his other major themes, nature, and relates it to death. He is beginning to understand death and come to terms with it. This can be seen in the following passage.
Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)
It is indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?
For I, that was a child my tongue's use sleeping, now I have heard
you,
Now in the moment I know what I am for, I awake,
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder,
and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have stated to life within me, never to
die. (144-149)
Here Whitman is talking about his life and how much he has already lived, and he is finally understanding death.
During his time as a wound-dresser, Whitman spent many nights watching over the fallen soldiers. This affected his view of death and he wrote about it in his poetry. When one reads "A Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night" they can see the immense pain that not only the soldiers felt, but also Whitman. In this poem Whitman is describing his experiences with the soldiers during th...
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The Night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I
know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. (155-159)
Here Whitman seems to be celebrating death. This could also come from his time spent as a wound-dresser.
The time Walt Whitman spent as a wound-dresser has greatly affected him, his views of death, and his poetry. Because of his experiences with the soldiers, Whitman learned to value death. He thinks as death as a blessing, almost a relief from the harsh world. He also talked about the living and how death affected them. This could very well come from his feelings of himself being left behind and watching people around him die. All in all Whitman uses his life experiences in his poetry, particularly regarding death.
Although Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman had different styles of writing, they did convey the same attitude and acceptance toward death. Both Dickinson’s “712” and Whitman’s “From “Song of Myself” poems showed death was something natural that had to happen and we need to accept it at a certain point in life. Both wrote poems about it as if it were no big deal, but something peaceful. Both poets used much imagery to convey this message very clear to their audience.
She personifies death as a gentleman who kindly takes her for a journey in his carriage. She also personifies immortality as a person riding with them in the carriage of the. She uses the paradox “The Cornice on the ground”. Whitman’s language is poetic and realistic. Both poems discuss the view of death, but from different perspectives.
The way he writes the poem shows how he was in love with the president on how Lincoln conducted himself during the war. He refers to Lincoln as the captain of the ship which is the Union, throughout the poem he begins to call out to the Captain acting like the president was never shot. Through this all, it seems like Whitman could never bring himself to acknowledge the assassination of the late president. He also wrote it as a way to express the grief of losing the beloved commander and chief, and also explain to the American people how Booth killed the man who helped bring the Union together once again. However, he makes the metaphor in this poem explain why he would have wrote it, it shows that through an imaginary situation that things begin to seem alright in the world. Finally, Whitman deals with the pain through the metaphor to cover up the hurt America feels even if he despised the poem later on in
Whitman claims that “there was never any more inception than there is now…nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.” The remainder of the poem goes on to say that similar to the law of conservation of matter, the impending presence of any aspect of life is constant, driven only by humanities “procreant urge.” Yet rather than lazily labeling the variety of essential human traits such as youth, old age, sex and isolation; Whitman divides the world based upon his soul saying, “Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.” While at first this may appear to be a weak dichotomy that is far too lenient of evil actions, Whitman continues to write of it that “lack one lack both.” This somewhat ambiguous statement becomes clarified when observed against the larger backdrop of the idea of the self which Whitman is attempting to paint. Essentially, without the awareness or experience of ideas or actions that are decidedly not a part of your soul, it is nearly impossible to construct a genuine personal and moral code. Just as without darkness there is no light, without a definition and example of what is wrong, identifying a correct moral path becomes infinitely
The chronologically earlier poems celebrate the coming hostilities, expressing Whitman’s "early near-mindless jingoism" (Norton 2130). As one progresses through the work, he finds a less energetic, sorrowful, jaded narrator who seems little like the exuberant youth who began. Understandable so, "[Whitman] estimated that over the course of the war, he had made ‘over 600 visits or tours, and went. among from some 80,000 to 100,000 of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need’" (Murray).
Life in its ever-evolving glory seems at times to be nothing more than a serious of random events that lead us from one place to another. It takes many years of grace and wisdom to see that life is much more than that. Life is far bigger than any one person or group of people. Life is a lesson and sometimes lessons need to repeat. Life during the time of Walt Whitman was oddly and sadly similar to our very own time in some ways. Like us, Whitman dealt in "Leaves of Grass" with living in a nation during wartimes; and if you can say anything about war, it is that, it is never fast and never easy.
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”.
Whitman establishes a direct connection between the lyrical and the reader to get to each one of us. The power that the poem has and having Whitman writing it, rests on the ability of the author to separate himself amongst thousands, almost as a wonderful schizophrenia which allows you to view the world from certain points of view and understand it better than anyone.
The theme of Time to Come presents the mystery of life after death and calls attention to how vulnerable it’s victims are. Whitman begins his poem with the strong metaphor “ O, Death! a black and pierceless pall” (1). This bold statement allows the reader quickly realize that the work will somehow be connected to death, but in an insightful manner. The alliteration of “pierceless pall” emphasizes death’s ruthless approach. Whitman then describes death as a “mystery of fate” that " No eye may see, no mind may grasp” (3-4). This points out that death lingers in the future, essentially waiting to seize lives and nobody can know when th...
The soldiers that fought during the civil war were fighting for their livelihood. The northern soldiers needed to bring the south back to the north, and the southerners were fighting to keep their way of life. Whitman was amazed at how far each side was willing to go and was amazed at the sacrifices that the men gave to their causes. The soldiers according to Whitman went through hell just to get to battle which if in the case of Gettysburg was even worse. Food was hard to come by, their clothes were tattered, they marched through heat, cold, rain, through mud, and anything that they needed to to get to where their next battle was, only to march on again once the battle has past (Whitman 333). While Whitman worked as a nurse, he was moved by how strong the soldiers were, and when he was going from Fredericksburg to Washington D.C., he wrote to the wounded soldiers families, as he felt that this was one of the best was he could comfort soldiers as they traveled to hospitals (Home). Whitman’s dedication to these wounded soldiers shows how even if he couldn’t fight in the war, he could help in the recovery of the injured. Walt Whitman thought that the way that the developing culture of the arts was beginning to take shape in what was going on around America. Claiming wilderness for fertile farmland, being able to ship goods anywhere along the coast and further, and expanding the railroad so it could touch the furthest reaches of the Louisiana Purchase allowed new ideas to flow and mingle in the new areas and then be condensed into literature and
Whitman is giving a more graphic example of how sex is a natural thing. By comparing the act of reproduction to death he shows just how natural of an act sex is. Everything that is born will eventually die. He feels that the natural curiosities of the human sexual appetites should not be denied or not discussed because of social standards. Not only is sex a "miracle" that is a part of him, but also nature and the universe, and each individual part should be celebrated.
As Whitman, the specific individual, melts away into the abstract, “Song of Myself” explores the possibilities for communion between individuals. Whitman addresses the reader in a particularly direct manner. He integrates his reader into the poem, and is freed of the constraints of poetic principle and social etiquette. The poem presents entire body lounging on the ground, leaning and idling. Whitman deliberately conflates natural world and poetical world. “Song of Myself” goes beyond the boundaries of Transcendentalism in the relationship of the physical and spiritual, individual and universal. The self that Whitman cheerily sings and celebrates substantiates a ‘uniform hieroglyphic’: suggestive, multiform, and awash with inconsistency. “It is as much a physical presence as a projected spiritual possibility” (Jason 2). Even as it blatantly and fervently expresses Whitman’s faith in evolution (and therefore in the necessary indivisibility of self-reliance), “Song of Myself” also conveys a separation with the “self,” the poet himself, and the co...
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.
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.
Both poets, in these works and many others, display a fascination with the death of themselves as well as the death of peers, and loved ones. Both Frost and Dickinson experienced a great deal of death throughout each of their lives. Frost’s greatest loss was the death of his son, which is greatly depicted in his poem “Home Burial.” Dickinson suffered the loss of many friends and family. She spent a lot of her time in her room looking out upon the headstones of these people.