Walt Whitman’s Poetry Analysis Walt Whitman was a writer during the Romantic era. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on individualism and emotion. Whitman conveyed these characteristics in many of his works. “A Noiseless Patient Spider”, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”, and “Bivouac on a Mountainside” are all works of Whitman during the Romanticism period. Each poem holds evidence of the ideas and themes of Romanticism. Common themes in the Romantic era are Isolation and Love of Nature. These poems by Whitman all illustrate both Love of Nature and Isolation. “A Noiseless Patient Spider” was written during Whitman’s prime. “A Noiseless Patient Spider” is a short, ten line poem portraying a small spider creating a web. In “A …show more content…
Noiseless Patient Spider”, Whitman portrays the themes Love of Nature and Isolation. Whitman exemplifies Love of Nature by describing “[a noiseless], patient spider” (1). The spider is a creature of nature that is not influenced by anything except nature, unlike people who are influenced by society. Whitman also refers to the space surrounding the spider as “measureless oceans” (7). Whitman’s depiction of a natural element creates imagery for this poem as well. Whitman illustrates the theme of isolation often in this poem. The speaker states, “I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated” (2). The speaker goes on to say, “And you, O my Soul, where you stand, / Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space” (6-7). Whitman has the speaker change from talking about the spider, to talking about him. The spider is a representation of a person who is not influenced by isolated views. Society would classify a person who is one with nature and doesn’t fall prey to society as isolated. Whitman is confessing that he is an isolated person and that more people need to stop following societies rules. Whitman’s expression of natural elements and solitary tone both correlate with the themes of Isolation and Love of Nature. Another poem that illustrates the themes of Isolation and Love of Nature is “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”.
The speaker of this poem is sitting in a lecture-room listening to the astronomer discuss diagrams and charts of the stars. The speaker eventually leaves the lecture and goes to look at the stars outside. The stars in this poem symbolize both nature and isolation. The speaker states, “In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, / [I] Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars” (7-8). The speaker references the stars and night-air to create a calm atmosphere. The speaker also seems to be infatuated with the stars in their natural element, and not in diagrams and charts. The speaker also say, “I wander’d off by myself” (5). The speaker longs to be isolated with nature. This isolation allows for the speaker to come to his own realizations about the world, instead of it being determined by society’s view. Whitman utilizes this poem to explain how nature is beautiful on its own, and how charts can’t display its real beauty to the viewer. Whitman exercises the Romaticism themes of Isolation and Love of Nature in this poem by explaining how nature reveals its beauty to each individual in a different
way. In “The Bivouac on a Mountainside”, the speaker of this poem is standing, watching an army travel on a mountainside. The speaker describes that mountain by saying, “Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer, / Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high, / Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes dingily seen” (2-4). The speaker has a very keen eye and passion for nature. The speaker is just a spectator of the army and not a part of it. The speaker says, “The shadowy form of men and horses, looming, large-sized, flickering, / And all over the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded, / breaking out, the eternal stars”(6-8). The speaker says that the men and horses are found out of reach, giving the allusion that the speaker is isolated far away from the excitement of the war. The speaker also reveals how the war is ruining the beautiful mountain side. Whitman illustration of the setting and the mountain convey the theme Love of Nature. The speakers view symbolizes the mood of being isolated and alone. Walt Whitman wrote many poems during the Romanticism time period. “A Noiseless Patient Spider”, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”, and “Bivouac on a Mountainside” all contain the characteristics of Romanticism. These poems convey the themes of Isolation and Love of Nature. Each poem includes a form of natural element that seems to hold purpose to the speaker. The theme of Isolation is conveyed through mood and tone as well as the words of the speaker. All the speakers of these poems find comfort and happiness by being isolated with nature. Whitman’s ability to express these themes and characteristics allowed for him to be a famous writer of the Romantic era.
The poem's speaker is first introduced when they are taking out the trash, accompanied by their spouse. While "the rolling containers [create] a song of suburban thunder," the couple "point out the stars that make Orion." However, the spouse's remark, "We should really learn some new constellations," jolts the speaker (and the poem) into a broader mindset. This use of symbolism vividly represents life's tendency to narrow our focus on only what is immediate and evident to us, symbolized by Orion - a well-known constellation - versus all of the other forgotten dead stars and constellations. The second half of the poem becomes a bold invitation to "reclaim the rising" star-like aspects of ourselves to "lean.toward / what is larger in us," to survive more" and "love harder" because humans "[are] dead stars too.
(A critique of Walt Whitman’s themes and ideas in Song of Myself 6, 46, 47)
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.
"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.
Romanticism is the style of writing that the author uses to express each poem and the elements that are involved within such as nature, emotion, individualism, nationalism, idealism, and imagination. What makes a poem romantic is “The ideas around art as inspiration, the spiritual and aesthetic dimension of nature, and metaphors or organics” (Spanckeren 2). Poets that are associated with romanticism are Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, and Emily Dickinson. Whitman’s poem is “When I heard the learn’d astronomer”. Poe’s poem is “Annabel Lee”. Dickinson poem is “The Soul Selects Her Own Society”. The American Romantic Movement is fully represented by Dickinson, Poe, and Whitman.
In “A Noiseless Patient Spider”, Walt Whitman compares the images of a spider creating a web to catch its prey to his own soul. In the first stanza, he describes the spider creating its web. In the second stanza, he begins to describe his own soul searching for something it needs. Throughout the poem, Whitman is relating the spider to the human soul by showing how both would pursue and capture what they need to continue to exist in this life.
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.
In “I Sit and Look Out” Walt Whitman shows the carelessness in the absence of
A major proponent of Romanticism, Wordsworth’s influence can be seen in Whitman’s poetry through a Romantic connection. Despite differences in form, one can see William Wordsworth’s influence on Walt Whitman in Wordsworth’s preface to Lyrical Ballads and Whitman’s “Song of Myself” through their portrayal of the common man and their use of language, which is Romantic in nature. Moores argues that the case is not. He states, “Although both poets had an intense distrust of language.they nevertheless believed language, particularly their own poetic language, could be a stimulus of consciousness expansion”(“Gangs” 96).
While the poem can be termed to be democratic, both in subject matter and its language, Whitman is viewed to be cataloging the ‘new’ America that he is seeing around him. The poem includes subject matter such as relationships, patriotism, heroes, family and ancestors, and a view on social commentaries too.
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?
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'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.