Walt Whitman's Song of Myself
This paper deals with Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" in relation to Julia Kristeva's theories of abjection--my paper does not point to abjection in the text, but rather the significance of the abscence of abjection. This abscence, looming and revolting, arises from Whitman's attemt to refigure a conception of sublimity which delimits the material which can trigger the sublime moment. Whitman's democracy of the sublime is inclusive of those figures on the American landscape, their lives and voices, which are functionalized into his world. This paper employs the theories of George Lukacs and Julia Kristeva allow the unearthing of the archeological layers of Whitman's text.
The most literal adjective that could be applied to them is arresting. We are seized by them. (I am aware that there are people who pass the over but about them there is nothing to say.) As we look at them, the moment of the other's suffering engulfs us. We are filled with either despair or indignation.
John Berger, on Photographs of Agony.
Here I am, bent over the keyhole; suddenly I hear a footstep. I shudder as a wave of shame sweeps over me. Somebody has seen me. I straighten up. My eyes run over the deserted corridor. It was a false alarm. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Jean Paul Sartre
If in the paneled objectification of Eakin's Whitman there lies something in the (re)presentation which unsettles, one could suffer the seizures of revulsion. The viewer stays to uncoil the snare, to locate it outside of one's own "perversion" and locate it inside the text; the viewer indicts the bleached figure who stands as stark harpee against the shadowed relief. For Kristeva, "there looms, within abjection, one of those viol...
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...hus fear having been bracketed, discourse will seem tenable only if it ceaselessly confront that otherness, a burden both repellent and repelled, a deep well of memory that is unapproachable and intimate: the abject. There is no urgent unceasing in Whitman's Song, all segments and voices are transfigured into the trigger of the sublime. His space cannot have the abject, for the "abject" signals the ejection of a culture, the refuse of society, whose culinary habits allow them to exist. But Whitman confronts there gradient and levels it: his polyphony is democratic. But there is that looming text, which, for all that Whitman has tried to conceal, is left as the burden, the subtext, from lack of attention, confrontation. With Eakin's panel and Whitman's Song of Myself there is only foreground, perspective is lost, and only sensed by the imaginary relief of the shadow.
Whitman’s work has an arguable style that makes his work appear as an egotistical piece of literature for some and others may find a different deeper meaning within his work. This work is an excellent example of patriotic work that attempts better its audience throughout by making revelations and comparisons of different idea and thoughts about the nation's people. Whitman illustrates his interpretation of what a kind of person is a great person is and how they go about life. He intends to make his audience better as a whole and understand the underlying problem that some have. Whitman's writing truly expresses his feelings about his time and what he expects from them for a better
Worldviews differ from person to person. Disagreements often arise over controversial issues such as race, gender, politics, and sovereignty. In “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman and in the liner notes to the 1990 Jane's Addiction album Ritual de lo Habitual, vocalist and songwriter Perry Farrell address such divisive issues. Despite having been written more than one hundred years apart, both men share considerably similar opinions in their works regarding the treatment of social structure and personal freedoms. Whitman and Farrell address their passionate desire for equality among men, women, and people of all distinct backgrounds, as well as people’s entitlement to individual rights and truths. Conflicts as these hold significant weight in the hearts of people, therefore change is progressive and does not come quickly or easily. Thus, such issues continue to persist as popular subjects of discussion in society and writing as evident in these two works. Both authors seem to set forth the issues they find in the world and suggest the necessary means for change. The overall tone of both pieces suggests that natural worlds have transcended the need for order, law, and religion which human society is built upon and indicates that because American society has moved farther away from nature, progress toward a better world has been slow.
“Song of Myself” is an attempt by Walt Whitman to become the “American poet” as described by Ralph Waldo Emerson; he attempts to be “[T]he sayer, the namer, and [representative] of beauty” (Emerson 1182). Whitman wants to speak to and for America. Whitman does not explicitly choose sides on the slavery debate that was raging at the time of his writing, but he does express the equality of all people, regardless of gender and race in “Song of Myself”. While Whitman’s writing can be read as neutral but “Song of Myself” is, in reality, very anti-slavery and pro-equality.
Sarracino, Carmine. "Dyspeptic Amours, Petty Adhesiveness, and Whitman's Ideal of Personal Relations." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 8.2 (1990): 76-91.
One of Emily Dickinson’s greatest skills is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. In this sense, she reshapes how her readers view her subjects and the meaning that they have in the world. She also has the ability to assign a word to abstractness, making her poems seemingly vague and unclear on the surface. Her poems are so carefully crafted that each word can be dissected and the reader is able to uncover intense meanings and images. Often focusing on more gothic themes, Dickinson shows an appreciation for the natural world in a handful of poems. Although Dickinson’s poem #1489 seems disoriented, it produces a parallelism of experience between the speaker and the audience that encompasses the abstractness and unexpectedness of an event.
The third passage, excerpted from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, demonstrates Whitman's willingness to represent those from usually neglected peoples, such as prostitutes, sickly persons, and slaves. He is their voice of portrayal. He is the one who will reveal the true nature of these people and the circumstances they've been forcefully thrown into. He isn't afraid to speak for them towards those who are ignorant and uncaring. He will be truthful but painfully candid, as well, as shown by how he'll "keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart." He does not find indecencies more vulgar than death itself. On the contrary, he sees them as normal occurrences in life, further emphasizing how he won't back down from educating
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.
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?
One very important topic that major American authors Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson incorporated into their writing was the idea of the “self” or “self-identity”. Both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were prolific major American poets and many of the topics they chose to write about involved aspects of transcendentalism. Though Whitman and Dickinson wrote about some of the same topics, they did not share the same meanings, especially with the description of “self”. Published in 1855 within a poetry collection called Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself” gives a look into how Walt Whitman felt about self-identity. Whitman uses a first person narrator to describe the “self” as the celebration of the individual through personal exploration and gaining personal experience. In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I heard a Fly buzz when I died” published in 1896 as part of Poems by Emily Dickinson (third series), she alludes that the key to identifying the “self” is sight.
This article is describing the large archive of historian Walt Whitman, hence the phrase “I am large, I contain multitudes” in his notable poem, “Song of Myself” embedded in Leaves of Grass masterpiece. The archive contains his lifelong body work that associated with what was happening in the U.S. of the nineteenth century, the Civil War being one. When pertaining to the Walt Whitman Archive, the article is stating that it contains a vast amount of texts and other materials.
In the poem Song of Myself featured in Leaves of Grass, the poet Walt Whitman describes that everybody occupies an individual place in the universe because they are composed of atoms, also everybody has a purpose in life. Whiteman explains, “For every atom belonging to me...belongs to you.” (ll.3). This example proves that everybody is equal by saying that what belongs to him also belongs someone else. The author says that everything is made up of atoms in order to show that everything and everybody is equal.Whiteman emphases people being equal and sharing the same thing in a time where there was slavery. Additionally the text discusses,"...sprouting alike in broad zones and and narrow zones, Growing among black folks as among white..." (ll,
*Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 3rd ed. Ed, Paul Lauter. Boston,NewYork: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
“Song of Myself” is written completely in free verse, as it has no consistent poetic form throughout. In my opinion, this could resemble how life really has no set rhythm or length. From what I have read, the image of grass is mentioned several times throughout the poem, and is observed by Whitman in many different lights.
Procrastination can be a major problem in both your career and your personal life because procrastination is the thief of time. When you keep putting off things, they keep piling up and getting in your way of achieving other things. Then you have missed opportunities, frenzied work hours, feel stressed, guilt and resentment; you find you are being overwhelmed easily because there is just so much to do.
Most humans have habits, habits in which they do simply because if they do not do them they feel uncomfortable. Procrastination is one of those habits that not all, but most people suffer from. Procrastination means to put off key things to do less important things that could possibly wait. It has been proving that all most everyone procrastinates, but procrastination does not determine what type of person one is. Procrastination is like a virus or a bad cold that does not want to go away. If one does not stop the problem it will get bigger; therefore, if people do not control their procrastinating they will start to do it more. However, the worst time to procrastinate is in college. College students often forget hoe important time is. Being a procrastinator can lead to several different outcomes. Procrastination can led to either good or bad outcomes. It all depends on the person doing the procrastinating. Procrastination is not always meant to happen; sometimes it simply happens because a person is too busy. Procrastination has both good and bad causes and effects, can cause failure, and bad decisions.