A True Patriot: Walt Whitman Essay

Walt Whitman is a renowned American poet. He served as an example for all to follow. He put thoughts into peoples head. Whitman was very influential and had a very big effect on people. Langston Hughes was also a very influential American poet. He was known for changing others opinion of race and making their oppression evident to others. Hughes was very influenced by Whitman and he caused him to want to make a difference in people's thoughts on his race. Whitman wrote a poem called I Hear America Singing and some people believe that it influenced Hughes poem, I, Too, Sing America. Hughe builds on Whitman's poems in these categories; structure and technique, themes, and effect on people and society.

Whitman’s point throughout the story is that in war there is more suffering than there is glory or bravery. This can be seen in the first section of this poem:

Captain Lincoln Steers the Ship to victory. “Where on the deck my captain lies Fallen cold and dead.”(7-8) This quote from the story refers to the assassination of President Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was President during the Civil War, and is considered to be one of the greatest presidents of all time. President Lincoln was assassinated on April 14,1865 and was in a coma for 9 hours before he died. With the death of the President the nation lost it’s most important man and a great father and husband. The elegy “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman is an extended metaphor about President Lincoln’s presidency because it compares Lincoln to a ships captain, the Union

America is a country that has been through many different times of trials. Wars and disease have spread across that nation several times. During times of depression, though, a group of people seems to always emerge from the destruction. That group of people are the poets and writers of America. Through trial and strife, writers are able to find inspiration for their works, and are able to give readers hope for a better day. Walt Whitman was an amazing writer who wrote several poems concerning the great United States of America, talking about the people that have built the nation up from the dust. But, a group of people that Whitman forgot to write about on most occasions were the slaves and black people of which America thrived. Langston Hughes was a black man in the 20th century that took note of Whitman's poems, and their lack of recognition towards his people. Whitman wrote a poem called, "I Hear America Singing," in which Hughes wrote the poem, "I, Too Sing America," in response. In the poem by Hughes, there are several different ways that the writing interlaces with Walt Whitman's.

It is not news for anyone to hear that Lincoln changed America, but Whitman explains it a little differently. Looking closer at “Oh Captain! My Captain!” elements of American Romanticism pop out, and one of those major elements is political changes or events. The Event of this is very well known, Lincoln’s assassination. New york Times tells that Whitman was pushed to write this poem after Lincoln’s assassination as a tribute to him. “Generations of historians have described, and tried to interpret the meaning of, this unique funeral procession. But no author has probed the event more deeply than Walt Whitman”. (Griffin, New York Times). This can be shown through the detail of the poem to his assassination. It describes the captain falling cold and dead, which can be a direct correlation to him being shot. His assassination isn't the only thing discussed in this poem. Going back to the metaphors about the voyage, the voyage is described as done. This can show that the civil war was over recently, it ended on April 9th. Lincoln’s assassination took place on April 14th. The close relations of both of these events happening are described like a history lesson through the poem. The second stanza is describing the vents after the war, and the third is describing Lincoln's death. After the war ended the country was in a state of happiness and celebration, but Lincoln was assassinated only a few days later.

Walt Whitman was a revolutionary poet who let his emotions run free through his poetry. Whitman was never afraid to express himself no matter how inappropriate or offensive his emotions might have seemed at the time. This is why Whitman's poem still echo that same sentiment and emotion today almost as loudly as when the drums were first tapped.

Whitman wrote broad stanzas and focused on the whole of America as his inspiration. His lines covered a wide range of topics and generated multiple points of view for the reader. He called his life’s work “Leaves of Grass”; stressing the

Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 and he died on March 26, 1892. He had a nickname that was "Bard of Democracy. When he was 11, his dad took him out of school so he could help around the house and the farm. He started to work as a journalist and he did not really like it because he always had a hard deadline. Whitman became angered about the slavery problems so that is what made him sit down and start writing his feeling which became a poem.

Walt Whitman's was a writer and poet born in the 1800's He lived in Long Island NY, he temporary took a post for the paymaster once before and volunteered to help with wounded soldiers so he saw different views of the world.He also was a journalist humanist and

Biography: Paragraph 1: Walter Whitman Jr. born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, Long Island, New York and his mother name was Louisa Vanvesor and she was Dutch

In a variety of Walt Whitman’s poems, the first person narrative emphasizes that the emotions expressed in his writing are unique to him. In his poem Song of Myself, he describes a scene in nature involving a wild goose call. He reflects “The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close,/ Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky…. I see in them myself and the same old law” (6). The use of the first person shows how Whitman’s interpretations of the events he depicts do not apply to all people. He admits that other people may find the goose call “meaningless”, showing his understanding that his feelings of mutual connectedness with the world is not a universal reaction. Whitman is able to show that the emotions evoked

“O Captain! My Captain!” is one of the most popular poems ever written by Walt Whitman. Upon the initial reading of this poem, one may perceive the poem to be about a loyal captain who leads his crew on a treacherous, but successful, voyage which ends in devastation. If interpreted literally this is the poem’s only meaning, but for those who look further there is an underlying story behind the words of Whitman. Whitman uses multiple literary elements throughout this poem in order to unmask the story of Abraham Lincoln’s journey and ultimate death as a result of the Civil War and his fight to end slavery.

In Walt Whitman’s collection of Leaves of Grass, he includes many poems that are a compilation of his musings and thoughts. One thing that he does throughout his collection is that he creates goals through each poem to get different messages across. Some of his common messages, or underlying themes, are the Self, democracy, and the individual, but an interesting common theme found scattered throughout Leaves of Grass is the cycle of life and death, especially in comparison to the United States, the Civil War, and life itself. In “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” does such thing. Published in 1865, the pastoral elegy was written after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. This is the best way that Walt Whitman mourns a beloved public figure in his own modern world, and also the way he copes with the natural world. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” best captures Whitman’s notion what it means to be human: the common understanding of the never-ending cycle of life and death through the form of the elegy, the symbol of the lilac, and the personification of death.

It was a deep poem, because it opened up his perspective on life, and his perspective is unique. In a way he spoke of his own religion, and preached that everyone meets their maker, but everyone is reincarnated as a blade of grass, and he spoke of showing respect for the blades of grass because they could have been part of his ancestory or a person of importance to another person. In general, he wanted people to show appreciation for the world because many generations walked this planet before he did. He wanted people to respect those who have since been deceased, no matter their race, because death is inevitable, and they will soon face it. Whitman’s writing style carried over into this canto, his blank verse style of poetry, although it was not flashy, it made him sound educated and well spoken, but hard to follow. He also revealed that he did believe in a god when he spoke of God’s handkerchief was a gift for Earth, through a

In his poems and life, Walt Whitman celebrated the human spirit and the human body. He sang the praises of democracy and marveled at the technological advances of his era. His direct poetic style shocked many of his contemporaries. This style, for which Whitman is famous, is in direct relation to several major American cultural developments. The development of American dictionaries, the growth of baseball, the evolution of Native American policy, and the development of photography all played a part and became essential components of Whitman’s poetry.