As a result of superficial reading and skimming, Whitman’s genderless passion would merely be uniquely described nature. Consider this portion of “Song of Myself”
“You sea! I resign myself to you also… I guess what you mean,
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me;
We must have a turn together…. I undress… hurry me out of sight of the land,
Cushion me soft…. rock me in billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet…. I can repay you.” (Whitman, 47-48)
An inexperienced reader may assume that Whitman is infatuated with the existence of the ocean, which is not wrong. This passage is deeply personal to a love Whitman experienced or fantasied about. When one compare this to his 1855 “I Sing the Body Electric”’s description of loving a women, the reader discovers “Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands— all diffused…. mine too diffused.” (Whitman, 121)
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Similarly, Walt Whitman embodies the readers by using “you” rather than “me.” In “I Sing the Body Electric”, “You would wish ling and long to be with him…. you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and be might touch each other.” (Whitman, 120) Clearly, the gender of one of the active participant in this scene is revealed as male. However, the reader is free to assume the gender of “you.” These two trends are used, again, in “Song of Myself” when Whitman lustfully narrates
“Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you,
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions,
Root of washed sweet flag, timorous pond snipe, nest of guarded duplicate eggs, it shall be
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
“For the Sake of the Song” and “Song of Myself” share several key similarities, including a strong use of figurative language, making a connection with humanity, and both are considered romantic poems. Walt Whitman’s poetry contains much figurative language and connections between individuals and how they relate to the whole of society. Walt Whitman and Townes Van Zandt both seem pretty okay with death, as they talk about dying in their writings a lot and they both seem pretty nonchalant about it. In “For the Sake of the Song” you can find metaphor, personification, assonance, and many more forms of figurative language throughout the piece.
In the poem “Self’s the Man” he portrays Man to be more superior to women. His opinion of love’s initial excitement contrasted with the
Ok. So those are the facts. Now let's examine "Song Of Myself" and Whitman with greater detail. There are several sections in this poem that enhance our knowledge on the stand Whitman is taking toward his body and sexuality. He begins in Section 4 with a reflection on the "Real Person". Or what he views as "Real." He states, "The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love." This stanza depicts Whitman's view on sexuality and on equality. He obviously, in this stanza shows no favoritism toward either gender. He is saying that he loves both equally regardless of any differences. He
The suggestions of equality between all people are not blatant and are not abundant in “Song of Myself” but they do exist, showing that Whitman was not as neutral as most readers are led to believe. He believed in equality.
In 1855 when the first edition of Leaves of Grass was published, the first Women’s Convention had already taken place in Seneca Falls. According to Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass is a women’s book. In the epigraph of Sherry Ceniza’s Walt Whitman and 19th-century women reformers she quotes him having said “Leaves of Grass I essentially a woman’s book: the women do it know it, but every now and then a woman shows that she knows it” (Ceniza). The implication here combined with the text in Song of Myself suggest a phenomenon that is all too common. Whitman is seen as and sees himself as a poet beyond racial and gender distinctions but like many in a position of privilege, their appropriation of the pain felt by these opposed groups serves only
The creation of an acceptable persona is essential to Whitman's poetic program. In "Song of Myself" this is
As seen above, the majority of homoerotic images is concentrated in a cluster of poems titled Calamus. It is noticeable that Whitman tried to express his sexuality directly, but ended up fabricating “a persona that obscured his true nature” (Bergman 387), thus it is only a bit more particularized than Song of Myself. In The Base of All Metaphysics the lyrical subject speaks of “the attraction of friend to friend” (Whitman 141), the Socratic notion of love, and it is this kind of love that Whitman seems to be most interested in.
Walt Whitman is considered one of the most important writers in the history of American Literature. The people of his own time called him a radical, a madman, and a pornographer. These days he is greatly appreciated and entitled as a fearless prophet of a new stage of human development. Sometimes Whitman would be in a slump and he felt that he needed to deflect the people who inquired too directly. This even meant using examples of homosexual elements in his work, as well as unbelievable stories of him having affairs with numerous women and fathering many children, unknown to him. Throughout these sorts of times W. Whitman has gone through both resentment and flattery, nevertheless showing us
& nbsp;Divinity, Sexuality and the Self in Whitman’s Song of Myself Through his poetry, Whitman's "Song of Myself" makes the soul sensual and makes divine the flesh. In Whitman's time, the dichotomy between the soul and the body had been clearly defined by centuries of Western philosophy and theology. Today, the goodness of the soul and the badness of the flesh still remain a significant notion in contemporary thought. Even Whitman's literary predecessor, Emerson, chose to distinctly differentiate the soul from all nature. Whitman, however, chooses to reevaluate that relationship.
Every sentence in Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" tends to either repeat or contradict. He even says of himself, "I contradict myself" (Lauter, p. 2793). This can make Whitman's poetry a little confusing to some. In his many stanzas, definition of the soul is ambiguous and somewhat contradictory.
On this verse, we can see how Whitman tries to connect to mind, body, spirit and nature. In “Song of Myself” Whitman attempted to change the meaning of American poetry. I described identity issues that pertain to him, but that the audience was able to identify with. Whitman, opened the door to
Now I intend to turn my attention to concrete examples from Walt Whitman's poetry to provide some evidence of that sexuality played an important role in his poetry, and there are possible readings to find traces for that. Of course, we cannot only rely on selected
Walt Whitman, a civil war nurse was a self-taught poet in the 1800s. Whitman is known for using lists, anaphora, free verse, and other literary devices in his poems. In his works, he focuses on American workers, diversity, transcendent approaches to nature, and individualism. “Song of Myself,” a poem written by Whitman, explores themes of nature, sex, democracy, and spirituality. Whitman uses nature to fuel his creativity in using grass as a symbol of comparison to life by using imagery, metaphors, and analogies.
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.