Crossing Brooklyn Ferry By Walt Whitman Essay

For all of its awkwardness Whitman’s poem is vibrant and a joy to read, with a dictionary close at hand. He makes the steam driven locomotive come to life on the page with the “ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating” (Whitman line 5) you can see the metal violently swinging back and forth. When he describes the thick, purple hazed, smoke rising from the machine one can almost feel the oily vapors on the face and nostrils. As the “warning ringing bell … sounds (sic) its notes” the reader can’t help but hear it in the distance, and at the end as the machine “Launch’d o’er the praries wide, across the lakes, To the free skies unpent and glad and strong” (Whitman lines 24-25) the same reader can glimpse the ghost train gliding into the sunset.

The idea of an equal America exists no more. Regardless of the fact that there is a plethora of varying perspectives dividing the country into two, there are words and phrases that are generally accepted in viewing our country from the rest of the world. First, the American Dream is regularly associated with equal opportunity, prosperity, and liberty. Walt Whitman, as well as many others, have written about this desired America for the socially accepted American. He is often referred to as “America’s Poet,” who amplifies the elegant qualities of America that we believe to be true. It is obvious that Whitman portrays America as an alive and colorful place full of chance and flourishment throughout his work. “I Hear America Singing” is a prime example of an America that is only seen from the surface, where Whitman clearly indicates that the United States is a country where all its citizens are able to achieve equality and liberty. Contradictory, Sharon Olds poem, “On the Subway,” proves the lack of individual liberty, which deteriorates the growth of the country, ultimately opposing the America, where personal freedom is the foundation. Olds’ poem pokes holes in the surface that shows the controversial interior that truly makes up America that Whitman painted beforehand. Olds and Whitman also illustrate varying insight regarding personal liberty and its importance in two opposing poems; one who proclaims it as easily attainable and necessary to the country and the other who

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is Walt Whitman’s way of personifying the everyday experiences of living in society; specifically, Whitman’s firsthand account of his routine crossing on the Brooklyn Ferry. To achieve this is his poem Whitman utilizes the use of repetition to emphasize specific points throughout the works. This is particularly evident in stanza six, here Whitman begins each statement with the phrase “I too”; in doing so Whitman exploits the device of repetition to consolidate the striking commonalities each individual share. By relating to such familiar commonalities such as “I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan, and bathed in its waters.”, the author brings the reader onto level ground and utilizes the familiar experiences of common

In one of the sections from the poem, “Song of Myself” Walt Whitman starts out with a child asking a question, “What is the grass?” Grass is a symbol of life. God, who created both the heavens and the earth also gave birth to life. When Whitman refers to grass as a “handkerchief of the Lord” (7), as a gift. When people look at the grass, they do not think of it as a creation but rather just a plant. Whitman refers to the grass as “a child, the produced babe of vegetation” (11, 12). Here, the grass is a metaphor for the birth of a child. In often cases, the birth of anything is celebrated because it symbolizes a new life, a new beginning.

I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old, Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south, Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering tracks of beams, Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water, (Whitman lines

Walter “Walt” Whitman, also known as “the father of free verse,” is one of the most influential writers in American history. Whitman was born, on May 31, 1819, in Long Island, New York. His family settled in North America in the first half of the 17th century. His father and mother, Walter Whitman Sr. and Louisa Van Velsor, got married on June 9, 1816. Together, they had nine children. Whitman's father was of English descent and his mother was Dutch; this ancestry was typical of the region. They were poor farmers with meager amounts of formal education.

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” by Walt Whitman depicts the experiences and emotions he goes through when riding the ferry. In today’s time we tend to stereotype people we judge quickly, we are selfish just like Whitman’s judgmental behavior towards the people on the ferry. In the first three lines of the first stanza, Whitman is giving us a picture of where he is located and the occurrences he goes through. It appears that he immediately isolates himself from the men and women, who are with him sailing on the ferry: “Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes,” (1, 3)

California served as a place for fresh starts and new beginnings for many people. The city bloomed with operations that existed to be explored and an abundance of activities to blow money on. California brought hope to those who wanted to start over and strive for living a lavish lifestyle.

Late romanticism from the 1830's-1860's was a philosophical movement that held god as present in all aspects of life and that humanity is a small piece of the universe that was divine in nature. Late romanticism also consisted of a strong emphasis on intuition. While before, in early American romanticism poetry was more artistic and cultural and had a strong emphasis on imagination and nature was seen with a spirit and mystery. Walt Whitman in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" was bold and did so by forgetting the links between previous generations and viewing everyone as one and equal. I am going to discuss how in Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" how he made god present in all aspects of life and humanity and also talking about how he used his own intuition to influence society, as well as how by reading the poem from a romantic standpoint will make you understand Whitman's overall meaning.

The next morning or more, we got packed up and started making our breakfast, after breakfast, we got our blankets and pillows packed up and we got ready to go to walk to our next destination. Now we got to walk extra miles, and I’m glad that I told them about sleep because we are going to walk extra miles. Yay! So we are going to walk 255 mile and reach our next destination named the Whitman Mission. During the journey, we had to cross the Blue Mountains. I see a wagon road cut over the mountains making it passable for our wagons. I see the hills covered in timber and some of them are really steep, on the hill. I decided to look around while we travel up to the top of the Blue Mountains. It is like a interpretive trail and has a spot for a

Walter G. Whitman traveled to the East with his family between the years 1925 and 1926. His destination was China, though he spent some time visiting India. Among the places in India he saw were Jaipur and Bombay. He did not linger in India long and there is only a short section in Whitman’s memoir of his time in India. What he did bring back from India was a sizable collection of postcards.

In his poem, To Brooklyn Bridge, Hart Crane explores the contradictions of modernity, in that some its symptoms might be able to rescue it. In the first few stanzas, the Crane condemns the degradation of the modern world. The speaker establishes a dichotomy between the seagull’s grandiose movements above the “chained bay waters Liberty” (Crane 4) and the city enslaved by modernity below. Through a vivid depiction of the “dip” and “pivot” (Crane 2) of seagull’s flight pattern, Crane transforms just another pesky bird of the city into a symbol of awe-inspiring freedom.

Walt Whitman is known as Americas greatest poet; however, this took some time. Whitman is considered the father of free verse poetry (Reynolds). The free verse was not accepted among the people very well, the people had no idea how to accept it for what it was. Whitman’s greatest work is a collection of poems and stories called “Leaves of Grass”, which Whitman published his first copy in 1855. Whitman’s collection of “Leaves of Grass” is Walt’s songs about himself, America, the American people, religion, intimacy, and death. Whitman described “Leaves of Grass” as an autobiography, saying it is “an attempt from first to last, to put a Person, a human being (myself, in the latter

Along with the use of metaphors, the form of the poem plays an important role in uncovering the views of Whitman. First and foremost, this poem was written in free verse which is a form of poetry that lacks structure. The free verse stucture of the poem is shown in the lack of form in the stanzas of the poem. Some stanzas are six lines long while others are only one, and the lines can be either concise or drawn out. The poem also lacks any apparent rhyming scheme or rhythm. Unlike Shakespearean poetry, where the foot of the poem stays the same, the lack of any apparent structure to the poem leaves the reader unable to predict what is coming next. In addition to this, at the time this poem was written, free verse was not common. In fact, Whitman may have been one of the first poets to use this form, showing that he may have been rebelling against the predominant structured form in poetry. The lack of any apparent structure guides the reader towards the conclusion that Whitman did not like structure in poetry, and can even be

Within The Ship Starting, there are three notable instances of repetition. For one, the word “ship” occurs three times (including in the title). Given that ships are the topic of interest in the poem, this instance of repetition has the basic effect of bringing the locus of the text back to the title, or central theme. The second example can be observed in the second and third lines, where the word “sails” is followed by “moonsails,” a made-up compound version of the former word. Using the same word twice, and in this case, by adding on and modifying its second appearance, the reader is likely to acquire a clear picture of the scene that Whitman lays out in the poem. Emphasizing the image of the ship’s “sails” by preceding the words with diction such as “all” and “even” attributes the sails to a sense of abundance or freedom. The third instance of repetition occurs in line four, where “she speeds she speeds” is used to describe the motions that the ship is making. Whereas it would be considered grammatically correct to include a comma after the first mention of “she speeds,” leaving it out better reflects the content of the poem: “she speeds she speeds” gives the impression of a ship slicing through the water quickly. In many cases, using the same word twice in a row takes away from a text’s message, but in The Ship Starting, this repetition instead works in Whitman’s favor by supporting the visual imagery he seeks to create.