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Crossing Brooklyn Ferry Poem Analysis

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Walt Whitman´s poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” uses the theme of time to communicate a sense of Trancendentalist unity. Whitman's Transcendentalist speaker enters the "appearances" and "usual costumes" of the universe of wonders keeping in mind the end goal to find the truth that ties each and all together in one
The speaker, as The title already indicates taking a ferry in New York,does not waste any time before presenting the idea that all humans are united in their common experience. The narrator imagines those who will cross the river in the future,this could also indicate a metaphor for the overall journey of a human life. He is very optimistic and at ease :He and also everyone else is to him a part of "the simple, compact, well-join'd …show more content…

He then discusses the body as a means of attaining one's identity:„I too had received identity by my body,“The body is given importantce since it contains the Soul and allows us to experience the world.It also serves a purpose in the following section.A section which is unlike any other in the poem,it is quite a contrast to the overall celebratory tone, as the speaker describes his alleged evil actions and thoughts.This is important because when he lets us know things he has told nobody else it draws an another connection between the poet and us in any point in time.However it is followed by a section in which the speaker´s positivity is redeemed by living „the same life with the rest“ and just as „the rest“ he:„Played the part that still looks back on the actor or …show more content…

What the push of reading could not start is started by me personally, is it not?“ In the last section of the poem ,once again all the images of the ferry ride are one by one reprised and united together like „The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings“ It serves to help the reader to remember all that preceded. While before he demonstrated things independently, blended with his own contemplations, here he consolidates them into one major celebration.
This segment, and the whole poem, comes full circle in a last stanza where Whitman utilizes the pronoun we again, as though the reader and the speaker have at last been joined together. We are now able to see the world with new perspective or „free sense“ When something has been encountered, that experience stays with the individual:„We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you/ permanently within us/We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also“
Despite the fact that we don't completely comprehend or "fanthom" these things, we adore them in any case and now they are

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