Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman Essay

Whitman blatantly expresses himself almost to the point of being stale on how much the earth means to him. Looking past the

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.

Whitman takes the idea of using parts of nature as unique symbols and transfers this idea into humanity. More specifically, Whitman is able to go beyond Emerson's idea of nature as a symbol and make humans symbols. Most obvious is the way that Whitman uses himself as a symbol of all of humanity. He sees the ideas of humanity coming from him and states, "Through me many long dumb voices…Through me forbidden voices,"(Whitman Section 24 Line 12 & 20). He says that he is a "kosmos" - or he is a universe,

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.

I enjoyed reading O living Always, Always Dying, because it talks about the reality in our life all will die in somehow, tree dies, animal dies and human dies. According to Whitman I sense a compelling feeling and unhappiness in yet self-acceptance,

Also included in the poem is the image of a young child being embraced by their elders. This shows the gap in life and the aging process that we go through. When we are young we are carefree, but as we age we hold on to the ones we love because of the knowledge that we will one day have to make our departure. Out of this idea of death, Whitman shows that this is a natural part of life and

Whitman also describes death in a very delicate manner, which allows the reader to feel that death is in a way, good. For instance, he describes the soldiers as noisy in war, but when they die, there is silence. Silence resembles death, yet it's not a negative way of expressing it. As the poet encounters with more memories of suffering, he calls to death: "Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!/ In mercy come quickly" (lines 44-45). He believes death will alleviate the pains and that it is good. Another delicate way of describing death, and an excellent choice of words, is when he says he recalls "the experience (as) sweet and sad" (line 63) These young soldiers have so much life ahead of them and they are dying, this makes it 'sad'. Yet since they are suffering so much, it's 'sweet' that they die. In this particular poem, Whitman portrays an attitude of positive welcoming of death.

Whitman begins by creating a contradictory image of himself. On one hand he relays an egotistical representation by alluding that he is the center of the universe, "a kosmos, of Manhattan the son," almost a deistic type of character. Whitman also describes himself as not being above any one person, woman or man, an obvious contradiction to his previous representation. His God-like persona is depicted in human terms, physical qualities that all humans possess. Whitman creates this contradiction to show his belief that he is everything, but is only this way because everything is a part of him. He represents himself as part of a whole&emdash;nature, mankind, and the universe are all a part of him. By being everything in nature and nature being a part of him, Whitman has the power to become the voice of nature as a whole. He speaks for nature and mankind when they do not possess the power to do so. Whitman is the voice of all.

Whitman has a philosophical approach about religion, religion practices and the journey of the soul. He uses the imagery of nature and other every day attributes to question life beyond death, rebirth and the unison of individual and nature. He is not afraid to die and admits ".... there is really no death, /and if ever there was it led toward life" (Whitman line…. )He finds the Devine power in nature and everything around him rather that in the altar of a church, which

reader. When Whitman writes "what I assume you shall assume,/For every atom belonging to me as good

He demonstrates being non-judgmental, which is something people of his time do not understand, let alone today in present time. He goes on later to say "I resist anything better than my own diversity, and breathe the air and leave plenty after me, and am not stuck up, and am in my place" (2756). Whitman feels that he has explored the world and the options around him and now has found his place. He knows his inner self and it has guided him to the place he needs to be.

Whitman says, "Clear and sweet is my soul....and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul" (Lauter, p. 2745). What I believe Whitman is saying here is that his soul and everything else that is not his soul, including the souls of others, is clear and sweet. He goes on to say in the lines following, "Lacks one lacks both..." (Lauter, p. 2745). In other words, a soul cannot be clear if it is not sweet and a soul cannot be sweet

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

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.

Whitman is known for being revolutionary for his use of free form verse in the nineteenth century. This style is evident throughout Song of Myself which aids in his descriptions and devices used to get his meaning across. His grouping of three lines per stanza for this section is common for the entirety of “Song of Myself”, which has variations of three line to occasionally five line stanzas. His freedom in his poem’s style and lack of rhyme scheme allow him to fully showcase his thoughts in a new way for this time period. An overall summary of the poem is Whitman’s pondering of himself and the world in behavior and personality to him being fully confident in himself with no existential crisis. For the first half of section 20, Whitman’s character of himself questions everything beyond the ownership of himself. He questions the integrity of other people’s identities and characters as well as ignoring social norms involving manners and religious behavior. The declaration of a lack of manners and questioning the church would have been scandalous to