How Does Whitman Invent Himself

In the poem Whitman leaves the tradesmen and moves to the domestic area of American

The Boston Intelligencer printed a scathing review stating that Whitman ‘must be some escaped lunatic, raving in pitiable delirium” (Levin 6). Regardless of all the negative criticism he received, he continued to improve and write more poems for Leaves of Grass. He didn’t let what people thought of him keep him from doing what he wanted to do. He published nine editions of his book, all slightly different (Bowes 1).

Kurtis Bowen Mrs. Waldvogel American Literature 8 February, 2016 Song of Myself: 46 In section 46 of “Song of Myself” Whitman uses many literary devices to strengthen his theme that every person has his or her own path to follow. Whitman’s use of literary devices includes parallelism, diction, and metaphor. Whitman uses parallelism to strengthen the theme in many places.

Whitman shed light on to the purpose of his piece. By incorporating “him or her” addresses all readers, including all of society. Similar lack of discrimination is expressed in the second stanza. Similar lack of discrimination is expressed in the second stanza, In this moment, the young child, the reader, and society becomes “the barefoot negro boy and girl.” Through the timeless and circular journey, creates a bond between civilization and nature. As time progresses forward, the future will be influenced by past, seemingly insignificant people,

Another way Whitman reveals a theme by symbolizing a new experience can lead to something extraordinary.

Whitman utilizes music to accentuate the interconnectedness of the human experience. Even though every laborer sings his or her individual melody, they are all doing the same thing. They are all working, as ordinary people do. He goes through several specialists, but they are all joined together as regular

While this appears to be a loss of the sense of self as a discrete individual, it actually lends power to the individual, who now becomes “part of the scheme” (89). Each man within the crowd has a role to play in the forming of a coherent organic whole. By transporting his poetic self from his own time and place to the time and place of the reader through the repetition of the phrase “Just as you… I” (90), Whitman blurs the line that separates poet and reader,

In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” the story follows the narrator’s experience with life as he takes a beautiful ferry ride. The man talks about the meaning of his life to other people. In this crowd he brings together all of the strangers and finds a connection. His journey through “space and time” is focused on the people. In the first sections, Whitman sets the scene by describing his surroundings. He personifies a few objects, thus, making them more relatable to the people he is surrounded by. He feels connected to a pattern larger than himself, and how the past and the future resemble each other. And so he gets into the real

Whitman uses examples of equality, in Song of myself, in order to prove how everything and everyone is relevant to the world. His purpose is to display nature belongs to everyone in equal shares. This poetic author writes in an encouraging and gloomy tone for his audience; the young people of the generation for that they are the ones that can promote the changes that can be

“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)

Through his life, Whitman must have read many pieces of literature, and always questioned the “release” of biographies. Therefore, written works that Whitman read in his life inspired works he wrote to be read in others’

Whitman’s affection for the present is exemplified by his punctuation and extensive detail he gives the descriptions. Similar to an explorer seeing new-found land for the first time and later describing it in an epic, long-winded fireside story, Whitman describes the, “large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses, / The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,” with enthusiasm highlighted by the number of commas he uses for breaks rather than periods (41-2). Commas allow him to move from one thought to the other quickly without hesitation or very much delay. Making a shift to, “view the ‘ferry’ itself as a figure of metaphoric transport or language, which alters significantly how we read what is being crossed,” the poetic technique to blend ideas using run-on rather than end-stop lines allows for the smooth “crossing” of ideas as the ferry crosses the river (Cohen 25).

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.

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

This poem explores the difficulties of discovering the relevance of life. The suggestion that Whitman offers as a means of becoming distinguished, or obtaining an identity, is to live a life of self-satisfaction. The persuasive devices used in this poem successfully communicate Whitman’s own theory of breaking the molds of society by living as a self-satisfying individual. Whitman informs his audience that he has lead the same life as they had lived and the one who lead the same life as their children will and their ancestors did. The poet questions the significance of a person’s achievements by asking, “My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre. He thought that it would be hard for any person to measure their self- accomplishments on the planetary scale. The second verse of the poem introduces the metaphor of the world being a simple, compact with the people dissolved into the eternal float of solution. Sunrise, sunset circling birds on the Brooklyn ferry are woven into this poem. The continuous use of repetitive imagery conveys the feeling that our existence is in fact part of an infinitely moving machine that has no purpose or destination. By using these devices, Whitman shakes his audience with the convincing notion that life as it is normally perceived is not