The Father Of Free Verse By Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman has neither related his biography nor glorified himself in the poem as the title suggests. Infact, the apparent indication of the title is here of no importance. The poem is the song of celebration of every object of nature in general where a question put to the poet by a little child triggers off a philosophical trend of thought relating to death and the meaning of death. In the poem, he has celebrated his own idea (that nothing collapses due to death but instead life moves on) and imaginary power while showcasing his optimistic views on life

Walt Whitman is a renowned American poet. He served as an example for all to follow. He put thoughts into peoples head. Whitman was very influential and had a very big effect on people. Langston Hughes was also a very influential American poet. He was known for changing others opinion of race and making their oppression evident to others. Hughes was very influenced by Whitman and he caused him to want to make a difference in people's thoughts on his race. Whitman wrote a poem called I Hear America Singing and some people believe that it influenced Hughes poem, I, Too, Sing America. Hughe builds on Whitman's poems in these categories; structure and technique, themes, and effect on people and society.

He was born in May 1819 in New York. Whitman “aimed to transcend traditional epics, eschew normal aesthetic form, and reflect the nature of the American experience and its democracy” ("Walt Whitman"). Whitman’s views on slavery are a little confusing. He initially called for the abolition of slavery but later viewed the Abolitionist Movement as a risk to democracy. In his poem Leaves of Grass he portrays African Americans as “beautiful, dignified, and intelligent” (Klammer). However in other poems, Whitman writes how he thought blacks were inferior and that he had little sympathy for them (Klammer). Whitman volunteered his time caring for wounded soldiers ("Walt Whitman"). He made 600 hospital visits and saw more than 100,000 patients ("Walt Whitman"). This encouraged him to return to poetry where he wrote about the realities of the Civil War. In the final years of Whitman’s life, he wrote that he was disappointed in the America that he saw emerge after the Civil War ("Walt

The people in his poem are common folk without individual names, but in his celebratory verse they are all idealized. Each one finds joy in the dignity of his or her labor. In eleven lines of verse, the word "singing" appears eleven times, or twelve if you include the title. The word is used figuratively to reflect happy pride in performance of labor. This is a poem that voices American democracy. Its language is muscular, its pulse vibrant, its mood exultant. We will hear similar tonalities and exuberance in the free verse of Carl Sandburg, who was 14 when Whitman died.

Walt Whitman was an American poet whose free verse brought a new style and uniqueness to American poetry. “Free verse is poetry organized according to the cadences of speech and image patterns rather than according to a regular metrical scheme. The meter is irregular and its rhythms are based on patterned elements such as sounds, words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, rather than on the traditional units of metrical feet” (“Free Verse Encyclopedia” 1). You can see his free verse style through his literary works such as “Leaves of Grass” and “Song of Myself”.

Walt Whitman was one of the best literary figures of that time and through history because people still love his books. After Whitman stopped writing he decided to become a nurse during the Civil War. His most famous book was Leaves of Grass; it is now a trademark book through history. He also wrote about the potential freedom in America.

Introduction: Walt Whitman was an American poet from West Hills, Long Island New York. He wrote plenty of poems for the New York Times Journal newspaper also known for the famous book Leaves of Grass that had nine editions and is more than one book. The book Leaves of Grass was published in 1888 when he was finally done with all nine editions and he had passed after publishing the ninth edition.

May 31, 1819 was the day that poet Walt Whitman was born. He was born to a housebuilder named Walter Whitman. He started working with printing when he was 12 years. After a devastating fire destroyed that industry, then 17 year old Walt Whitman went to work as teacher in a schoolhouse for five years. He then went to work in the journalism industry. He founded a newspaper called the Long-Islander. He then worked with other newspapers, like the Daily Eagle and the Crescent. He then realized the horrors of slavery during his time in New Orleans with the creation of the Brooklyn Freeman, using his unique sense of poetry. He wrote the first edition of Leaves of Grass, which contained 12 poems. He then created a second book right before the Civil

Walt Whitman was one of the greatest poets in American literature. In his works he celebrated the freedom of the individual and the spirit of American democracy. He exalted the common man, the immigrant, the laborer, and the pioneer, he made the occupations of everyday life a subject of native American poetry. His truly original work , Leaves of Grass, was a landmark in both content and style.

Walt Whitman's poetry is relatively formless and his random patterns have a significant effect on the meaning evoked from the poems. Whitman has a constant theme of the link between nature/natural experience and humans. He expresses his emotions and opinions through his poems. Some of his poems are very personable, which makes them very easier to understand and more enjoyable to read.

After the Civil War, Walt Whitman realized that the American people were in need of their own identity. Therefore, he wrote the book “Leaves of Grass” with the goal of creating a literature piece that was authentic and organic to the United States in every sense. Whitman introduced to literature the idea of the “American Dream” and highlighted how important it was for the American people to develop their own identity. Consequently, he rejected the European writing styles and adapted the use of free-verses to his writing, making it a popular writing style in American poetry. Whitman valued of humanity, nature and spirituality. Therefore, he joined the Transcendental literary movement and

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.

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself / and what I shall assume you shall assume” (Whitman 1-2). These lines not only open up the beginning of one the best poems of the American Romantic period, but they also represent a prominent theme of one of this period’s best poet, Walt Whitman. In Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, Whitman deals with his time period’s most prominent theme of democracy. Whitman tells readers that they must not only observe the democratic life but they must become one with it. As Whitman states, “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (3). Democracy provides a connection with all people. It is as if Joseph Stella felt this connection and decided to depict it in his collection of paintings entitled “Americans in the Rough.” The individual is of no greater or lesser worth than anyone else. Beatrice Marovich states that, “It is a song for fellow Americans, about the American body politic” (349). An analysis of Song of Myself portrays that understanding and becoming one with democracy through political collectivity essentially sets the stage for the American democratic self. Joseph Stella does a great job of interpreting and depicting Whitman’s ideals of democracy through his illustrations representing every facet of an American democratic life.

Many critics states Walt Whitman as the best American poet. The publication of Leaves of grass in 1855 marked the beginning of a new poetry. The most innovative thing about Whitman’s poetry was the fact that he completely abandoned all the traditional form of writing poetry and their rules about rhyme meter and length. Instead of using traditional farm of poetry writing he uses free verse to write poetry. This is the style that most modern and contemporary poetry is written in. Whitman abandoned traditional meter patterns in favor of free verse. Free verse is the poetic verse written completely free, without rigid rules or predictable patterns. The tone and content of his poems were also very original. To most of his readers, he sounded alive,

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