Essay on Walt Whitman

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman is the recollection of a speaker that attended an astronomer’s lecture only to be bored and leaves the room to enjoy the stars without scientific analyzation hindering their natural beauty. On the other hand, “324” by Emily Dickinson demonstrates the role of nature in the speaker’s personal connection to religion and God instead of attending Church and sermons. Although their topics seem so unlike, the poetic devices within them have both similarities and differences. Whitman’s and Dickinson’s poems bear many differences, including structure, meter, and rhyme, while remaining alike in their use of imagery to convey like attitudes towards traditionalism and nature.

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.

Whitman wrote broad stanzas and focused on the whole of America as his inspiration. His lines covered a wide range of topics and generated multiple points of view for the reader. He called his life’s work “Leaves of Grass”; stressing the

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.

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

Whitman is able to traverse both time and distance and connect with his readers, through the use of simple diction, as so few other poets can. His mastery of verbiage draws readers into the poem, and creates a poetic experience like no other. In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Whitman creates a vignette into the Brooklyn of the past, as he connects it to the present, in surprising ways. Omnipresence allows the reader to envision themselves in the settings created and to interpret them into modern language. Whitman connects with his readers in a fascinating and deeply personal ways, by creating a path through the cities of the past to the people of the present.

Some historians believe that this may have deeply affected his writing and opinions, but this is not known for sure. As whitman grew older he became an abolitionist and he was a woman's rights activist. Whitman was part of the minority of people who thought that women should be able to own property, which was unheard of in this time. Some historians believe that Whitman had various unhappy sexual attempts, and came to realize that he was homosexual, giving him the power to form his imagination. After 1855 Whitman had this experience he started to write classics like, “Leaves of Grass”. Around the time of the Civil War, Whitman found life getting harder. As the Nation situation was deteriorating, all business was risky and most people were struggling with the hard times. As things got worse in Whitman's life he had to put his own brother in an insane asylum, after physically attacking his mother in 1864. The older Whitman got the more he wrote until there came a time when he became ill. The great poet died on March 26, 1892, of tuberculosis. Such a Great poet killed by a terrible sickness so fast(Gay

After studying American author, Walt Whitman, it is clear that he has had a long lasting impact on society and the lives of authors and artists who came after him. Through works like Democratic Vistas and Song of Myself, Whitman gave American society tools to promote creative expression and the essence of democracy. However, Whitman’s methods had to be adopted over time to touch/bring attention to different social issues. Two authors who were able to branch off of Whitman’s works and ideas were Isadora Duncan and James Baldwin. By analyzing these two important characters of history, we will be able explore two different social issues in two different eras and how Duncan and Baldwin refined Whitman’s approach in order to make a statement in society. It’s significant to identify the importance of these artists because this process is still relevant in today’s society, adapting from Whitman in order to get points across and make a difference.

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

In his first anthology of poems entitled “Song of Myself”, Walt Whitman reveals some of his views on democracy through the use of symbolism and free verse poetry. His use of symbolism and free verse poetry creates indeterminacy, giving the reader hints rather than answers about the nature of the poem. In the sixth part of “Song of Myself”, a child asks the narrator of the poem, “What is the grass?” (Whitman). Instead of simply giving an answer, the narrator cannot make up his mind, and stumbles on how to explain the grass to the child. Through the use of specific symbolisms, Whitman, as the narrator, explicates his views while remaining under the façade of explaining grass to the child. The views Whitman conveys remain indeterminate and

There is no question that Walt Whitman had the most significant influence on American literary history. Along with Emily Dickinson, Whitman represented the Romantic literature era of American literature. Whitman is known for his distinctive poetic forms and free verse. Whitman’s most popular work Leaves of Grass influenced many future writers that came after him to follow his writing style. The richness that Leaves of Grass left behind had such a huge impact on American writers of many different backgrounds and cultures. Whitman’s influence can be seen in the works of Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, and Sharon Olds.

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.

Title- The song of myself sounds like a poem of self expression, and a gospel of Walt Whitman's’ self beliefs. When his optimistic outlook on life is brought into perspective, one could also conclude that the poem was about his positive and radical outlook on life, because it is a song of himself, his personal expression.

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