Walt Whitman Poetry Analysis

Have you ever felt like you were born to do something? Since I was born I felt like I was born to play baseball, but after that I would love to be a broadcaster. That is why I have chosen to analyze “The Broadcaster’s Poem” by Alden Nowlan. Analyzing a poem is not an easy thing to accomplish for me. As I very rarely analyze anything I read, but you should try everything once.

Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes. Two highly renowed poets. One of Whitman's most known poems, "I Hear America Singing", is about living the American life; he explains multiple types of people in his piece of work and how they are all a part of America. Similar to this, Langston Hughes wrote the poem "I, Too, Sing America", and in this, he includes African Americans, suggesting that Whitman left some people out. Also saying, that blacks are proud and just as big of a part of America as anyone else. Along with this, both are similar in the sense that they are about people in America. Aside from this, there are three other ways in which the poems "I, Too, Sing America", and "I Hear America Singing", are similar. Becasue of this, the poems

The first stanza revolves around the word “gymnastic” due to its symbol of flexibility. This word is a connotation since when thinking about gymnastic you think of flexibility and movement. Walt Whitman advises everyone including himself to allow change in one’s self. In lines 1-2 “Myself and mine gymnastic ever,To stand the cold or heat-- to take good aim with a gun-- to sail a boat-- to manage horses-- to beget superb children” the speaker explains that we should be open to new ideas to allow ourselves to grow and balance our lives out.

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 started journalism in 1841. He founded a weekly newspaper called the Long-Islander. In 1865, Whitman published his second edition of Leaves of Grass (poets.org). After the start of the Civil War had started, Whitman went to Washington because he read his brother’s name (George Whitman) on a casualty list from the battle of Fredericksburg. He arrived in time to find his brother with a small cut on his face and while there he noticed how terrible the sick and wounded were being treated. He decided that he will do what he can to help and stayed. After the civil war, Whitman published Drum Taps. This collection of poems is more focused on

In section fifteen of Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself, Whitman makes working Americans the subject of most of his sentences while sparingly using concepts, instead of people, as subjects on other sentences. Most of the non-living subjects are closely tied to the concepts of Life and Death, Time, and Nature. By using nonliving conceptual subjects to contrast concrete images of working Americans, he demonstrates that though working Americans control society, Life and Death, Time, and Nature control working Americans.

Before becoming a poet Whitman held odd jobs. He was a carpenter, a printer, a journalist, and a schoolteacher. He was unconstrained and was not afraid to write what he felt. In 1855, Whitman first published "Leaves of Grass.” When it was rejected by the public, Whitman sent a copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most important man in literature at the time.

The dominant themes that are more pervasive in Whitman’s poetry are democracy, life/death cycles, individualism, and nature. These themes play major roles in some of his more notable poems such as “Songs of Myself” or “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” He used democracy as a theme to bring society together, and unite everyone based on their general beliefs. He depicted life and death cycles to merge society together on a spiritual level. Despite his eagerness to unite society he also embraced individualism, and is also a persistent theme in most of his poetry. Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people who there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature connect us all, and encourage people to

Connotation- The poem was inspired by Walt Whitman, hence the free verse style of poetry. It was done solely out of inspiration as well, no other poet or poetess could compete with him, with regards to the complexity of his poems. Although this is nowhere near the genius of Whitman, it still resembles the poet's work, through free verse. Nevertheless, the poem was written in free verse in order to sound scholarly, and although it may be tougher to create a poem that rhymes, it can also be said that rhyming draws some of the creative freedom out of a poem, when a poet or poetess is writing one. Thus, the poem was written in free verse, because of the previous explanations.

Among the most important influential sources in Whitman’s life was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson was a fellow American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who years before Whitman published “Leaves of Grass,” wrote an essay on his vision of what America needs from its poet, no one could have known it would be Whitman. Emerson praised “Leaves of Grass” saying it was “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed,” (Reynolds ix). Whitman once said “I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil.” (Chase 12-13) in regards to Emerson’s essay. Another influence was in 1861 during the Civil War. Walt’s brother George joined the Brooklyn regiment, George wrote Walt of his stories and over the course of four years George had constantly been under fire and traveling he had earned several promotions. When George was injured at Fredericksburg, Walt headed out to him, and eventually ended up in Washington as a volunteer nurse. Whitman thought that the Civil War was exactly what the states needed, and his newer work showed this. Whitman wrote an essay called “The Origins of Attempted Secession” where he insisted that both sides were to blame for this war (Reynolds

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

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.

During the 19th-century people were deterred from the idea that through Christ you found your righteousness and the ability to be reliant not only Him, but upon yourself as well. Ralph Waldo Emerson dug deeper into this theory of being a self-reliant person in his writing, “Self-Reliance”. His rhetorical language throughout the speech, turned book, he explains exactly how an individual of the 19th century, becomes self-reliant. Although he was writing to a specific audience, the core values and - for his time- wildly unorthodox theories of this speech are relatable still to this day. Not long after this book was published, Emerson’s acquaintance and fellow writer, Walt Whitman, countered his theories in “Leaves of Grass”, later called

Nearly 100 billion people have died in all of human history, and nearly 68% of the US population is afraid of dying. “To Think of Time” by Walt Whitman is a way for Whitman to express the idea that death is inevitable. The title “To Think of Time” is significant because it implies that one should focus on the good times in their life and be happy with what they have accomplished.

In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, the poet showcases his feelings of people and himself by using literary descriptors to convey his thoughts on these and various other subjects. In section 20, Whitman’s purpose is to showcase self-assuredness regardless of what the world tries to state otherwise by maintaining his resolute happiness in being himself. This is what sets him apart from being like the other people in the world.