Walt Whitman - Song of Myself

In ‘I kneel to pick frail melancholy flowers among ashes and loam’ a tone of loneliness and sadness is established as the persona enters. Harwood describes the violets as ‘frail’ and ‘melancholy’, terms that arn’t usually associated with flowers. This is also explored in the juxtaposition of ‘ashes’ and ‘loam’. Ash is symbolic of death and decay which contradicts the ‘loam’, symbolic of life and birth. The persona’s dark and unpleasant perceptions reveal their uncertainty and state of mind. The present tense indicates the persona’s adulthood and their sense of longing and unsatisfaction conveyed through the nostalgic delivery of

The opening two lines of the following stanza is similar to the first line of the first stanza being that the grass commands for more history left behind for it to wipe out at Gettysburg, Ypres, and Verdun. All the grass wants to do is to accomplish its objective of wiping out physical signs of history. However, these events are recent and so there may still be some visibility of the battles. Some societies think that what happened hundreds of years ago happened yesterday. Carl then uses the image of the passengers who pass the places mentioned in the poem now covered with the grass. They ask the conductor "What is this place? Where are we now?" The passengers do not have a clue as to how much blood had been dropped there in the stated places. They then carry on with their voyage just as the grass keeps on growing.

“A hand reaching out/ with no sign of peace, wanting to come back” (15-16) is another comparison of life to death. Olds is saying that the lifeless corpse is still making a gesture saying that the dead would return if they could at any price. She says that those people who died in the battle, the corpses, would do anything “even to the bread make of glue and sawdust, / even to the icy winter, and the siege.” (18-19)

Walt Whitman explores individualism by looking through all of the diversity within America and identifying that people are different and have come from many different backgrounds. However, we are all one in the same due to the connection of being American. He does this because he wants to maintain his individual “self-hood” while finding a place within America, a happy medium. The role of the individual in this piece of work Whitman states is “one of the Nation of many Nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same,” which means everyone has a different background and have all come from many places far away, but are still apart of America nonetheless. This is what brings us together. In the opening section of Song of Myself Whitman starts by saying all human beings are the same, “And what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” I believe this is Whitman’s attempt at trying to merge his own self into society, while maintaining his “self-hood.”

When a reader initially reads Donald Justice’s “The Poet at Seven,” he or she might take the easy route and conclude it for what it says, only. If this method were taken, the poem’s presumed plot would have been taken quite literally: the poet is reminiscing about his childhood memories; the poem is sweet, simple, and nostalgic. However, poems are not that simple. They are complex riddles, full of hidden meaning. To truly shed light on Justice’s purpose of the poem, it is necessary to look at the “what-if’s” through its intricate designs of language. The poem’s form is an important start when close reading. Also, to discern the hidden meaning, it is important to consider the specific word choice and how it paints a picture inside the reader’s mind. As a result, the reader will grasp the poem’s true intention. By doing this, the reader will sincerely have an understanding of “The Poet at Seven,” the way Justice probably would have wanted.

Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is a vision of the American spirit, a vision of Whitman himself. It is his cry for democracy, giving each of us a voice through his poetry. Each of us has a voice and desires, and this is Whitman's representation of our voices, the voice of America. America, the great melting pot, was founded for freedom and democracy, and this poem is his way of re-instilling these lost American ideals. In this passage from "Song of Myself" Whitman speaks through his fellow man and speaks for his fellow man when his voice is not socially acceptable to be heard.

The poem begins painting an image of a young child approaching the writer with a handful of grass asking him “what is the grass?”. The child phrases the subject as “THE grass” not just grass. The child is heedful of what grass is, but not of its purpose. The author, dumbfounded, is unsure how to answer the question as he knows no more than the child. Although he doesn’t unsure of an answer at first, he finds himself pondering multiple explanations for the rest of the poem

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.

It was a deep poem, because it opened up his perspective on life, and his perspective is unique. In a way he spoke of his own religion, and preached that everyone meets their maker, but everyone is reincarnated as a blade of grass, and he spoke of showing respect for the blades of grass because they could have been part of his ancestory or a person of importance to another person. In general, he wanted people to show appreciation for the world because many generations walked this planet before he did. He wanted people to respect those who have since been deceased, no matter their race, because death is inevitable, and they will soon face it. Whitman’s writing style carried over into this canto, his blank verse style of poetry, although it was not flashy, it made him sound educated and well spoken, but hard to follow. He also revealed that he did believe in a god when he spoke of God’s handkerchief was a gift for Earth, through a

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”

“I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass” parallels the earlier description of the “straws lie about the grass”. The physical act of MacCaig lying in the grass “not thinking” is symbolic of the harmony and unity of man and nature, only achieved when one abandons the state of “thinking” consciousness for meditative observation. Norman MacCaig realizes this and expresses he is “afraid where a thought may take me”, before progressing to describe the grasshopper in minute detail, echoing the earlier detailed descriptions of the other beings on the farm. MacCaig fully integrates himself with the farm when his state of mind and human characteristics is projected on the grasshopper he observes. The grasshopper is personified to have a “plated face” whilst the poet spiritually “finds himself in space” just as the grasshopper achieves this by “unfolding his legs” and physically jumping. The end rhyme of ‘face’ and ‘space’ slows down the meter and rhythm of the poem, highlighting the effect of how one experiences the slow passing of time in a meditative state of ‘not thinking’.

A lot of inspiring art comes from artists who have experienced excessive trauma which allows them to create such alluring things. People who do not go through intense emotions --whether they be positive or negative-- aren’t able to create art on an sentimental level. People find passion in hatred and love and infuse their emotions into their work which makes them artists who create pieces with so much depth and meaning behind the words. Walt Whitman's piece Sometimes with the One I Love is about just that. Whitman's poem retains the passion that he feels for a woman who does not return the love that he feels for her. Though at first look, the piece seems to be regarding being in love, the understanding behind it is deeper. Through this unrequited love, he is able to create emotional pieces of work. He believes there is no such thing as useless love because though she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, he is able to translate the passion he feels for her into words on paper.

The speaker challenges the customary idyllic landscape like the “laurels” and “myrtles” by destructively picking the flowers and berries off the trees, instead of the speaker being grounded in nature like the other speakers in traditional pastoral poems, he destroys it. Furthermore, Milton turns the pastoral into one of mourning because the speaker’s compulsion for disturbing nature before “season due” all stems from the death of Lycidas who died in his “prime”. As the poem continues, the speaker explains the romanticized pastoral landscape where he and Lycidas were once shepherds: “For were nursed upon the self- same hill, / Fed the same flock, by the fountain, shade, and rill. Together both, ere the high lawns appeared” (23 – 25). These lines display how the speaker can reach nostalgia with these pastoral fantasies that distance him away from reality. However, the speaker soon leaves the romantic when he laments about Lycidas: “And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. / But O the heavy change, now thou art gone,” (36 – 37). The speaker being able to come back to reality demonstrates how the Milton is unable to emphasize the traditional romantic pastoral setting of peace and joy because of the emotional anguish the speaker has. Furthermore, Milton alludes to the fact that one must remove themselves from an idealized world for them to grieve properly. The amount of control that the speaker had over his decision to leave his pastoral fantasy is

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.