Nothing quite matches the feeling of an express bus ride home from a long day at work. The air is warm. Faces are weary but eyes have a shocking awareness, watching attently as all passengers are carried closer to home. In that moment, these separate lives have combined into a single entity. This feeling is masterfully captured in Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” The ferry portrayed in this poem is used as a vessel to host a larger theme of humanity: the over-soul. Often, transcendental themes boast settings of forests and rolling hills. Whitman subverts this common theme and instead has the reader explores a scene of inherit human goodness and its cohesion with each other in a setting that isn’t inherently natural. Though this Ferry
Once to be understood as a fellow passenger watching the rest of his companions, the speaker begins to shift into something more abstract. Almost like Emerson’s Transparent Eye-ball, this new voice is not something tangible but, somehow, sees all. (Emerson 217) This eye sees the ferry as less of a transportation from one physical location to the next but, instead, as a more figurative journey. Much like Charon, this crossing ferry takes its patrons from one life to the next. This passing is less of a literal journey, leaving from a life filled with work to a home filled with rest, but a metaphorical passing, leaving this life for another. This ferry exists in a limbo. A place where humanity is neither here nor there but only in between. Yet with ever beat forward, the ferry finds itself closer to its destination. This all-seeing eye that has “consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born” watches from the destination as this one soul made of many, finds its way across the water. (Whitman 88) At first glance, this ferry is only that; a boat crossing from one destination to another. However, this is not the story that Whitman was trying to tell. The Brooklyn Ferry is so much more than what it appears. It is the journey between one world to the next. It takes one man’s life and gives it a new beginning as it reaches the other side. The ferry is an essential element to the poem. It represents a human
This poem captures the immigrant experience between the two worlds, leaving the homeland and towards the new world. The poet has deliberately structured the poem in five sections each with a number of stanzas to divide the different stages of the physical voyage. Section one describes the refugees, two briefly deals with their reason for the exodus, three emphasises their former oppression, fourth section is about the healing effect of the voyage and the concluding section deals with the awakening of hope. This restructuring allows the poet to focus on the emotional and physical impact of the journey.
Throughout the span of this semester, much of the literature discussed revolved around the so-called renaissance of American literature and its impact upon both the nation and its people. Of all the authors studied in this time period, Walt Whitman may well be known as the quintessential American author. Famous for breaking every rule known to poetry in the inimitable compilation, Song of Myself, Whitman provided a fresh and insightful commentary upon the dualistic nature of society, love, and life itself. Through defining these essential aspects of humanity, Whitman indeed composed one of the most accurate and enduring definitions of the individual self that literature, American or otherwise, has ever seen. Specifically, this was done through
American poetry, unlike other nations’ poetry, is still in the nascent stage because of the absence of a history in comparison to other nations’ poetry humming with matured voices. Nevertheless, in the past century, American poetry has received the recognition it deserves from the creative poetic compositions of Walt Whitman, who has been called “the father of American poetry.” His dynamic style and uncommon content is well exhibited in his famous poem “Song of Myself,” giving a direction to the American writers of posterity. In addition, his distinct use of the line and breath has had a huge impression on the compositions of a number of poets, especially on the works of the present-day poet Allen Ginsberg, whose debatable poem “Howl” reverberates with the traits of Whitman’s poetry. Nevertheless, while the form and content of “Howl” may have been impressed by “Song of Myself,” Ginsberg’s poem expresses a change from Whitman’s use of the line, his first-person recital, and his vision of America. As Whitman’s seamless lines are open-ended, speaking the voice of a universal speaker presenting a positive outlook of America, Ginsberg’s poem, on the contrary, uses long lines that end inward to present the uneasiness and madness that feature the vision of America that Ginsberg exhibits through the voice of a prophetic speaker.
Whitman’s approach to poetry is a reflection of his thought. These thoughts are free and wild, and his typical run-on sentences and his endless litanies of people and places represent the thoughts trying to be conveyed. The overall effect of these run-on sentences provides the reader with a feeling of greatness and of freedom. All of the feelings that are evoked from Whitman’s style can be classified as quintessentially American democratic feelings. The belief that Whitman had no style would imply that Americans as a society have no style, a statement that not only Whitman but Emerson and Thoreau as well fought against through their writings. Whitman and Emerson fighting for the same cause is not coincidental, Whitman has often been viewed as the “child” of Emerson, his work being greatly influenced by Emerson. Whitman’s technique of looking at everything as a whole and always opposed to breaking up the whole can be linked to his belief of unity within our country and the reason why he took the Civil War extremely hard and personal.
Poet and journalist Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York. He is known to be particularly one of America’s most influential poets. Whitman aimed to transcend traditional heroic poems and demonstrate nature of the American experience and his style reflects his distinctiveness. In Walt Whitman’s excerpt #46 of “Song of Myself,” the theme of celebrating yourself in all your faults and glory along with showing that no one else can travel the road for you, you have to do it yourself is shown with the use of literary and sound devices. Walt Whitman isn’t worried about what else is in the universe. He can’t be dignified. His journey will go on forever and all he needs is a good raincoat and a pair of shoes. He does not want to be anyone’s teacher or professor, he just wants to show you the world. At the same time, all he can do is show you the road, you have to walk down it. If you get tired, he’ll support you. Even if he see’s the entire world and universe, he’d still want to travel beyond further and see more things. He reiterates the non conformist system of belief,...
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere” (Whitman 33) is Walt Whitman’s first and one of his most popular works, Leaves of Grass. It was and still is very inspirational to many people including Ralph Waldo and many others after him. He had a major influence on modern free verse. Following a hard childhood in and around New York, Walter Whitman was well known and received in his time for Leaves of Grass which did not use the universal theme, which he became known for in the eighteenth century as well as his way of seeing the world in a view that very few could comprehend in his time.
The second stanza of the poem consists of a soliloquy to the train. By using the cadence of the train in his depiction, Whitman arouses fervor in the reader which allows for a greater understanding of the soliloquy which follows.
The poem is launched by a protracted introduction during which the speaker indulges in descriptions of landscape and local color, deferring until the fifth stanza the substantive statement regarding what is happening to whom: "a bus journeys west." This initial postponement and the leisurely accumulation of apparently trivial but realistic detail contribute to the atmospheric build-up heralding the unique occurrence of the journey. That event will take place as late as the middle of the twenty-second stanza, in the last third of the text. It is only in retrospect that one realizes the full import of that happening, and it is only with the last line of the final stanza that the reader gains the necessary distance to grasp entirely the functional role of the earlier descriptive parts.
While the poem can be termed to be democratic, both in subject matter and its language, Whitman is viewed to be cataloging the ‘new’ America that he is seeing around him. The poem includes subject matter such as relationships, patriotism, heroes, family and ancestors, and a view on social commentaries too.
Although Whitman uses a great deal of structural ways to stress his ideas, he also uses many other ways of delivering his ideas. First of all, Whitman portrays himself as a public spokesman of the masses. The tone of the poem is a very loud, informative tone that grabs ones attention. The emphasis placed on the word “all” adds to the characterization of Whitman as a powerful speaker. Furthermore, Whitman takes part in his own poem. Participating in his own poem, Whitman moreover illustrates the connection between everything in life. Lastly, Whitman, most of all, celebrates universal brotherhood and democracy.
As Whitman, the specific individual, melts away into the abstract, “Song of Myself” explores the possibilities for communion between individuals. Whitman addresses the reader in a particularly direct manner. He integrates his reader into the poem, and is freed of the constraints of poetic principle and social etiquette. The poem presents entire body lounging on the ground, leaning and idling. Whitman deliberately conflates natural world and poetical world. “Song of Myself” goes beyond the boundaries of Transcendentalism in the relationship of the physical and spiritual, individual and universal. The self that Whitman cheerily sings and celebrates substantiates a ‘uniform hieroglyphic’: suggestive, multiform, and awash with inconsistency. “It is as much a physical presence as a projected spiritual possibility” (Jason 2). Even as it blatantly and fervently expresses Whitman’s faith in evolution (and therefore in the necessary indivisibility of self-reliance), “Song of Myself” also conveys a separation with the “self,” the poet himself, and the co...
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 that 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.
... a much bigger picture such as a lawn. Whitman also shows the each of our self-identities are vital to the universal identities when he writes about growing among different races and groups. Again, he is telling us that even though we are our own entire person, we are equal. No man is greater than anyone else. Whitman shows his transcendentalism side here because to come to this conclusion that grass is so much more than just grass, he had to look deeper than his senses or his logical knowledge of grass. Sight, taste, touch, smell, or sound couldn’t have helped him answer the boy’s question. Taking classes on the importance of grass could not have accomplished this either. Whitman shows here that a person must look inside themselves and see what their soul is telling them because at times, it can provide infinitely more wisdom than a scholar or a book ever could.
Walt Whitman was a great American because he was a patriot who was a voice for new American ideals and spoke for the people by defying aristocratic influence on the common mans life. Whitman’s story is a true American story. He rose from humble means, both financially and intellectually, and much to his own credit and determination became one of the America’s greatest literary achievers. He became America’s Poet long after his death through great study of his work by later generations who realized just how distinguishingly accurate his account of American life was. His first volume of poetry “Leaves of Grass” was heavily criticized for its vulgar and suggestive content along with forging a new style of writing, called Free Verse, that ignored traditional rules of poetry. Yet, he went on to produce 7 different revisions of the book to include some of the most patriotic poetry in American history. He was a poet making a plea to Americans to take decisive action in creating awareness of self and country. Whitman was opinionated about current issues like Slavery, and rights for women. Whitman and America blossomed simultaneously. Whitman’s growth as an emerging poet parallels America’s turbulent evolution, through civil war and the formative years of the country. Whitman paints a portrait of America with brutal honesty and his voice is so fresh and new, it cannot be ignored. (Zwonitzer, Wignot. Walt Whitman: Poet of Eternity)
Whitman's Poem "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," is not, at first glance, an obvious love poem. Most readers would probably consider this a tragic poem about death and love lost. In spite of the fact that the poem is about intrinsically sorrowful events, or perhaps because of it, Whitman is able to capture a very unique and poignant portrayal of love. There are three major perspectives to examine how Whitman develops the theme of love in Out of the Cradle, and by examining each reoccurring theme in the poem separately, we can come to a more complete understanding of how they work together to communicate Whitman's message about love.