Most people awake to a daily routine, in which they keep eyes dazed staring at the pavement they walk on yet so easily ignore. Usually, these same people go about their business with no more than a passing glance towards their fellow man. However, there is an enigmatic few that are more than mere pawns in the game of existence. They are passionate spectators who take in their surroundings with every sense. They rejoice in the vastness of the electric crowd and become one with it. By all means, these few can be called ‘idle city men’ or, according to Charles Baudelaire’s 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life”, they are flâneurs. I believe a worthy example of a man such as this, is the persona in Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”. He is a flâneur in all ways but one. In “The Painter of Modern Life”, Baudelaire gives a very extensive and profound description of what aspects one needs in order be considered or labeled a flâneur. For example, he explains how the flâneur is a lover of universal life and sets up house in the heart of multitude. ( Baudelaire 9) Surrounded by the unknown in an immense sea of people, he who is flâneur will bask in the crowd and make himself at home without being seen. Therefore, in layman’s terms he is an observer, a passionate spectator, a kind of ‘fly on the wall’. The persona in “Song of Myself” shows qualities of this in the opening lines of section twelve: The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market, I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and breakdown. (9) Here Whitman’s persona is taking a great interest and pleasure in the mere routine and wit of this young man, who is most likely unaware of the fact he is being observed. Whitman is e... ... middle of paper ... ...s a man of the world, the spiritual citizen of the universe.(Baudelaire 7) It is fundamentally a way of thought and thought process which artists, writers, and poets commonly have, Walt Whitman being one of them. He is a mirror as vast as the crowd itself who responds to each movement, then reproduces the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all elements of life. (9) Of course he is not a genuine flâneur like Monsieur G. but he continues to take in his city of Brooklyn, his nation of America, and himself as Walt Whitman: the poet and analyzes the world, soaking it in and not letting it pass him by like the many who keep their eyes glued to the never ending sidewalk. Works Cited Baudelaire, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life. N.p.: Phaidon, 1863. Print. Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. Dover Thrift ed. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2001. Print.
Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Norton Anthology of American Literature.. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York: Norton, 2012. 24-67. Print.
Walt Whitman is a highly talented writer of poetry that showcases both transcendentalism and realism. In his two writings, “I Hear America Singing” and “Song Of Myself”, He shows examples of both examples of writing. In the first poem I read by him “I hear America Singing” He talks about the middle class workers and how they contribute. In the end of this poem, the line says “Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else”. This line shows how materialistic the poem is and proves even further that it is realism.
A cold stare, and a hand on his hip, is how Walt Whitman introduced himself to his readers in 1855. The style of Whitman’s frontispiece was uncommon for its time, a man with a loose collar and a worn hat would have been found more commonly on a farm than adorning a literary scholar in the mid-nineteenth century. Whitman wanted to show that he was no better than anyone who would read his poetry. Whitman conveyed himself to his audience by showing himself as an everyday workingman; his wrinkled shirt shows that he is use to working hard for everything that he has. The stare he gives back to his audience looks as if he is examining the reader the same way they may be examining him or his work.
Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Long Island. His early years included much contact with words and writing; he worked as an office boy as a pre-teen, then later as a printer, journalist, and, briefly, a teacher, returning eventually to his first love and life’s work—writing. Despite the lack of extensive formal education, Whitman experienced literature, "reading voraciously from the literary classics and the Bible, and was deeply influenced by Goethe, Carlyle, Emerson, and Sir Walter Scott" (Introduction vii).
"The man [Whitman] knew the world merely as an outside observer, he was never a living part of it, and no mere observer can understand the life about him.
The Heath Anthology of American Literature repeatedly refers to Walt Whitman and his poetry in terms of being American, yet as I read Song of Myself, my thoughts are continually drawn to the philosophies and religions of the Far East. Like the Tao Te Ching ideas are expressed in enigmatic verse and each stanza is a Zen koan waiting to be meditated on and puzzled out. Even Emerson called Whitman's poetry "a remarkable mixture of the Bhagvat Gita and the New York Herald" ("The Whitman Project"). Song of Myself contains multitudes of passages that express Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist thought.
Walt Whitman’s hard childhood influenced his work greatly, he was an uneducated man but he managed to become one of the most known poets. Whitman changed poetry through his work and is now often called the father of free verse. Especially through Leaves of Grass he expressed his feelings and sexuality to world and was proud of it. He had a different view at life, his hard childhood, and his sexuality that almost no one understood made him introduce a new universal theme to the world. Almost all critics agree that Walt Whitman was one of the most influential and innovative poet. Karl Shapiro says it best, “The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great currents of living people with general government and state”.
By its title, it is possible to think that singing to myself is designed from an egocentric and colorful perspective. However, this would constitute a base error, since what looks for Whitman is to capture all of nature to be expressed throughout his mouth and therefore, what results from this exercise, necessarily, have to be recognized. In other words, when Wh...
Rapper Kanye West once stated “My greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.” Though West’s quote possesses an air of arrogant egocentrism, it still establishes a sort of inherent, human, craving for being able to recognize and truly view oneself in relation to the world. However, this longing is ultimately futile, as the laws of nature prevent West from fulfilling his self-gratifying dream. In the poem “Hailstones” by Seamus Heaney, the speaker maintains a longing for this same sense of familiarity, regardless of what consequences it may bring, even though this craving is nothing in comparison to the powerful, physicality of the hailstones.
(A critique of Walt Whitman’s themes and ideas in Song of Myself 6, 46, 47)
There is contrast in Whitman's view, which embraces all society, and that which surrounds him. He views all mankind and nature as intertwined in the past, present and future in one perpetual cycle of life and death. He speaks of the sameness of man and se...
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.
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.
Walt Whitman used free verse in “Song of Myself” in order to connect with the common man and his American readers. In this first person narrative, Whitman deconstructs the “self” into many different sections that all are a part of the celebration of the individual. Some of the topics he breaks the “self” into are self- identity, and human exploration (including the human body and sexuality). In the poem, Whitman uses a speaker to exclaim that for individuals to grow they must discover themselves spiritually, physically, and mentally. The speaker in the poem
Holloway describes Whitman as having “even less education than their nine children were destined to have, was something of a free thinker.” During his childhood in Brooklyn, the young Walt Whitman “rode back and forth to New York City” (Folsom, Price). His experiences on the ferry boats and with the people who piloted and operated them would have a profound influence on him as he would later write about them in one of his poems. Whitman’s trips across the river first gave him a sense of the journey of life and gave him ideas he would later use in writing his famous poetic works. Whitman enjoyed spending time at Long Island and would often read poetry during the time he spent there.