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Comparison between walt whitman and emerson
Comparison between walt whitman and emerson
Comparison between walt whitman and emerson
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Thesis statement
When you look back, no American author is more influencing then Walt Whitman. He is celebrated as the father of free verse.
We are going to take a look at just one poem and I hope you are as influenced as I am about this poem. It is called America. Whitman is deemed to be a successor to Shakespeare and Virgil. He arose from the Long Island and grew up in Brooklyn where he a small amount of formal education. During his life, he worked as a printer, editor, schoolteacher, and reporter. His self-published Leaves of Grass got its partial inspiration from his tours through the American Frontier and by the admiration he had for Ralph Waldo Emerson.
During the time he lived, his publication went through eight editions as Whitman extrapolated and revised the poetry and added another work on the original anthology of twelve poems. According to Emerson, the emergent edition was the most surprising piece of wit and wisdom not yet experienced and contributed in America.
Whitman opted to publish his own passionate evaluation of Leaves of Grass. Whitman’s style of writing was quite unnerving to readers and critics. His poems received minimal public acclaim owing to a number of reasons: this openness in regard to sex, his self-portrayal as a rough working man and his outstanding innovations. He appeared to be a poet who didn’t adhere to the normal meter and rhyme schemes as set by his contemporaries.
Whitman got his influence from the extensive cadences and rhetorical approaches of Biblical poetry. After publishing Leaves of Grass, Whitman lost his job. He was working with the Department of the Interior. In spite of his mixed critical welcome in the US, he received a warm welcome in England, with Algernon Cha...
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...with the poem. When reading through his work, it is evident that all his work is derived from his experience in America throughout his life.
Works cited
Ward, D. (2013). Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and the War that Changed Poetry Forever. Smithsonian website. Retrieved April 9 from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/walt-whitman-emily-dickinson-and-the-war-that-changed-poetry-forever-31815/?no-ist
Re-scripting Whitman. The Whitman Archive. Retrieved April 9 from http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/anc.00152.html
Walt Whitman. Poetry Foundation. Retrieved April 9 from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/walt-whitman
Walt Whitman. Biography.com Website. Retrieved April 9 from http://www.biography.com/people/walt-whitman-9530126
Benton, J., DiYanni, R. (1999). Arts and Culture. An Introduction to the Humanities. Prentice Hall.
During the late romantic period, two of history’s most profound poets, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, emerged providing a foundation for, and a transition into Modern poetry. In its original form, their poems lacked the characteristics commonly attributed to most romantic poets of the mid to late nineteenth century who tended to utilize “highly stylized verses, having formal structures, figurative language and adorned with symbols” (worksheet). Unique and “eccentric use of punctuation” as well as “irregular use of meter and rhyme” were the steppingstones for this new and innovative style of writing (worksheet). Even though these two writers rejected the traditional approach, both remained firmly dedicated to their romantic idealism of the glass of water being “half full” opposed to “half empty.” Noted for his frequent practice of catalogs and parallelism, Whitman stirred up much controversy with his first edition of “leaves of Grass” in 1855. Many critics responded negatively to the ...
American Bards: Walt Whitman and Other Unlikely Candidates for National Poet. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010. Print.
..., while Dickinson fulfilled them. The book says this of Dickinson; “She perceived the relationship between a drop of dew and a flood, between a desert and a grain of sand. These perceptions helped her make metaphors that embraced experiences far beyond the limited compass of Amherst village life” (373). The literature book says this of Whitman, “Suddenly, poetry was no longer a matter of organized word structures that neatly clicked shut at the last line;” (350). Even though these two writers were so different in so many ways, they obtained what the other had not done. Whitman popularized free verse, while Dickinson cherished the use of metaphors and ideas of comparing two like things to make a deeper meaning to everything in life.
During the 19th century Walt Whitman was known as an unconventional writer. His work was rebellious and did not stick to any trends of poetry before his time. However, in this technique or lack of technique Whitman marked a new trend of free-verse. Whitman's anthology Leaves of Grass caused a conservational uproar which was no surprise due to his repetitive use of slang, angry diction and an all around "savage" style, (Matthiessen, 181).
The chronologically earlier poems celebrate the coming hostilities, expressing Whitman’s "early near-mindless jingoism" (Norton 2130). As one progresses through the work, he finds a less energetic, sorrowful, jaded narrator who seems little like the exuberant youth who began. Understandable so, "[Whitman] estimated that over the course of the war, he had made ‘over 600 visits or tours, and went. among from some 80,000 to 100,000 of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need’" (Murray).
According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature 1865-1914, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are “the nineteenth-century poets who exerted the greatest influence on American poetry to come” (93). If Dickinson and Whitman heard this quote during their lifetime, they probably would have wondered about it because they were barely known during their lifetime. Nevertheless both Dickinson and Whitman are nowadays known as two of America´s greatest poets because of their experimental and unconventioal approach to poetry that revolutionized the poetic tradition, although or maybe precisely because their poetic styles differ a lot from one another.
Walt Whitman is an American poet, journalist, and essayist whose Versace collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature.
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”.
American Poetry comes in many different shapes and forms. There are a plethora of American authors that use various writing techniques to transform their ideas into works of art. Walter “Walt” Whitman is one of the most famous authors that used a variety of styles in many of his poems. Many of his works of art affected the population and has influenced the country. He has created multiple poems that have become popular over the years and will be remembered for years to come. Walt Whitman comes from a self-deprecating family that has a tremendous adoration for their home country, America. His father took him out of school when he was young to help with the household funds. As he grew older, Whitman was in and out of different occupations
In the early years of America’s foundation, a powerful air of uncapped potential, the desire for expansion and individual identification enamored the American people. Progress was inevitable as was cultural definition. But as time progressed, the feeling of unlimited strength, time and space transformed into something that, for better or worse, was no longer shared by later poets. Those of the “New World” came to realize that their world never really managed to leave behind the faults of the “Old.” Societal tension rose as different poets and authors struggled to pin down the direction of American culture and its ideals. When no solid idea was able to capture American culture adequately, the concept of an ever-evolving American identity was adopted. It became apparent that the American identity could not concisely be defined because its description transformed into something greater than itself. Despite the notion of defining something so incredibly wide and vast, society has become increasingly pre-occupied with explaining exactly what the American identity means. Even when authors such as Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emily Dickinson navigate the American identity, their ideas, although similar in many respects, offer various nuances and perspectives on the topic. By investigating the various idiosyncrasies of their language and the focus each emphasizes, the complexities of the American identity can truly be highlighted.
Walt Whitman will forever live in the minds of individuals as one of America’s greatest poets. People in America and all over the world continue to read and treasure his poetry. He was an original thinker, contributing new modern styles to poetry. He was unafraid of controversy and uninhibited by what others may think of him. He created his own path in poetry, as he describes himself in an anonymous review of his poetry: "But there exists no book or fragment of a book which can have given the hint to them" (Whitman). His poetry was not inspired or affected by those who wrote before him; according to him, his poetry came entirely from "beautiful blood and a beautiful brain" (Whitman). His emphasis on originality, paradoxically, displays how Emerson, a fellow nonconformist, influenced him by stressing the importance of originality and the ability to think without being aided by other people’s words of wisdom. However, while Emerson influenced Whitman, Whitman also affected Emerson’s thoughts, as the two were friends who respected each other’s minds. Another member of this group of nonconformist friends is Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist (Baym 2078).
Emily Dickinson And Walton Whitman Walt Whitman, a Representative of the American Literature Walt Whitman and Emily Dickson are described as one of the greatest poets in the history of the United States. Their artistic works have been very influential in addressing the various issues regarding the United States. In one of his poems, Walt Whitman described the aspect of democracy in the country. Despite being the most influential poets in the United States, their poems differ in terms structure, style, length, the language used and complexity. Walt Whitman was highly respected not only in his mother country but all over Europe due to his efforts of addressing democracy in America in his poem Democratic Vistas.
Walt Whitman, notorious as the “American Bard”, revolutionized American poetry and improvised the form recognized as free verse. Whitman wrote the poem, “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” which was originally published as, ““A Child’s Reminiscence”
He crossed the boundaries of the poetry literature and gave a poetry worth of our democracy that contributed to an immense variety of people, nationalities, races. Whitman’s self-published Leaves of Grass was inspired in part by his travels through the American frontier and by his admiration for Ralph Waldo Emerson (Poetry Foundation). He always believed in everyone being treated equally and bringing an end to slavery and racism. Through his poetry, Whitman tried to bring every people in America together by showing them what happiness, love, unison, and real knowledge looked. His poetry and its revolution changed the world of American literature
Once Whitman published his book Leaves of Grass, he was heavily criticized by his writing style and subject matter. According to an article by PoetryFoundation.org “Whitman received little public acclaim for his poems during