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Themes in walt whitmans writing
Analysis of walt whitman's poetry
Walt whitman and sexuality poems
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an’s Sexual Theme
Throughout subsequent editions of Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman introduces and revises his controversial theme of sexuality. Whitman wanted to celebrate sexuality and did so with homosexual overtones. Any work will be considered controversial if it contains sexuality, but up until the mid-18th century homosexuality was yet to be coined a sexual identity. Throughout Whitman’s eight editions of Leaves of Grass (1855-1891-92), controversy arouse, stating his poetry contained trashy and obscene sexual language. Whitman argued the public was placing too much emphasis on the sexual content and not fully embracing his work as a whole. He held too much pride to blatantly change or censor his work but over time did make subtle alterations and omission of lines (Killingsworth). Early on, Whitman was inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1843 essay, The Poet (“Author Profile.”). Emerson called for an American poet to also celebrate the spirit and nature of man, to celebrate individualism instead of embracing the social order of things (Willcox). Whitman, optimistic with the new changes in American literature, set out to answer Emerson and embarked on a journey of becoming a very unique and great American poet (“Author Profile.”).
Whitman experimented constantly with his editions of Leaves of Grass. Although the more blatantly obvious changes included his design through binding, paper size, and font style, the more thought provoking changes occurred overtime through revision. Upon completing, he sent out numerous review copies of his first edition receiving a notable response from Ralph Waldo Emerson welcoming him, “at the beginning of a greet career.” (Baym 22). Besides Emerson’s quick, uplifting response it was considere...
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...ge in poetic style was difficult for his contemporaries to overcome, especially deriving from Whitman himself. His bolder topics and greater focus on nature and man is what fueled his poetry. Besides his written poems, Whitman gave off this sense of everyday life through his frontispiece and title page of the first edition of Leaves of Grass. An image of Whitman himself is the frontispiece, bearded, one arm “akimbo,” hand in pocket, workingman’s hat on his slightly cocked head, shirt unbuttoned at his collar, looking directly at the reader (Baym 21). His self-presentation of a rough working man was seen as absurdly unconventional for an artist. But that’s just what Whitman wanted, he wanted to stir the pot and make people think differently. This frontispiece provides a very powerful lead-in to how Whitman was reshaping poetry to a more naturalistic perspective.
Miller, James E., Jr. “Sex and Sexuality.” The Routledge Encyclopedia of Walt Whitman. Ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings. New York: Garland Publishing, 1998. 628-632. Print.
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 is one of America’s most popular and most influential poets. The first edition of Whitman’s well-known Leaves of Grass first appeared in July of the poet’s thirty-sixth year. A subsequent edition of Leaves of Grass (of which there were many) incorporated a collection of Whitman’s poems that had been offered readers in 1865. The sequence added for the 1867 edition was Drum-Taps, which poetically recounts the author’s experiences of the American Civil War.
“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 work “Leaves of grass” was written by Walt Whitman, an American poet of the 19th century. Whitman titled his work with this suggestive name for the reason that he loved simple people; and as the humble people, leaves of grass are the most simple and healthy among the living things. The poetry book “Song of Myself”, included in the work “Leaves of grass”, is contrary to what its name suggests, a song inspired by humanity, of which each one is part.
Walt Whitman’s poem Time to Come explores Whitman’s curiosity of what happens when people die. Rather than taking a pessimistic approach, his writing is more insightful about the experience. The title alone introduces an aspect of his purpose; to point out that dying is inevitable. With Whitman captures the reader’s attention and shares his curiosity with vivid images, sophisticated diction, and his use of metaphor and personification in Time to Come.
The homosexual themes displayed in Walt Whitman’s works, especially in his most famous collection of poems Leaves of Grass, raise the question of his own sexuality. Many of his poems depicted affection and sexuality in a simple, personal manner, causing nineteenth century Americans to view them as pornographic and obscene. Based on this poetry, Whitman is usually assumed to be homosexual, or at least bisexual. However, this assumption does not account for major influences of his writing such as the shift from transcendentalism to realism and the American Civil War. After considering these factors, it can be concluded that Whitman’s poems were not intended to set apart a few homosexual men, but to bring all men and women together. Walt Whitman’s poems of spiritual love and physical togetherness of both genders emphasized exalted friendships and are indicative of his omnisexuality, or lack of a complete sexual preference, rather than his alleged homosexuality.
Walt Whitman embraces this power to use nature in his work "Song of Myself." As Emerson's principle outlined, Whitman was able to take images of nature and make them represent something surprising, new, and sometimes slightly obscene. Emerson discusses the idea of obscene images in nature taking on acc...
While Wordsworth formatted his poetry into beautiful ballads, Whitman wrote in more relatable poems, some of which truly did not follow any form. According to William E. H. Meyer Jr., “Indeed, the very substance of Whitman 's ‘barbaric yawp,’ in contrast to Wordsworth 's ‘plaintive numbers,’ is the revolutionary and unbridgeable gap that exists between a ‘song of myself’ and a ‘prelude’ or ‘lyrical ballad.’”(Meyer 83). While Wordsworth keeps more structure and regulation in his ballads, Whitman does what feels most effective. This allows for Whitman to be slightly more organic in form than Wordsworth. However, this difference can also be seen as an addition to Wordsworth, as Wordsworth advocated for organic form. Whitman’s further use of organic form is still within the influence of Wordsworth, as it ties back to the Romantic ideals he put forth. Overall, while Whitman may have denied inspiration from Wordsworth, the evidence points in a different
...ince God created nature sex is a natural part of life. Whitman is again making a connection between society's values and nature. What is accepted and what is not. Whitman broke through society's inhibitions of candidly talking about sex by writing about it in his poetry. Because Whitman had a prominent voice in the Nineteenth century, he was able to express his views on such controversial issues.
His greatest work was ‘leaves of grass’, which is a collection of poems which he first self-published at the age of 37 in the year 1855. It was a free-verse that was loosely inspired by the Bible. It was at first criticized in his country for its ‘raw sexuality’ but was widely acclaimed elsewhere in Britain by prominent writers. It was an attempt by Whitman to get through to the ordinary American people by giving them their very own ‘epic’. He went on changing and adding material to this work until his death in the year 1892 in Camden, New Jersey. The poem ‘America’ is one of the late additions to the collection, written in 1888.
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.
Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people that there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature to connect us all, and encourage people to become less materialistic and more appreciative of life itself. There are many themes in Emily Dickenson’s poem that are very reminiscent of Whitman’s popular themes. Although there were some consistency with the themes Whitman’s used in his own work, there were still a lot of ideas Whitman would not have agreed with. The poem starts off with something Whitman would have unanimously disagreed with.
One of the similarity within transcendentalism between Whitman and Dickinson is the nonconformity in their poems. Ralph Waldo Emerson, central figure of the transcendentalism, stated in one of his works, “Self-Reliance,” “what I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think” (Emerson). Emerson stated that each individuals should do what they desired to do, not what society wants them to. With this perspective, Whitman and Dickinson both created their own poetic style that differs from the traditional stanzas and rhyme scheme. Whitman was known as one of the first poet to break away from the traditional poem form and replaced with free verse form. "Leaves of Grass was criticized because of Whitman's exaltation of the
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