I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing Walt Whitman is considered one of the most important writers in the history of American Literature. The people of his own time called him a radical, a madman, and a pornographer. These days he is greatly appreciated and entitled as a fearless prophet of a new stage of human development. Sometimes Whitman would be in a slump and he felt that he needed to deflect the people who inquired too directly. This even meant using examples of homosexual elements in his work, as well as unbelievable stories of him having affairs with numerous women and fathering many children, unknown to him. Throughout these sorts of times W. Whitman has gone through both resentment and flattery, nevertheless showing us his best work. I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing, is a great example. An older man comes across an oak tree in Louisiana. He begins to compare his life and friendship with this Live-Oak growing as a symbol of this. The word Live-Oak is a form of metonymy standing for the old mans friendship. He describes this tree as it stands there alone, and the moss hanging down from it. Even though it has no friends around or near, it still continues to live and grow and utter joyous leaves about. The look of the tree is compared to the old man by the use of personification. Although the man knew that the tree had to be much stronger because if the man took the trees place he wouldnt be able to stand alone. In lines seven and eight Whitman expresses some confusables as he has the man break off a twig and twines some moss around the twig to keep the leaves from getting loose. He puts a lot more words into your head then you think he is putting in. It looks like one sentence but in actuality it is the mans whole life summed up. Throughout the mans life he has picked a group of friends and in one way or another wrapped those people around his world and cared for them as much as it seems he c...
