Walt Whitmans Writings, Poetry, College Term Papers.com


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Back to Subjects - Poetry

Walt Whitmans Writings

Walt Whitmans Writings “Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary… (Whitman 38) .” This line expresses Walt Whitman’s philosophy on life and is an almost perfect description of the poet. He was a man, who in his poetry, expressed independence, interdependence with other living things, and the struggles that are dealt with by him and others in order to gain that independence. He felt and wrote that it is important to stand up for the things in which one believes in. Walt Whitman gives much insight into himself and others in his poetry, and gives his readers a great deal to think about. In general, it could be said that Whitman very much believed in the individual and felt that one’s strengths, whatever they may be, could be utilized and manipulated into something meritorious. Walter Whitman was born and raised in New York City, and spent most of his adult life in that area. At the age of twelve, Whitman began his journalism career as a printer’s apprentice and very quickly worked himself up to the top. In 1846, at the age of 23, was hired as the editor of the Brooklyn Daily newspaper; however, two years later he was fired because he was an adamant supporter of the Free Soil faction of the Democratic party. He moved to New Orleans to work for the Crescent, a local paper, only to move back to New York three months later. Whitman dabbled around in free soil journalism for awhile, but that didn’t work out and this brought him to the close of his career as journalist (“Whitman, Walt” 639) . At this point his life took a very significant turn and he began developing into the poet he would soon become. For five years Walt Whitman followed in his father’s footsteps, and began building houses and investing in real estate. Whitman became a very promising businessman and began to have more time on his hands. He attended the opera and theater, and began to read and write tremendously, out of which he developed his own style of free-verse poetry. In 1855, Walt Whitman embarked upon his career as a poet when he published his incipient edition of “Leaves of Grass (Callow 78) .” Whitman was not able to find a publisher who would take on the project, so he was forced to publish the work at his own expense. Whitman’s first book received mixed reviews due to the subject matter of the material. Many critics claimed that “Leaves of Grass” was immoral and trashy, because of the many sexual innuendoes and references to prostitutes and people of low stature (Whitman xvi) . It is also important to note that the poetry of Walt Whitman was unlike any of his contemporaries. First of all, Whitman’s poetry almost never contained a rhyme scheme and secondly, he used language of the “common man.” In the last few verses of “Song of Myself”, for example, he glorifies the differences between himself and others by writing, “I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” Compare this with a more rhymed and classical sounding piece by Whitman’s contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe, entitled “Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodious”: “Ye deliverers of Athens from shame! Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs! Endless ages shall cherish your fame embalmed in their echoing songs (Poe 50) !” One would never find Walt Whitman writing about Greek gods, or using the words “ye”, “ev’n”, or any other antiquated word. This is just another way in which Walt Whitman declared his independence and encouraged others to declare their independence by reading his writing, even though they were considered unbecoming. However, a praise that inspired Whitman a great deal came from Ralph Waldo Emerson, in which he described “Leaves of Grass” as “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom America has yet contributed (“Whitman, Walt 639) .” Although Whitman produced many books of poetry and prose, “Leaves of Grass” contains most of Whitman’s “classics.” If one would want to examine the mind of Walt Whitman, the best place to start is the amazingly crafted “Song of Myself.” This poem seems to embody every aspect of Walt Whitman and possibly every aspect of each person in the world. The poem practically screams the theme of independence and interdependence: everything in the world is related to everything, yet they all live exclusively of one another. An example of this contradiction can be shown in these two stanzas: “I exist as I am, that is enough, if no other in the world be aware I sit content, and if each and all be aware I sit content (Whitman 59) ,” and, “…and these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, and such as it is to be of these more of less I am, and of these one and all I weave the song of myself (Whtman 54) .” Throughout this poem Whitman discusses many different types of living and non-living things and their jobs or places in the world, such as a farmer, bugle, an abolitionist, and a regatta. He uses these many examples, about 150 lines dedicated to this cause in the poem, to signify his feelings that all things are important and play an important role in the world. “…The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other, the youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret and harks to the musical rain… (Whitman 51) ”, shows how Whitman may use a seemingly insignificant example, like a bugle or dancers, and find considerable importance within it. Walt Whitman printed his second edition of “Leaves of Grass” in 1859, which failed, and a third was published in 1860 by a Boston publisher; however the company went bankrupt due in part to the impending Civil War. Whitman contributed his part to the war effort by working in the paymaster’s office and the Department of the Interior, but was fired by the Secretary of the Interior because he thought “Leaves of Grass” to be obscene. While he was working for the government however, he spent a significant amount of time at hospitals comforting both Union and Confederate soldiers. These experiences from the war hospitals developed into an addition to “Leaves of Grass” entitled “Drum Taps (Hall 943).” Also, Whitman was a supporter of the Union and preserving it to it’s fullest extent. He felt an enormous amount of admiration and gratitude towards President Abraham Lincoln and small portion of “Leaves of Grass” is dedicated to Lincoln. This section, entitled “Memories of President Lincoln”, contain two of Whitman’s most renowned poems, called “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and “O Captain! My Captain!” The extremely popular, rhymed, and melodramatic poem “O Captain! My Captain!” is unlike many of Whitman’s works, in that he so incredibly direct and blunt in what he is saying. For example, “O Captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done, the ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won…” and, “My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, my father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will (Whitman 420) ,” clearly symbolize the Union army’s victory and the assassination of the President. This poem shows very much Whitman’s belief that it is important for one to stand up for what one believes in and to make it clear about one’s feelings. Whitman was very outspoken in his defense of the Union and suffered many losses for having that belief; however, as is shown in his literature, Whitman stood by his views with out falter. The last twenty years of Whitman’s life were consumed with sickness and stress, but in that time he managed to publish three more editions of “Leaves of Grass”, the last one being termed the “deathbed” edition. His last releases went under a great deal of revisal and were by far his most popular; so sought after, in fact, that he was able to retire and buy a house in Camden, New Jersey (“Whitman, Walt” 639) . Whitman was a man who wrote his poetry without compromise and gave honest interpretations of what he thought to be true. From his poetry, readers are able to develop a great sense of freedom and integrity and avoid conforming due to the mass amounts of sameness among the rest of civilization. Through his writings, Whitman struggled with the rest of the world between the powers of “one’s self” and “em masse”, as he states in his poem, “One’s-Self I Sing”: “One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person, yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse (Whitman 1) .” Bibliography:

Word Count: 1471