2. As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life Flashcards
Context
The poem is part of the section of the volume titled “Sea Shore,” a part of “Leaves of Grass” that deals with the sea, as well as other commonly discussed themes.
These include life, growing up, and the meaning of existence. In this particular poem, the poet describes an existential crisis that comes over him while he’s visiting his home.
Themes
Whitman engages with numerous themes in ‘As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life’. The most important of these is identity. It is closely followed by nature, memories, and the past.
The poet spends the entire poem exploring how to understand his identity. He eventually comes to the conclusion by the end of the poem that the best and only way to successfully do this is not through arrogant poetry but through prolonged periods in nature.
He sees the ocean as a symbol of his identity and the identities of all other human beings. The shore is used as a metaphor for the path he’s walking. But, at the same time, he’s all the things combined. He is the ocean, the sand, the wind, and the debris that washes up on the beach.
Theme: Self Doubt
The universe is so expansive that he feels insignificant, as if his poetry is borne of audacity. He sees pride and ego in individuality.
Simon Armitage- “Writing poetry is an act of dissent”
For Whitman, poetry is his ego not his self; it is polished and representative of what he wants to represent not what it really is– full of flaws and hideousness and consequently the beauty of it. He cant reach the rawness.
Aristotle
“The more you know the more you realise you dont know”
Theme: Egalitarianism
One unity of humanity; if we all perceive nature the same way we are united by it.
“The constantly iterated idea of egalitarianism, one aspect of which is the avowal of equality between body and soul.” -Emerson
Anaphora
The repitition of “As I” creates a wave like quality.
Metaphor: “You oceans both”
two oceans are metaphors for his two sides; one side falsely expressed and the other never reached.
or one side which is prideful and the other which is a cynic.
Walt Whitman - “I contradict myself? very well I contradict myself”
Epiphany
“Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return)”
Realisation that life is like the tides.
Transcendentalism
This realisation that god, nature, the self and all are the same. In the end he is finally part of everything. Perhaps one can only truly transcend in death (reiterated in I Sing the Body Electric)
‘The essence of Transcendentalism – the union of the soul…bringing with it an ecstatic consciousness of the universe, limitless self-confidence, recognition of the common dignity of man.”
M. J. Killingsworth
what the poem is about
“spiritual autobiography, and melancholy”
R. W. French
Emotional Development
“the poet, having at the start of the poem given up all claims to authority by recognizing that he had never known himself or understood anything, at the end of the poem is prepared to re-assert his claims on a reader.”
