Walt Whitman Flashcards
Style
Whitman wrote at a time (the mid- to late-19th century, before, during, and after the U.S. Civil War) when writers were actively creating what American poetry and literature could be.
Whitman was interested in creating a uniquely American poetics, a kind of democratic aesthetic, and he is considered the first American poet to have written in free verse, seeing it as closer to the sounds of real speech.
verse
Protagoras
“man is the measure of all things” could simply mean that, although objective reality exists and an Objective Truth may even exist, these things will be interpreted and understood differently by each person experiencing them.
divide between unity and individuality
Eldrid Herrington; poem’s structure.
(Poem: “A Noiseless Patient Spider”)
“The poem is composed of 2 sets of 5 lines, each a sentence; the pause between them perfectly enacts the difficult poise between ostensive & internal identity.”
M. Jimmie Killingsworth; what the poem is about.
(Poem: “A Noiseless Patient Spider”)
“Whitman might have gone the conventional route of offering a reflection on human striving.”
R. W. French; the speaker’s emotional development.
(Poem: “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life)
“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.”
M. Jimmie Killingsworth; what the poem is about.
(Poem: “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life)
Whitman’s great poem of “spiritual autobiography, and the melancholy”
Ezra Greenspan; significance of “masks”
(Poem: “How Solemn as One by One”)
“Whitman overtly meant to indicate that it is always the indwelling spirit that constitutes essential identity, & not external features & manners.”
Byrne Fone; themes.
(Poem: “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)
Byrne Fone has shown that the need for affection and the impossibility of solitude which the poem ultimately assert are pervasive themes.
Michael Moon; how the oak reflects Whitman’s poetic practice.
(Poem: “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)
“Whitman recognizes in the live-oak’s ability to “utter joyous leaves” while “standing alone” a reflected image of his own poetic practice.”
Carol Rumens; grammar + Whitman’s homosexuality + slavery.
(Poem: I Sing the Body Electric)
“The grammar seems deliberately convoluted, and it has been suggested that Whitman was struggling between the revelation and the concealment of his homosexuality. But these questions, shadowed by the opposition of corruption and “discorruption”, might equally open the critique of slavery, an important theme addressed in two sections of the poem.”
Carol Rumens; euphemisms.
(Poem: I Sing the Body Electric)
“The euphemism or obscure coinage (man-root, neck-slue) forms a collectible linguistic curio.”
Rafael Bernabe; imagery.
(Poem: “In Paths Untrodden”)
“The image suggests both an excursion into unexplored nature &, paradoxically, the pursuit of the inventions of the modern.”
David S. Reynolds; presentation of the meaning of life.
(Poem: “O Me! O Life!”)
The poem “poses the question of the meaning of life as something that is universally confusing & elusive; & in the final metaphor, Whitman offers a democratic explanation rather than a solution, allowing the mystifying meaning of life to be equally as perplexing to people from all walks of life.”
Charles M. Oliver; what the poet suggests.
(Poem: “O Me! O Life!”)
“The poet suggests that even with occasional moments of self-pity or depression, life is worth living.”
Charles M. Oliver; significance of the cradle & the metaphor of the sea.
(Poem: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking)
“A “cradle endlessly rocking” evokes images of the continually repeating life cycle the baby rocked by its mother & the old man or woman in a rocking chair. But it also evokes the sea - one of Whitman’s favourite metaphors - the sea constantly repeating its rocking motion & reminding readers of the inevitability of their journey through life to inevitable death.”
