Walt Whitman and Herman Melville
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Walt Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" are set in New York City during the early years of the industrial revolution, but are markedly different in tone, theme and the perceptions and feelings of the main characters. Melville's characters exist without joy, love or hope, and merely drag themselves through a life of drudgery and alienation, without making any human connections to each other or to nature. Mankind in Bartleby's world is simply trapped in a pointless existence that ends with death, and unlike Whitman's narrator they are unable to rise above this grim, mundane world or imagine a common link with others or with the past and the future. Rather than simply being tools and machines carrying out routine, white-collar tasks, Whitman's narrator finds the resources within himself to transform an ordinary…...

This lack of tradition is what makes hitman seem slightly worried towards the middle of the poem. He seems adamant to remind the audience that, though this technology is amazing and beautiful in its own way, we should not allow it to eclipse the wonders of the past. Much of this poem can serve as a warning to make sure that we also bring along our poetic sensibilities as we embark on the path to the future since it is this poetic sense and the soul that brings us to new heights even as we feel we have reached the pinnacle of achievement with amazing machines.

The connection of man to nature is also of great concern to hitman as he writes "Passage to India." In the fourth passage, hitman sees two physical worlds, "of tableaus twain" (43); one is the ancient and rich world of the East, the other the…...

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Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. "Passage to India." Leaves of Grass. New York: Bantam Classics, 1983.

In "Song of Myself," the longest and most complex of the three poems from Leaves of Grass, hitman celebrates not only the self, but also the self with, and among others. This poem has 52 separate sections, each of them uniquely rich in imagery; theme; setting; sensory impressions, and sensuality. Section 1 of the poem, for example, freely celebrates hitman's "Self": his essence, health, body, individuality, and joy of living, as well as the collective "self" and selves within others: "I celebrate myself and sing myself,... For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

Subsequent sections of "Song of Myself," elaborate, by using diverse images, metaphors, and sensory impressions, upon the essential themes suggested within the first section: the individual; the "collective" individual (the individual's identification with other "selves," both within and outside of that individual); one's soul; one's separate senses; and one's relationships with and enjoyment of…...

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Works Cited

American Transcendentalism 2." Adventures in Philosophy. Retrieved May

7, 2005, from:  http://radicalacademy.com/amphilosophy4a.htm .

Price, Angel. "Whitman's Drum Taps and Washington's Civil War Hospitals." Retrieved May 5, 2005, from:  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/hospital/whitman.htm .

Whitman, Walt. "Beat! Beat! Drums!" The Harper American Literature, Volume 2, 2nd Ed. Donald Mc Quade et al. (Eds.). New York: Longman, 1993.

The full tragedy of war is expressed in the longer narrative poem "Come Up From the Fields, Father." This poem tells the story about a family who receives a letter from their son, Pete, who is fighting in the war. It soon becomes clear, however, that the letter is not from Pete at all. hitman brilliantly draws this out by pointing out, from the perspective of one of the family members, that this does not seem to be Pete's handwriting. Eventually, the family comes to learn that Pete has been seriously injured in battle. By the end of the poem, it becomes clear that the family will never see their Pete again. Much of the emotional impact of the poem stems from hitman's description of the Mother's tragic reaction to the news:

But the mother needs to be better,

She with thin form presently drest in black,

By day her meals untouch'd, then…...

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Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. "An Army Corps on the March." Retrieved April 16, 2008 at  http://hometown.aol.com/gordonkwok/cwpoetry.html .

Whitman, Walt. "Beat! Beat! Drums!" Retrieved April 16, 2008 at  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Leaves_of_Grass/Book_XXI#Beat.21_Beat.21_Drums.21 .

Whitman, Walt. "Bivouac on a Mountain Side." Retrieved April 16, 2008 at

His constant use of the firs person "I" also shows the strong independent streak in Whitman's character and poetry. "Song of Myself" makes it very clear that this independence is not born of ego, nor does it desire or require isolation. ather, the independence and freedom of the repeated "I" is of a part with the nature and society that the speaker observes, which ironically seems to call the individuality of the "I" into question even as it is being celebrated by the speaker.
Critics have wondered whether or not Whitman went through a transformative experience that affected his style, making it as unique but not until his middle age, but no agreement has been reached on this point.

Quotes:

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems."

You are also asking me questions and I hear you, answer that I cannot answer, you must…...

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References

Folsom, E. & Price, K. (2009). The Walt Whitman Archive. Accessed 26 February 2009.  http://www.whitmanarchive.org/ 

Whitman, W. "Song of Myself." Accessed 26 February 2009. http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/logr/log_026.html

"(Krupp, 44) I think that Whitman's stance is extremely important for my studies and my future development as an individual. On the one hand, the poet's admonition indicates that the study of the spiritual development of humanity is equally significant and useful as the progress of technology and the exact sciences. The human spirit can not be comfortable if it becomes alienated from the true contact with its environment. Thus, in my opinion, studying the human development and the social science is a crucial endeavor for mankind. Humanity has to stay in close contact with its own spirituality and with its own nature, and thus be able to genuinely relate to the surrounding world. Exact sciences are likely to alienate the individual from his environment, if he does not maintain a keen awareness to his spirituality and his nature as a thinking, animated being.
eferences

Krupp, E.C. (2006) "Antagonized by poets: astronomers…...

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References

Krupp, E.C. (2006) "Antagonized by poets: astronomers are crossed out when the poetic pen glides toward the stars." Sky & Telescope 111.5: 43(2).

Furthermore however, he also understands them. He for instance sympathizes with everything and everyone from older times through today's times. He understands the joys and sorrows of all living things, from a simple leaf to a complex human being. And even in terms of human beings, he understands their complexities. He for instance sympathizes with a stay-at-home woman or with a priest. He also understands the cyclic character of life. At the end of the section, the general dies, but this does not cause the end of the battle, just its continuation under different circumstances, with the necessity to move on and adjust to new situations.
6 / S35 and 36: Both sections 35 and 36 tell the story of the marine encounter between Richard Bonhomme and the English Serapis, from the angle of the winner -- the Americans. The 35th section is focused on the actual battle, whereas the…...

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Q6 / S35 and 36: Both sections 35 and 36 tell the story of the marine encounter between Richard Bonhomme and the English Serapis, from the angle of the winner -- the Americans. The 35th section is focused on the actual battle, whereas the 36th section is set as the battle was won, but the winners were placed in the life-threatening situation in which their boat was sinking and had to quickly move to the Serapis.

Q7 / S52: Song of Myself is described by the author himself as a "barbaric yawp," and this statement was reached after a comparison between Whitman's poem and the poems of previous authors. The explanation could be that previous poems were written in a positive, or the most, a melancholic state, whereas Whitman's poem is written in an aggressive style, clearly manifesting rage. The very last line of the poem comes not to offer closure and end the poem, but to state his own lack of conviction as to how and where he should be. So like his writings, he is complex, he is everything, he is nothing. And this is why he praises and sings about himself.

Whitman, W., Song of Myself,  http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1900.html

Walt Whitman's ten-line free verse poem, "A Noiseless Patient Spider" combines metaphor and metaphysics to convey a sense of meaning and wonderment. Whitman draws parallels between the mysterious arachnid and the equally nebulous human soul. The action of spinning and weaving webs becomes a workable metaphor for Whitman's spiritual conception of the human desire to understand the cosmos and our place within it. The spider builds webs that link disparate places; so does the soul. The soul forges bridges that connect people, time, space, and ideas. The spider itself is unaware of the splendor and beauty it creates, for its web serves simply as a way to catch food. It does not realize that its lure provides a visual representation of the mystical nature of the soul.
Whitman inspires healthy self-awareness with his deep observations of the spider and its web. He witnesses in the miraculous creature his own soul and…...

alt hitman
One major theme in hitman is what he frankly refers to as "the love of comrades…the manly love of comrades." (hitman, "A Song"). Although alt hitman is frequently but inaccurately claimed as a "gay" poet -- even though Leaves of Grass was published decades before the words "gay" or "homosexual" had entered the English lexicon -- it is clear that the role this plays in his writing is political. hitman wrote in a country that was still a democratic experiment: "Song of Myself" predates the U.S. Civil ar, which nearly caused the utter failure of that democratic experiment.

As we live in a historical moment when we can witness the struggles of democracy worldwide, it is particularly interesting to consider hitman's emotional (and possibly even sexual) commitment to the idea of democracy. Maire Mullins notes that hitman made great use of the contemporary pseudoscience of phrenology, the practice of generalizing…...

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Works Cited

Mullins, Maire. "Sexuality." In Kummings, Donald D. A Companion to Walt Whitman. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2009. Print.

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Project Gutenberg. Web.

alt hitman, American Author & Poet
About his Life:

alt hitman, an American poet was born on May 31, 1819 and a son of Long Island and the second son of alter hitman, a house builder, and Louisa Van Velsor. It was at the age of twelve hitman began to learn the printer's trade, and become acquainted with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible.

Then at the age of 17, in 1836, he started his career as a teacher in Long Island and continued until in 1841, he took journalism as a full-time career. In 1848, hitman became editor of the New Orleans Crescent.

In the fall of 1848, he returned to Brooklyn, and founded a "free soil" newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman, and continued to expand the distinctive style of poetry. However, it was in 855 that he took out a copyright and published the volume himself of the first edition…...

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Works Cited

Willey, Linda. A Poetry Analysis: The Soul, reaching, throwing out for love by Walt

Whitman. Whitman's first version, ca. 1862.

A www.geocities.com

Lieye.Com: About Walt Whitman. The Poetry of Walt Whitman. Jan. 1998. www.liglobal.com

alt hitman was the type of person who makes it possible for society to change its perspective on a lot of things. By introducing innovative theories and by encouraging people to be open-minded hitman actually played an important role in assisting the masses as they experienced progress. Even with the fact that many (the majority of his contemporaries) considered his works to be eccentric and deviant at times, he is partly responsible for assisting the U.S. go through a rebirth process when considering things from a point-of-view involving literature.
One of the most intriguing concepts about hitman was that he was obsessed with reaching out to common people in an attempt to have them acknowledge the importance of changing most of their attitudes. The poet practically considered that literature could be used as a tool that could change many things about the social order and that could influence individuals to put…...

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Works cited:

Addington Symonds, John, "Walt Whitman a Study," (Kessinger Publishing, Sep 1, 2004)

"Walt Whitman and the Development of Leaves of Grass," Retrieved January 11, 2013, from the University Libraries Website:  http://library.sc.edu/spcoll/amlit/whitman.html

Walt WhitmansO Captain! My Captain! is a poem by Walt Whitman. It is an ode to the fallen Abraham Lincolnor, better yet, an elegy for President Lincoln, who had been assassinated the previous year. Whitman was a strong supporter of Lincoln and his presidency, and the poem reflects both the sorrow of his death and the hope for the future that Lincoln represented. The image of the ship of state sailing on despite the loss of its captain is particularly powerful, and it speaks to the resilience of the American people in times of hardship. The poem has become one of Whitman's most famous works, and its message of hope in the face of tragedy continues to resonate with readers today. That is what really needs to be said about it. That kind of dedication and respect for another person of character and principle is sorely missing today it seemsso…...

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Works Cited

Burleigh, Robert. O Captain, My Captain: Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, and the

Civil War. Abrams, 2019.

Cantrell, Owen. \\\\\\"Abraham Lincoln’s Republic of Rules: The Logic of Labor, the Labor

Whitman uses simile effectively ("The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings") and uses metaphors effectively to link himself with others that have crossed the river in the past ("The dark threw its patches down upon me also…") because he certainly wasn't and isn't perfect at all so he had a metaphor for that ("I too knitted the old knot of contrariety…"). Melville's narrator, whose work is brilliant but a bit tedious, can slip personification, a metaphor and a simile into the same sentence for effect. For example, talking about Turkey, a previous employee ("a temperate young man") the narrator explains that "…nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless." Melville's narrator seems to have an obsession to either understand Bartleby, or at least be able to rationalize…...

alt hitman and Emily Dickinson project, in their poetry, an individual identity that achieves its power from within, thus placing a premium on the individual self. Ironically, this premium on the individual self was very much in vogue in America at the time; from Emerson to the early pioneers of 19th century industrialism. As a result, their projections of individual power were greatly influenced by the culture in which they live in. This is just one way in which cultural power influences individual power. Another way this occurs in their poetry has to do with their treatment of gender. America during the late 19th century can be characterized as a time of great social upheaval, but also as a time when gender roles were still very much strictly prescribed. Both hitman and Dickinson, while challenging the cultural assumptions about gender in the late 19th century, also project an individual…...

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Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Johnson, Thomas H. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1960.

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed.

Maynard Mack et al. Expanded edition in one volume. New York W.W. Norton, 1997. 2305-13.

alt hitman's "Song of Myself" continues to evoke strong emotions because of the paradox inherent in the juxtaposition between egotism on the one hand and selfless idealism on the other. The poem therefore encapsulates what it means to be an American, which is why other American poets -- and indeed poets from around the world -- have responded to "Song of Myself" poignantly. hen hitman penned "Song of Myself," the poet was imbuing verse with powerful social commentary that belies the relatively simple diction, tone, and style used. The poet reacts to the troubles in 19th century America, including but not limited to slavery and racism, urbanization and capitalism. hitman draws attention to the fact that the United States has built itself as an ideal: "the hand of God is the promise of my own." Yet that ideal has been stymied by the struggle for equality, epitomized most noticeably and…...

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Works Cited

Whitman, Walt. "Song of Myself." Retrieved online:  http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/whitman/song.htm

Walt Whitman's use of free verse and unconventional syntax in his poetry serves to enhance the themes of individualism and democracy by reflecting the fluidity and complexity of human experience. By eschewing traditional structures and forms, Whitman allows his words to flow organically and dynamically, embodying the diverse and ever-changing nature of American society.

Through his use of free verse, Whitman emphasizes the importance of personal freedom and self-expression, mirroring the spirit of individualism that he celebrates in his poetry. Without the constraints of rhyme and meter, Whitman's work feels expansive and liberating, inviting readers to explore their own unique identities....

Walt Whitman's Pioneering Use of Free Verse and Unconventional Syntax

Walt Whitman, the celebrated American poet of the 19th century, was a pioneer in crafting a distinct poetic style that transcended conventional verse forms and syntax. His innovative use of free verse and unconventional syntax served as a powerful medium through which he explored profound themes of individualism and democracy.

Free Verse and the Liberation of the Individual

Whitman rejected the rigid confines of traditional poetic forms, such as sonnets or iambic pentameter, in favor of free verse. Free verse, with its irregular line length and unrhymed lines, allowed Whitman to express his....