Курсовая работа: Walt Whitman. Philosophical basics of his work

Stand amused, complacent, compassionating, idea, unitary,

Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest.

Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next.

Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders.

I have no mocking or arguments, I witness and wait.» (P. 6).

Whitman considered the relation of phenomenon and the personality. His mind was not closed to the realities in which his personality asserted the method of the audience and passive state condition and tried to contact the refusing phenomenon.

«Leaves of grass» belongs to no particular accepted form of poetry. Whitman described its form as «a new and national declamatory expression.» Whitman was a poet bubbling with energy and burdened with sensations, and his poetic utterances reveal his innovations. His poetry seems to grow organically, like a tree. It has the tremendous vitality of an oak. Its growth follows no regular pattern: «Song of Myself», for example, seems at first almost recklessly written, without any attention to form. Whitman’s poetry, like that of most prophetic writers, is unplanned, disorganized, sometimes abortive, but nevertheless distinctively his own.

Walt Whitman’s Poetical Techniques

In his poems he used some special poetical techniques.

Alliteration

«Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking»: «'And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea.' This use of alliteration of the creates a sound of the sea… which is very effective. This is by no means the only use of alliteration in the poem. Other groupings such as 'sterile sands,' 'briers and blackberries, ' 'Listened long and long,' 'sweetest song and songs,' and 'singer solitary' occur throughout the poem» (Kimmel 9/16/96).

Anaphora

Anaphora: repetition of words or phrases at beginnings of lines.

«Crossing Brooklyn Ferry»: «'Others will enter… / Others will watch… / Others will see' and also 'Just as you feel… / Just as you are refresh'd… / Just as you stand… / Just as you look…'» (Barham 9/17/96).

«One of the first cases in which he uses anaphora extensively in Drum-Taps is in the section titled «Poet,» in which the first four lines begin with 'I hear, ' and lines 8–12 begin with 'I see, ' while the entire first 13 lines begin with 'I.' He is creating one large audio and visual image in those lines, with each line being a separate image, but all tied together by their common beginning. In this case, lines all beginning with the same word also help to set up a rhythm, as the reader is inclined to read all of the 'I's with the same amount of stress, like reading off items on a list. Through the use of anaphora in this way, Whitman can express one theme in several different lines, with several different ideas, while having a definite link between each thought. In the first section of 'Give Me the Splendid Sun, ’ Whitman begins the first eleven lines with 'Give me.' Although in each line he is asking for a different thing, the entire thought expressed in the lines together is his desire for 'nature's primal sanities.' With the common beginning in these lines, he is expressing all of his values at once in eleven lines, with eleven different ideas» (Minis 9/17/96).

«Free» verse

Definition: verse that, while free of rhyme and a consistent rhythm, may employ other structural and sound elements, such as anaphora and chiasmus.

Whitman may have picked up on Emerson's line in «The Poet»: «For it is not meters, but a meter-making argument that makes a poem.»

But he also may have found models in «Proverbial Philosophy,» a free verse poem that Tupper published in 1838, and in a poem by George Lippard (Reynolds).

Catalogs

«In many of Whitman's poems, like Children of Adam , he lists many things at once. In Children of Adam , section 9, he lists over 80 parts of the body, both male and female. He does this listing technique again in Song of the Open Road , when he tells of all the things he passes and sees on his journey» (Baldwin 9/17/96)

They show a childish joy in naming things (Matthiessen 518).

Perhaps they also betray a desire to incorporate everything in a poem, as Melville tried to do in Moby-Dick .

Whitman may have borrowed the idea from contemporary travel literature, including books called Mississippi in Gobs and New York in Chunks (Reynolds).

«In 'Drum-Taps' the smaller passages which make up the whole poem seem to give all different perspectives of the war. The perspective of the mother, father, child, wound dresser, slave woman, and even a banner are all given. In turn, the reader is fed a catalog of various feelings about war. Also, in 'Drum-Taps' and particularly in the passage 'First O Songs for a Prelude, ' there is a catalog. Whitman lists and lists all different people with varying occupations and how they are getting ready for war. Thy lawyer, the mechanic, and salesman are all mentioned. It would be easy to see Whitman’s use of the catalog as simply 'show[ing] childish joy in naming things' (Matthiessen 518). However, I see it as Whitman's way of presenting universality. Everyone is going through this same event, and everyone is feeling emotions about the war. The catalog shows common links among humans» (Plonk 9/19/96).

Chiasmus

Definition: a mirror pattern in words, sounds, or other elements.

See «Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,» lines 71–74: «SOOTHE! Soothe! Soothe!» / CLOSE on its wave soothes the wave BEHIND / And again another BEHIND embracing and lapping, everyone CLOSE, / But my love SOOTHES not me, not me.»