Walt Whitman College Essays Samples For Students

Introduction

As a father of free verse, Walt Whitman breaks the limits of the general poetic form, and in general, his poems are prose-like. Even though he did not invent the free verse form, he uses it effectively in his poem that gains fame among the readers. He uses profound imagery in his poems, including debris, rotten leaves, and everything in nature, especially what he considers as nature, which includes sexuality, including prostitution, and death. He reflects and mirrors the nature and the world around him because he strongly believes there is a symbiotic relationship between poet and world. He rightly says ...

In a moody August weather last 2008, certain events that had happened during the past few weeks brought a sad feeling to an otherwise breezy Sunday morning. The lonesome state and fact of not having to go somewhere made the situation even worse. Random thoughts came rushing all at once as I lay upon my bed refusing to get up with the troubles on my head.
At that time, I was asking myself, “Why did I feel so confined and so programmed?” Yet, when I dream about life, my life, I dream about the adventures, the mysteries and the surprises ...

In this particular essay, which includes Woody Guthrie’s Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee), I endeavoured to clearly understand how poetry is done. Actually, I didn’t find it hard to determine whether the poem is in closed form or in free verse since the lack of pattern of rhyme is not present. Nevertheless, there was just a continual assessment for assurance whether the poem is truly in free verse.

What I find difficult is to examine how the element of rhyme affects the meaning of the poem. This is also for the case of line length. Although the ...

Emily Dickinson’s life was not that of a conventional young lady of the nineteenth century. The men of her family were all lawyers, many turned to politics as well, and she often felt the limitations of her gender, writing to her future sister-in-law and friend Susan Gilbert, "Why can't I be a Delegate to the great Whig Convention?—don’t I know all about Daniel Webster, and the Tariff and the Law?" (Crumbley ¶ 2). Another incident that showed and likely promoted her individuality occurred in the years 1847-1848 while she studied at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary; when she “acquired ...

Abstract

The following essay analyzes this particular poem from the perspective of history and the tumultuous times of the middle 19th century America. In this time of great unrest and fight for civil rights, as well as for the basic rights of every human being, Walt Whitman chose to address this highly relevant issue in the development of America and its treatment of its citizens by writing a long poem in free verse in which he expressed his, what were considered radical democratic viewpoints. His belief was simple: treat others like you would like to be treated. He believed in egalitarianism, ...

Walt Whitman’s Romantic thinking and Its Characteristic

Walt Whitman’s poetry is highly influenced by the Romantic ideas. Like other romantic poets, the subjects of his poetry were often ordinary people and from low life. As a democratic poet, he truly uses language of the ordinary people which he feels can express the inner feeling of an ordinary man about his day-to-day life. Following the romantics, he wants the poetry to be the spontaneous expression of the poet’s own subjective feeling and it should not follow the poetic convention of classical doctrines.
In his poem “I Hear America Singing,” Walt Whitman describes how carpenters, mechanics, ...

Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes are two great American poets who were concerned with the future of America. In the poem “I Too (Sing America)” Hughes describes a segregated and not perfect America, a world divided by color rather than ideas and freedom. Whitman imagines a brighter future of America in the poem “One Song, America, Before I Go”. Both poems describes and yearns for a better human experience in America. This papers seeks to examine and explore the depiction of America as a place with the potential for freedom and equality. It further explores the treatment of the ...

When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d

The Poem entitled “When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d” is Walt Whitman’s romanticized story of an American leader during a trying time. In his poem, he shows the audience his own meaning of democracy as well as racial equality. His poem speaks of Abraham Lincoln as the one who brought about racial equality in a land that was being tried. This was during the time of national disagreement, when their great leader fought for equality and abolitionism. This was the most prominent theme seen in Whitman’s work here.
He speaks to the deceased president about his ...

The transcendental movement began in America after the Revolutionary war. Many believe it is a response to the newly found independence and freedom of the American people. They now had the opportunity and responsibility to reclaim their identities and begin forming their American culture. Transcendentalism is the idea that thoughts, reasoning, and beliefs greatly outweighed material items. Perhaps this was due to the fact that many Americans were struggling early on. Many had endured a great deal of hardship and families had to abandon almost everything to earn their independence. These people now valued their lives, opinions, values, and ...

Introduction

Among the contemporary poets, Margaret Atwood is a name which resonates highly among the literary society. Aged 75 years as of today, she has become face of the feminist critic, while also writing several famous prose and poetry alike. Some of the most common themes in her poetry are -- feminism, westernisation versus civilisation, exploitation of nature etc. She became an established and well read author in the very early phases of her writing career, owing much to the fact that her poetry is realistic and contemporary in nature. For the very reason, I have decided to work on ...

Thesis: Through a first person speaker, Collins uses language, imagery and form to convey his theme of lonely, one-sided love.

Introduction
First person speaker
Failing relationship
Speaker still in love
Language and Imagery
“boat rides” etc
“sometimes” and “more often than not”
Form and Rhyme
Free verse
Occasional slant rhyme
5. Conclusion
“The Breather” by Billy Collins is an interesting poem which conveys the theme of lonely love. Not that many poems cover the darker, isolated side of love, and this could be partly what makes this poem so memorable. Collins uses a seemingly mild-mannered, pensive speaker to narrate the poem, which creates a contemplative, conversational tone for the reader. Conversational language and imagery are also noticeable throughout, allowing ...

Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy Hunter

The theme of the poem “Barbie Doll” is the narrow definition of femininity in the 1970’s American society. The poem is written in a free verse style. The sound of the poem is more like that of a story. Since the writer is telling us, what is essentially, a modern fairy tale; the free verse style keeps the poem focused on the story of the girl child. This helps avoid any distraction, that would be created if the poet employed any sophisticated poetic devices.

The themes of the poem include (1) perception of girl/women in the 1970’s American society. (2) Appearances

The poem goes on to describe, how a girl child was expected to be ...

Poetry is the kind of verbal art that allows to express all the profundity of the genuine ache of the heart within a very little amount of space. Very often, even having seen nothing but the title, the reader feels that this particular poem will resonate with his or her feelings and bring about sublime aesthetic and moral experience. In my reader's experience, this was the case of the poem Mother to Son by Langston Hughes published in 1922. Even without reading the body of the poem, I became aware of the intense emotions it carried. My initial impression ...

Introduction

Form in poetry refers to the physical structure of the poem. This can mean the length of lines, the repetition, the rhyming, and the system of the rhymes. When these features have been organized into a recognizable pattern, then they can be described to belong to a certain form. The commonest forms of poems include sonnets, villanelles, blank verses, and sestinas. The form of a poem aids the poet in expressing the theme and the feelings that accompany the poet’s expression.
Form of a poem can be the manner of the complexity of the poem. The poem can be simple and ...

Walt Whitman is widely known as the first American ‘Democratic’ Poet, and for his liberal thinking. Whitman began creating poetry as a means of defining America in 1855. Although America has always been a conflicted and multi-cultural nation, Whitman tried to recreate it as a unified whole through his poetry. In Song of Myself, Whitman describes America as, “One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same” (Whitman). Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” like the rest of his poems stems from the desire to heal, mediate, and reunite different factions in American, and create a unified ...

Abstract

The basic principle of Marxist criticism is that society is divided in social classes that are in an antagonist relation, wherein the rich and strong exploit the poor and weak. In this sense, Walt Whitman’s poem “A Noiseless Patient Spider” does not reflect the exploitative relation that Marx sees as representative for society, but he rather describes the society of one, hence an atypical society. The solitude, isolation and desolation are feelings that appear throughout the story, so the reader can understand that possession, or a high social status is not as important as companionship, or when one ...

‘Waiting’ is a story of a man who is a victim of the historic Chinese traditions and who is caught in between guilt and desire. The guilt part of his feeling attaches to his wife who has been chosen by his parents for him to marry and his heart’s desire is the woman that he is in love with, ‘Manna’ who also works in the same hospital as him. The cultural, social and the political climate had a widespread impact on the lives of not just the characters of the story but also many others like them. Sadly, ...

Walt Whitman is the composer of “Song of Myself” along with his other poetic work. In the poem, he has tried to elaborate on the purpose of life and written it in his signature freestyle. The paper highlights the significance of verse 16 of the poem, “Song of Myself.” In the poem, Walt has tried to use synecdoche style to emphasize on his two sides “old and young,” “foolish and wise”, and “ever regardless of other and regardful of others.” He believes that there are two sides to him that contribute to his being. According to him, everyone is ...

China and India’s Economy as a Neoclassical Growth Model.

It should be noted that the standard one-sector neoclassical growth model cannot be used to explain the macroeconomic variables of India and China. The model, however, provides the theoretical framework that aids in examining how the two economies’ digress from the standard model and in this way point out the market structure, organizations, and other variables that may have led to this digress (Huisken 239). An important variable that may help us understand this deviation and explain the differences in the growth of the two economies is the investment interest rates. India may have high level of investments but ...

Analysis of Different Poetic Forms

The Torturer's Apprentice is a haunting dark poem about an individual relaying their experience to a trainee torturer. The last ending five words of the first stanza alludes to freedom and the creation of bridges. The torturer believes that he or she will only be free when they manage to mend bridges with the people they are torturing. The ending words are; “day”. “Was”, “free”, “see”, “bridge” and “way”. All these words together reveal the persona’s desire to escape their trade. They note that they “began this journey young and free” (Line 3). It seems like torture does ...

Adrienne Rich and Walt Whiteman are considered as some of the greatest poets not only in America but the whole. Their work possesses great history and is a major inspiration to upcoming poets; almost all poets have something that they admire in their works. Their works were quite distinctive and in certain times overlooked the conventional poetic rules. In several cases, Adrienne Rich and Walt Whiteman ignored the normal poetic styles and reverted to their own methods.
There are several similarities as well as disparity in the works of the two great poets. For Adrienne, her works hewed closely ...

Is Walt Whitman's poetry devoid of structure or shape

Walt Whitman is the typical poet that composes his poems based on the traditionally recognized forms of poetic structure and prose. His poems are unique and often appear to be unorganized in the most unorthodox of ways. Because of this, his poems might depict a lack in structure or pose. However, according to the fundamental forms of poetic structure, most of his poems do have a structure and shape needed to qualify them as poems. They are not easily recognizable, but that does not warrant their absence. Structure in poetry is inclusive of the arrangement of lines or stanzas that is ...

Executive Summary

Mythology typically elucidates historical events of ancient characters to represent beliefs, practices, natural phenomenon and institution that are related to religious beliefs and rights. The mythology had an immense impact on art and literature during the Decadence era as it gave rise to the concept of Symbolism in Europe. Decadence was an era towards the end of Eighteen Century that emerged during the industrial revolution in Europe. Decadence is heavily linked with symbolism. Symbolism links the ancient mythology with imagination to form art and literature. Symbolism is an artistic and literary movement that emerged in the group of few ...

William Wallis’ poem “Family” is devoted to the theme of family togetherness, calm family life, and childhood memories. The author of the poem narrates from the nephew’s perspective showing his emotions as a child visiting his aunt. The picture drawn by the poet reminds of an episode of calm family life having good and bad moments. Probably, the author tried to describe his sensations related relationships between close relatives. Wallis succeeded to get the reader to see a peaceful picture of family life from the first rows. The poetic form used in the poem is free verse (Padgett 27). Free ...

‘Instructor’s Name’

Compare and Contrast Poetry
The poems discussed in this essay were written by two modern greats, who were among the most acclaimed poets of the modern English literature – Emily Dickinson and William E. Stafford. Though they both belonged to different centuries there are some notable similarities in their work. Both of them were unconventional, and they ironically shaped American poetry by abandoning its traditional styles and trends. In fact Dickinson’s works, sadly, got its due credit only after her demise. This essay is aimed at comparing and analyzing two of their notable works, namely, ‘Because I Could ...

William Carlos Williams’s poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a simple, image-based poem in which an unknown speaker describes a red wheelbarrow and chickens. The simplicity of the poem, which is demonstrated by its length and subject, combine with the statement made in the first line of the poem to realistically depict a slice of reality.
The structure of the poem helps to establish how a reader should view the poem. It is comprised of four stanzas with two lines each. The poem is made up of only one sentence which is not capitalized at its beginning. This sentence is broken up ...

New York City has inspired numerous individuals to try to describe and define what makes it unique. Some of those individuals have developed very different visions of New York City. Author Anthony Flint examines some of those differing visions in his book, Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City. Walt Whitman, Robert Moses, and Jane Jacobs each regarded the city as a wonderful and uniquely American city. Their differing visions of the city reflect their personal perspective of what makes New York City desirable, whether it be the bustle ...

Introduction

Unattainable love is something that all of us have experienced at some point in our life. It is both a painful and learning experience, and a subject that has inspired numerous artists both in literature and in the visual arts. It has also urged many to become better persons, although there are also others who choose to just give up in despair.

One of the most beautiful ways of expressing the sorrow, despair, and frustrations that come with unattainable love is through the art of literature. In this regard, this paper reviews three prose and three poems that dwell on the ...

Is Whitman successful in his attempt to represent himself as all men and all women?

It is characteristic of American Transcendentalism that the divine should be apprehended in every living thing (Tanner, 34), but it is only Whitman, amongst the writers broadly termed Transcendentalist, who attempts a completely egalitarian approach to the writing of poetry and the themes of his poetry. As such, in order to do justice to the teeming variety of the new America, Whitman experiments with from and language in an attempt to represent himself as all men and all women.
“Song of Myself” first appeared as the very first poem of Leaves of Grass in 1855. Whitman’s name is ...