Walt Whitman - Articles - Zimbio

Poem of the Week: Thanks in Old Age

Mon, 7 Oct 2008 17:17:04 GMT

posted by greatbooksaudio

Walt Whitman - IMG_5772 by dbking

Thanks in Old Age was written by Walt Whitman (1819–1892), the American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Thanks in Old Age is one the 58 poems in the collection.

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Essay Papers on Walt Whitman

Wed, 2 Oct 2008 13:45:44 GMT

posted by lennypraidz

Walt Whitman was a famous American writer. His contribution into the development of American Literature was significant indeed. That is why his poems are included on the list of topics for discussion in many academic institutions.

Students may be assigned to write different papers on Walt Whitman, including essays, for American Literature classes. So, if help with writing essay papers on Walt Whitman is what you are searching for, this article is just for you.

Impact of transition between two literature ages on Whitman’s works

Since Whitman got under the influence of Transcendentalism, it could not but affect his works. So, you may investigate this impact in your Walt Whitman essay. Say that despite his being a representative of realism, some features of Transcendentalism were still intrinsic to his works.

Participation in the American Civil War

Just like a famous American writer Ernest Hemingway, Whitman volunteered to be a nurse during the American Civil War. You may compare and contrast how both writers described the war in essay papers on Walt Whitman. Surely, essays on Walt Whitman devoted to this issue should be supported with examples from texts.

Whitman’s sexuality

Papers on Walt Whitman can mention about his sexuality, since many debates and discussions in American literature are devoted to this problem. Of course, essay papers on Walt Whitman should not be devoted to this problem only, but you may, at least, mention it.

The father of free verse (more…)

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May 31, 1819: The Birth of Walt Whitman

Wed, 29 May 2008 14:40:41 GMT

posted by sisumd

It is a fitting coincidence that the birthday of Walt Whitman always occurs within the same week in which America commemorates its fallen soldiers. Whitman???s voice is the voice of the soldier, the battlefield???the American experience of war. Whitman never picked up a rifle, and he never faced the onslaught of an enemy bayonet charge; however, Whitman???s time in Washington as a volunteer working with the Civil War wounded becomes, in his writing, a testament of combat and an encomium to its brave participants. NPG Historian David Ward describes the effect of the Civil War on Whitman:

On December 13, 1862, the Union army suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia; among the 9,600 wounded was George Whitman, brother of the poet. On hearing the news, Walt Whitman immediately headed south. When found, George was only slightly hurt, but the trip was a nightmare journey into the hell of modern war. The charnel house that was the battle???s aftermath deeply affected Whitman. In response to what he saw, Whitman became a nurse, comforting the wounded and writing hundreds of letters to their families for them. He recorded the soldiers??? suffering and death, bearing witness to their solitary martyrdom within a society that grew more impersonal by the day. Poetically, this act of witnessing reinvigorated Whitman???s writing with a tragic sense of the individual???s transcendental importance.

In the same way that Walt Whitman???s passionate poetry removes the mysteries of romance and replaces those mysteries with an earthy and verdant joyfulness, so Whitman???s war poetry destroys the myth of the hero and replaces it with the visceral images of the battlefield. More than half a century before Wilfred Owen???s devastatingly micrographic observation of battle, Dulce et Decorum Est, Whitman writes:

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,
A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,
Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,
Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,
'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,
Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and
     poems ever made,
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,
And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and
     clouds of smoke,
By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some
     in the pews laid down,
At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of
bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)
I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily,)
Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all,
Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity,
     some of them dead,

Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether,
     odor of blood,
The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd,
Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the
     death-spasm sweating,
An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls,
The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of
     the torches,
These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,
Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;
But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me,
Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,
Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,
The unknown road still marching.

Whitman???s volunteer efforts in Washington, D.C., were divided among several hospitals, among them the one installed in the Old Patent Office Building, now the home of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Whitman mentions the structure several times in his journals, and in one of his notes he calls it ???the noblest of Washington buildings.???

Whitman spent his last years in Camden, New Jersey, and his home there is now a museum. He is buried nearby, in Harleigh Cemetery. Saturday, May 31, would have been Walt Whitman???s 189^th birthday.

^{Walt Whitman, 1819-1892 | George C. Cox (1851-1902) | Platinum print, 1887 | National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Feinberg}

In a little house.... Walt Whitman

Sat, 8 Jul 2007 01:41:00 GMT

posted by Barbara
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. ~Walt Whitman

My Picture-Gallery
Walt Whitman
IN a little house keep I pictures suspended,
it is not a fix’d house,

It is round,
it is only a few inches from one side to the other;

Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world,
all memories?

Here the tableau's of life,
and here the groupings of death;

Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,

With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures.

1880

*Note: Cicerone is an old term for a guide, one who conducts visitors and sightseers to museums, galleries, etc.,

In the summer I am reminded often of summers past. Today I began to think about the flowers in my grandmother and mothers gardens. I was reminded of the Oleander that Grandmother Seaburg planted by her back door step and probably watered with the dish water after she was finished cleaning up meals. She decorated this bush at Christmastime because there were no other trees to decorate. I inherited a love for flowers and even when we are in the desert I gather them around me.

b

A Little Walt Whitman

Thu, 18 Jul 2008 04:19:57 GMT

posted by veronicaromm

When I heard the learn’d astronomer by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Just wanted to share some genius with you today. Those old poets really knew how to make a point.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is America’s world poet — a latter-day successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. In his Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 and revised and expanded for the rest of his life, he celebrated democracy, nature, love, and friendship. This monumental work chanted praises to the body as well as to the soul, and found beauty and reassurance even in death.

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IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix’d house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?
Here the tableau's of life, and here the groupings of death;
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
With finger rais’d he points to the prodigal pictures.