Whitmans Poetry 2020

1
Universidad de Playa Ancha

Facultad de Humanidades
English Teaching Program

Literatures from English Speaking Cultures
Professor Andrés Ferrada Aguilar
Fall 2020
HOW TO READ WALT WHITMAN’S POETRY: AN INTRODUCTION

Document prepared by Andrés Ferrada Aguilar
May 2020
In his poetry, Walt Whitman explores the following themes:
1) The strong connection between human beings and Nature

2) The beauty and uniqueness of the American cultural and physical landscapes
3) The dignity of the body as well as the dignity of the soul
4) The vulnerable position of marginalized groups: slaves, “venerealees”, prostitutes
5) Transcendental experiences that create a sense of communion between human
beings, Nature, and the divine
6) The construction of American democracy and modernity
7) Reproductive love (“amativeness”) and same-sex love (“adhesiveness”)
According to your own reading of Whitman’s poems, what other themes would you include
in this list?
2
Let’s see what the main themes in poem 6 from Song of Myself
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and
say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.
This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
3
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
1) What are some important topics in this poem?
The innocence of childhood

The significance of grass
The cycle of life
Can you include more topics?
2) What is a main theme that we could derive from one of the topics?
The significance of grass in terms of representing different conditions of American life.
3) What is a critical proposal that we could create from the main theme?
The grass in this poem is relevant not only as a sign of the natural environment, but also as an
indication of the speaker’s inner responses to the American landscape, his fellow-beings, and
the way he perceives life and death. In this sense, we can say that the grass is not only a
natural referent, but also a symbol.
4) What are the verses (lines) in the poem that we can quote to support the critical
proposal?
5) What are the images (striking, visual, vivid representations) that illustrate the
celebration of life and beauty in this poem?
6) What is the speaker’s emotional response as he tries to answer the child’s question?
7) What are verses that best illustrate or reflect Whitman’s concern with equal
participation and a healthy democracy?
FACTS ABOUT WHITMAN’S LIFE AND POETRY

From The Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/walt-whitman
Born on Long Island, Whitman grew up in Brooklyn and received

limited formal education. His occupations during his lifetime included
printer, schoolteacher, reporter, and editor. Whitman’s self-published Leaves
of Grass was inspired in part by his travels through the American frontier and
by his admiration for Ralph Waldo Emerson. This important publication
underwent eight subsequent editions during his lifetime as Whitman
expanded and revised the poetry and added more to the original collection of
4
12 poems. Emerson himself declared the first edition was “the most
extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.”
Whitman published his own enthusiastic review of Leaves of Grass.

Critics and readers alike, however, found both Whitman’s style and subject
matter unnerving. According to The Longman Anthology of Poetry,
“Whitman received little public acclaim for his poems during his lifetime for
several reasons: this openness regarding sex, his self-presentation as a rough
working man, and his stylistic innovations.” A poet who “abandoned the
regular meter and rhyme patterns” of his contemporaries, Whitman was
“influenced by the long cadences and rhetorical strategies of Biblical poetry.”
Upon publishing Leaves of Grass, Whitman was subsequently fired from his
job with the Department of the Interior. Despite his mixed critical reception
in the US, he was favorably received in England, with Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne among the British writers who
celebrated his work.
During the Civil War, Whitman worked as a clerk in Washington, DC.

For three years, he visited soldiers during his spare time, dressing wounds
and giving solace to the injured. These experiences led to the poems in his
1865 publication, Drum-Taps, which includes, “When Lilacs Last in the
Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman’s elegy for President Lincoln.

Whitmans Poetry 2020

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Whitmans Poetry 2020

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Whitmans Poetry 2020

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1

Universidad de Playa Ancha

English Teaching Program

HOW TO READ WALT WHITMAN’S POETRY: AN INTRODUCTION

In his poetry, Walt Whitman explores the following themes:

1) The strong connection between human beings and Nature

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,

They are alive and well somewhere,

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

1) What are some important topics in this poem?

The innocence of childhood

The significance of grass in terms of representing different conditions of American life.

FACTS ABOUT WHITMAN’S LIFE AND POETRY

Born on Long Island, Whitman grew up in Brooklyn and received

Whitman published his own enthusiastic review of Leaves of Grass.

During the Civil War, Whitman worked as a clerk in Washington, DC.

You might also like