"Preface" to Leaves of Grass, 1855
Song of Myself, 1855 / 1881 (especially sections 1, 2, 3, 6, 15, 28, 38, 51, 52)
The Sleepers, 1855
I Sing the Body Electric, 1855
There was a child went forth, 1855, 1871
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, 1856 / 1881
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, 1859 / 1881
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life, 1860/1881
When I Heard at the Close of the Day, 1860 / 1867
The Artilleryman's Vision, 1865 / 1881
O Captain! My Captain!, 1865-66, 1871
When I Heard at the Close of the Day
ResponderEliminarPART 1
„When I Heard at the Close of the Day” (1860/ 1867) by Walt Whitman is a poem written in free verse, consisting of a single stanza.
Considering that Walt Whitman is known for having explored his homosexuality in poetry and especially in this particular poem, we will assume that the narrative voice is in fact a male voice. Thus, I will be referring to the speaker as “he.”
The poem can be divided into two parts that show a strong thematic and emotional contrast to each other. While the introductory part (1-5) focuses on feelings of unhappiness, the latter one (6-27) explores true happiness when being in nature and around a loved one.
The poem starts with the conjunction “when” (1), which will be used over and over again in the upcoming lines (4, 6, 8, 10, 12). Further conjunctions, such as “and” (4, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 26) give the poem an enumerative and argumentative character. By doing so, it appears as if the narrative voice is trying to clarify the reasons for the way he feels in these different situations. These opposed feelings are then summed up in a very simple and direct manner. By juxtaposing “I was not happy” (5) and “I was happy“ (13, 26-27) we are straightforwardly confronted with the speaker’s unmistakable state of mind.
A close reading of the poem might provide further information on the feelings of the narrative voice and give us a deeper insight into the ways the poem functions.
The first part of the poem situates us at the “close of the day,” (1) at a threshold in-between day and night, a liminal space, so to say. This transition from day to “night” (3) already alarms us that something unpleasant is about to come.
We are then faced with an antithesis, namely, that even though the lyrical I receives ”plaudits in the capitol,” (2) he remains unhappy. It is important to note that in fact his “name” (1) receives the mentioned applause. The name hereby can stand for his identity as perceived by others. Additionally, the fact that he is celebrated in the “capitol” (2) also underlines the representative aspect of his name and therefore the way the public perceives him. This moment of supposed joy, however, cannot be enjoyed in private during the forthcoming night. To further stress this unhappy state of mind, lines four and five give other examples of public situations, which usually arouse happiness, but strangely enough only bring him sadness.
All in all, the first part of the poem already points towards the fact that the speaker is unhappy when being in public. We might suspect that it is due to the fact that he is unable to live out his true being, which is only revealed when he is by himself.
When I Heard at the Close of the Day
ResponderEliminarPART 2
Line six eventually brings a profound shift of mindset, announced by the conjunction “[b]ut.” We are placed in another day, that is, at its “rose of dawn.” (6) This rising, brand-new day contains a certain aura of spiritual rebirth. Accordingly, the narrative voice speaks of waking up in a “bed of perfect health” (6), which leaves him “refresh’d, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn.” (7) Autumn in turn might be read as a metaphor indicating an advanced point in life. Instead of the night, which took over the first part of the poem, the “morning light” brings new hope at this older age and once again emphasizes the idea of a reawakening. At the very same time autumn takes us out of the public sphere and positions us in a natural realm. This natural world is a very intimate and private space the speaker “wander[s] alone.” (10) It is a world, which reflects his state of being and in which he can find himself. The speaker is able to “undress[ ],” meaning that he takes off the façade he wears in public, allowing him to be himself. The “cool waters” and the rising sun (11) have the same cleansing effect that reaffirm a recommencement. Being alone in nature thus has almost a transcendentalist meaning in this poem. It is in nature that you are able to go into yourself, to look for your truth by washing away all remnants of civilization and becoming one with nature.
It is in this environment that the lyrical I is ultimately able to pour out his innermost feelings, he has to hide when in public. His true self is revealed in line 12, where he speaks of his “dear friend [, his] lover” who is on his way to meet him. Being away from oppressive and homophobe society, the lyrical I is able to express his feelings of homosexual desire and love which ultimately make him “happy.” (13)
With this confession the conjunction “when” is replaced by a concluding “then.” It is now that he is able to enjoy life to its fullest as he describes with the use of hyperboles, such as “each breath tasted sweeter,” (14) or “my food nourish’d me more.” (15) The repetition of “next” (16) demonstrates this continuous joy even further. Simultaneously it also points towards the anticipation of the future encounter.
The moment of reunion has arrived in line 17. The pleasure of the moment (like a snapshot in time), the happiness of savoring the present with no hiding are then described in the following lines:
“And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to
me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover
in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined
toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was
happy.”
This time, it is nature that applauds him for being true to himself and uniting with the one he loves. He is applauded for following his genuine feelings instead of pleasing others.
The intimate moment of having his lover’s “face inclined toward [him]” (24-25) and his “arm lightly around [his] breast” (26) show with great frankness the sincere love these two men feel in this precise moment in time. “Lightly around my breast” might as well be interpreted with being light at heart, and therefore accentuates the feeling of being “happy.” (27)
David Klein Martins
"Oh Captain! My Captain" (1865-66) is poem written by Walt Whitman as a way to pay tribute to Abraham Lincoln, a man he deeply admired at a personal level. Both Lincoln and Whitman knew each other personally and they both stood for the Union. The Union was the name given to the United States of America during the Civil War between the national government and the Confederacy states.
ResponderEliminarIn “Oh Captain! My Captain!”, Whitman starts by mentioning the arrival of the ship, it’s sailors and captain to land after a ‘fearful trip’, where the ‘prize we sought is won’, which means that they have returned victorious. The first two lines of the poem are filled with words that stand for another meaning. “My Captain”, refers obviously to Lincoln but in the time Whitman wrote this poem, he didn’t actually have to use Lincoln’s name for the reader to understand the reference, they just knew who he meant. The ‘fearful trip’ refers to the Civil War, ‘ship’ is the USA and ‘the prize we sought is won’ refers to their victory as the Union. As the poem continues expressions like ‘the bells I hear,’ and ‘the people all exulting,’ give a feel of excitement. The ship is returning to port and people are gathering to welcome the crew in celebration, not only for their safe return but for their victory.
However, Whitman changes the tone of the poem when he repeats ‘heart!’ three times with the word ‘But’ at the beginning of the sentence. ‘But’ lets us know that all that joyous environment is about to change and he seems almost like someone in great affliction. Then we get the confirmation that it’s not just affliction but pain and possibly panic that is taking over him because he has seen blood (‘drops of red’) ‘where on the deck my Captain lies, / Fallen cold and dead’. Suddenly the mood of happiness is cut off, to the narrator, by the recognition of Lincoln’s death, which because it is connected to the words red, lies, fallen, cold and dead, (which increase in intensity) it takes the reader to the ‘set’ of Lincoln’s shooting which was the cause of his death.
"Oh Captain! My Captain!" PART 2
ResponderEliminarDespite this notion of death, it seems like the narrator doesn’t believe that the Captain is actually dead because he calls out to him so he can ‘rise up and hear the bells’. In a way, it seems like Whitman, at this part of the poem, is in denial of Lincoln’s death. To add to this supposed denial, the narrator keeps on urging the Captain to rise up by mentioning that he is the reason for celebration. Instead of it being celebration for the whole crew that is returning, the celebrations are ‘for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,/ For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,/ For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;’
Sadly, this celebration for the Captain or ‘The Father’, as in father of the USA, doesn’t last much longer. Whitman mentions the deck again, which is clearly the space of death, as the place where he sees the Captain laying dead. Here, he again speaks as if he’s in denial when he says ‘It is some dream that on the deck, /You've fallen cold and dead.’, so in a way to Whitman this is all a dream or better yet a nightmare because he is unable to believe that Lincoln is dead. One might also say that the fact that Fall and Rise appear one after the other, both about the Captain, point to the denial of his death because in one moment the narrator recognises his death and in the other he’s asking him to go and celebrate.
The final stances of the poem are totally different from the first because the language is much more ‘heavy’ and negative such as ‘his lips are pale and still,’ and ‘he has no pulse nor will,’. The Father also turns into ‘My Father’ which can be seen as Whitman’s clear statement of respect and admiration for Lincoln. Furthermore, ‘the arm’ turns into 'my arm’, which suggests the visual image of Whitman himself holding Lincoln’s body in his last moments. Both ‘my father’ and ‘my arm’ make the poem much more personal.
By the end of the poem, ‘The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,’ but the narrator is unable to join in the celebrations as he wished. As much as everyone is joyful around him, he mourns for his Captain but also, in some way, for all the lives lost in their voyage or during the Civil War.
“The Sleepers” PART 1
ResponderEliminarThis poem captivates the reader from its first verse to the last. It creates really interesting and beautiful imagery, even when it plays with the idea of death. It becomes clear that Walt Whitman deeply believes in the importance of the body as an essential part of one’s soul, as we can also see in the poem “I Sing the Body Electric”. The general structure of the poem does not seem to have a clear organization, with free verses and stanzas with different lengths.
However the main idea is very well built throughout the poem, which makes it cohesive as it seems to go full circle from the beginning of night back to day time. Empathy is one of the major feelings explored by this poem and it’s a type of empathy completely free of prejudice, because “The married couple” is observed with the same fascinated and judgment free eyes as “The murderer that is to be hung next day”. The current use of anaphora when the poet is listing those he sees makes this idea even more clear, since there does not seem to be a specific order and the adjectives used do not imply a critical evaluation of them.
In the first section, Whitman also explores the idea of being able to completely identify himself with another person: “I am she who adorn’d herself and folded her hair expectantly / My truant lover has come, and it is dark.” And at the same time relates further and further with the darkness of the night, which can be a symbol for death. Those sleeping are dead, but they seem to have found peace, like their souls have been released. Only in this moment of sleep it is possible to achieve complete and almost utopian equality between people and that becomes clear to the reader by the way the poet describes the bodies standing next to one another, as we can read on the last section: “The sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed, / They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from east to west as they lie unclothed”.
"The Sleepers" PART 2
ResponderEliminarThe first two sections of the poem reflect a cloud of ideas, as something out of a dream, on the other hand sections 3 and 4 are clearer and the idea of death becomes stronger, as the recurrent theme in the American literature of man against sea appears. The sea wins but the body is still described in a positive way: “His beautiful body is borne in the circling eddies, it is continually bruis’d on rocks, / Swiftly and out of sight is borne the brave corpse.” The sea seems to represent a clear way to the spirit world.
Both section 5 and 6 establish a link with the past, telling real stories that reinforce the idea of equality and also of union, with such verses as “He kisses lightly the wet cheeks one after another, he shakes hands and bids good-by to the army.” or “The more she look’d upon her she loved her, / Never before had she seen such wonderful beauty and purity”, which create a great contrast with the previous sections, where it ruled more negative emotions.
In section 7, there is another change in the disposition when a new element appears “an amour of the light and air” and Whitman returns to the construction of the notion of empathy between so many different elements of the society resourcing again to his great capacity of making a list so vivid that seems to represent diversity itself, “I swear they are all beautiful, / Every one that sleeps is beautiful, every thing in the dim light is beautiful, / The wildest and bloodiest is over, and all is peace.” And it is with beautiful imagery and the notion of the possibility of reincarnation after the sleep that Whitman finishes his poem in section 8: “I will stop only a time with the night, and rise bedtimes, / I will duly pass the day O my mother, and duly return to you.”
"I Sing the Body Electric" PART I
ResponderEliminar"I Sing the Body Electric" is a poem, by Walt Whitman, where the poetic subject elevates the physical human body to the condition of the soul, ending thus a long theological and artistic tradition, which had always separated very clearly the body (perishable, weak, sinner) from the soul (immortal, pure, divine), perceiving them as opposites. Although there is a stronger presence of the male body, the poem focus also in the body of the woman, both connected with the idea of fertility and reproduction.
In the first section (the poem is divided into nine sections), the poetic subject sets the theme of the poem right in the first line, "I sing the body electric". The body will be praised, but not any body, the "body electric", which, as is said in line four,the poetic subject will "charge them full with the charge of the soul", as if it were an electric device. This notion of electricity is very important to the poem because it gives a sense of body in action, of movement, something that will be clear later on. It is interesting to note how the poetic subject tells the reader about whose bodies the poem is about, using the pronoun "them" five times in only three lines. "Them" are "the armies of those I love". Taking into account this poem as being part of a bigger series of poems, we can affirm that "them" are the entire American people. The first part section with a question, "And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?", a question that will be answered throughout the entire poem, but especially in the end.
In the second section we are given the definition, according to the poetic subject, of "the expression of a well-made man", that goes beyond his face, percieved in his entire body, whose parts are extensively enumerated. There is a sense of an aura or halo, that is visible with the naked eye, when it is said, "The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth". The rest of the section is dedicated to the "them" of the beginning of the poem. The poetic subject lists the people that he loves and who will be the focus of the poem. The feeling of body in motion is here present, each kind of person listed with a movement assiciated with him or her. For example, "the swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims", "The bending forward and backward of rowers", "The wrestle of wrestlers", "The march of firemen". All these bodies are moving, electric. And as he says in the end, the poetic subject is part of them.
"I Sing the Body Electric" PART II
ResponderEliminarThe third and fifth sections of the poem form a pair. It is the first of two sets of pairs, the second being sections seven and eight. The third and fifth sectios deal with the form of the human body of men and women, although with some major differences. In the third section we have the male body perceived through a farmer, who has an excellent physique. The shape and constitution of his body reflect his moral qualities, implying that a well formed body is closely linked to a good set of principles, and also to the general admiration and love of those around. It is interesting how the poetic subject went not to visit the farmer but rather his physical qualities, almost as if these were his true self. Also important to notice is the fact that this farmer was "the father of five sons,/ And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons." Here the body connected to fertility ans procriation, something we will see further on. The fifth section deals with the form of the female body, but in a more general way, talking about women as a whole. This section is much more focused on the atractiveness of the female body, with a strong emphasis, once again, on fertility, perhaps going back to the mythological notion of the woman as the creator of all, the beginning of the universe, and the one who will give many descendants to the world.
In section four, there is a very interesting line, "To be sorrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough". The poetic subject sees the people around him as flesh, the body which also is the soul. The flesh is the human part, for it laughs, it is beautiful, it breathes, almost a personification, humanization, of the body.
From this point forward, we are introduced to the notion of the sacredness, or sanctity, of the body, encompassing everyone, discriminating no one. Thus we come to the second pair, sections seven and eight, the auction of a man and woman's body. The perfectness of the body, even a slave's body, is evident. Again, the male body is described for its lines, for every detail of his body, to the minutest aspect. A sense of cosmic importance is present, when the poetic subject says, "For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant". To give such importance and weight to a slave's body, and thus, soul, is coherent with the elevation of the common man made through the poem. The body of the woman at auction is, as before, seen as the perfect body for reproduction, fertility at its best.
Finally we come to the last section, wich answers the question made in the first, "what is the soul?" And he answers thoroughly. The vast lists of body parts that the poetic subject gives, leaves no margin of error that what the poem talked about was not some metaphorical idea of body, but the actual body itself, every part of it. And all those parts, those are the soul. Soul and body are one, and so, the body has to be elevated by poetry.
Bom, mea culpa, pois não verifiquei a bem a fonte de "The Sleepers", que ,apesar de dizer 1855, se refere a uma versão posterior, já que as secções ó passaram a ser numeradas a partir de 1867, quando o poema se chamou (temporariamente), "Sleep-chasings". Aqui, uma tentativa de traçar o desenvolvimento do poema: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/resources/sleepers/sleepers.html
ResponderEliminar"A child said What is the grass?"
ResponderEliminarEm "A Song of Myself", Whitman celebra a vida, a experiência tanto sensual quanto espiritual do mundo a partir do seu corpo, diluindo, no entanto, as fronteiras do "Eu", ou mutando a noção de "self", pela permanente abertura ao mundo que o rodeia.
Em "A child said What is the grass?" é demonstrado como uma só coisa, neste caso, a erva, pode ser muitas outras coisas. O fluxo electrizante de imagens associadas a outras imagens, ou seja, o fluxo da sua consciência, é aqui revelado como parte integrante e única da sua experiência subjectiva da imagem de "erva". Deste modo, Whitman coloca-se ao nível da criança, que terá, por sua vez, uma concepção diferente da sua, mas não menos natural e fidedigna: "How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any/more than he".
Após os primeiros versos, inicia-se a resposta à pergunta colocada pela criança. É importante notar na repetição de " Or I guess", pois espelha a posição de relatividade em que se coloca o poeta, posição tão legitima como a da criança, e incitando, ao mesmo tempo, a participação do leitor.
As possibilidades de resposta que se seguem, funcionam como metáforas que vão atribuindo e reconfigurando qualidades diferentes à erva, colocando-a em imagens distintas.
Na primeira, a erva é vista na mente do poeta como "flag of my disposition", funcionando como a objectificação da sua disposição. Na imagem que se segue, a erva metamorfoseia-se num lenço que é deixado por Deus, símbolo que nesta metáfora representa a relação entre a erva, o seu lado místico associado à presença de um criador desconhecido, e o homem. A erva é personificada também numa criança, simbolicamente representada aqui como o fruto de algo maior. Nos versos seguintes, o hieróglifo substitui a imagem de erva, símbolo que transporta em si uma mensagem específica que actua no mundo. A sequência simbólica termina com a imagem de um túmulo, o que altera o efeito temático dos símbolos, introduzindo o tema da morte. No entanto, nesta imagem há também vida, que é representada pelo brotar de erva nos túmulos.
Nos versos seguintes, o enunciador passa a dirigir-se à erva - "Tenderly will I use you curling grass", aproximando-se do objecto que enunciava anteriormente, assim como também passa a aproximar o homem à imagem da erva através da imagem em "It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men," e da personificação em "And here you are the mother's laps". Nestes versos há uma repetição de "It may be", o que reforça o carácter divagador do poeta e também a noção de incerteza latente, ao mesmo tempo que oferece uma sensação de inumeráveis possibilidades.
Neste poema não existe só a representação livre do fluxo de ideias e imagens em circulação. Whitman representa também o choque de ideias e as possíveis dúvidas e contradições que podem ocorrer. O verso "This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,", assim como os seguintes, contradizem os versos anteriores, mais nitidamente aquele que diz "It may be you are from old people". Essa contradição apresenta, neste caso, uma mudança de tom e efeito, assim como de tema. De um tom leve e volátil, passa-se para um tom mais assertivo, e pela repetição de "dark", a atmosfera do poema é alterada. A percepção da erva parece comportar em si outra disposição. Essa alteração mantém-se nos versos seguintes, sendo introduzido o tema da morte novamente. Partindo da vida, o poeta chega ao tema da morte, que parece inevitavelmente interpelar a sua mente. O contraste desta alteração provoca as percepções do poeta, o que o leva a questionar-se sobre a vida e a morte, dúvidas que são mitigadas no final do poema. Nos versos finais, a vida e a morte tornam-se fenómenos unos e recíprocos, e, por isso, relativizados em função de algo maior, que é a organicidade cíclica e incessante do mundo e que o poeta encontra representada no brotar de novas "folhas de erva".
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