Monday, September 12, 2011

Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"

Sorry it's late guys!

When reading the poem Song of Myself at first I was really confused. I couldn't understand what Whitman was trying to explain to the audience. As I kept reading the poem, Whitman seemed like he was explaining his surroundings to the audience and things he observed throughout the town. In the first few pages of the poem I don't really understand what he is saying. For example in line 58 when he says "Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest." I really don't understand what he saying. When he starts to explain things as the pages continue down, I start to understand that he's describing things about himself. For example when he says in lines 92 through 94 "And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers," Whitman is expressing his religion to the audience. He is simply saying that he knows that there is a God and he believes that God created the human being. Also when he says in line 94 about every man being born is his brother and every woman born being his sister, that correlates with the way people refer to each other in the Bible.

Whitman also expresses throughout the poem that he is connected with nature and things that pertain to it. He becomes curious when a little child asks him where grass comes from in line 99. Throughout his poem he also uses lines that could come across as Whitman being gay. For instance when he says in line 112 and 113 by saying that he could have loved him. Some of the things he says in the poem like that could be taken in many different ways.

When reading Whitman's poem is reminds me of him wanting to be himself like in the past things we've read. He goes on to describe himself in many ways makes it seem like he wouldn't change his perspective on anything no matter what his opinion was. Whitman's poem also reminds me of reading Benjamin Franklin and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Whitman describes his surroundings and the things around him as if they were unfamiliar to him, like Franklin and Hawthorne do.

In lines on page 15, I was really confused at what Whitman was telling us about. He just kept going on and on about how this person with a certain job was doing this specific job, etc. For example in line 280 he says "The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass." The whole page is about things of that such. Can someone explain to me why he is telling us all of that stuff?
        
   

2 comments:

  1. Were your questions answered in class?

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  2. Not exactly, can you explain to me why Whitman kept describing the jobs of everyone else in page 15?

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