19th century poet : May31,1819
(Long Island, New York, U.S.)
: March26, 1892
Aged 72 (New Jersey, U.S.)
A volunteer nurse –American Civil War
Humanist – opposed the extension of slavery in U.S.
The Father of Free Verse
America's first"poet of democracy"
Major Works:• Franklin Evans (1842)
• Leaves of Grass (1855)
• Drum-Taps (1865)
• Democratic Vistas (1871)
• Theme of love, loss, happiness, sorrow, death,
poesy and their relation in language & poetry
• In a single setting and situation sea-shore
• An intense lesson in mortality of life and
inspiration
• A masterful formal control of his material
Free Verse
Personification
Inversion
Symbols
Rhyme
Rhetorical Question
Paradox
Alliteration
Repetition
Poetic Devices
A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
• Whitman’s own trauma of separation
• A dramatization of his personal life
• Pain of the loss of his mother
• The eve of the civil war of the U.S.
• A communal idyll – dream of ‘Democratic America’
• Historical roots – elegy of dissolution
OUT OF THE CRADLE
ENDLESSLY ROCKING
The first aria:
• “Two together!...”
• “Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together”
The two guests --Togetherness
TRAGEDY
She-bird He-bird
DEATH
SEPARATION
The Lone Singer, Wonderful “My sad brother…”
“The messenger...”“The dusky demon…”
“For I am almost sure, I see her dimly whichever way I look..”
-- He-bird
The He-bird longs for the She-bird:• Sea – winds Stars• Wave Moon• Carols Darkness• Land Night• Throat “O all -- and I singing uselessly,
uselessly all the night.”
“Loved! Loved! Loved! Loved! Loved!But my love no more, no more with me!We two together no more.”
• Becomes a poet –“To the outsetting bard of love…”“The unknown want, the destiny of me”
• Transforming experiences and dim memories into songs • Locates his inspiration in other’s experiences• The duty of a translator – not the originator of pathos
“ A thousand warbling echoes started to life within me…”
“With the thousand responsive songs, at random,
My own songs, awaked from that hour..”
DEATH• “The word final, superior to all”
• “The low and delicious word”
• “Stronger and more delicious than any”
• “The word of the sweetest songs, and all songs”
• The sea's patient answer -- universalization of the she-bird's departure
• A conversion of individual pain into natural law.
BOY
MAN
POET
LIFE
ABSORBING
BIRTH
DEATH
PEERING
TRANSLATING
• Transformation of the bird’s songs
• Change of emotions, poetic mood :
Happiness – Sorrow – Faith
• Love – Loss – Poetry
• A beautiful permutation of elegiac narrative
• Devoid of irony or insincerity
• An American folk quality – A tale of love and loss
• Suffering & Art – A Poet
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