1) Have a look through this chronology of Whitman's life and note 3 incidents you find particularly surprising, interesting, or baffling. Discuss. I was surprised that he quit school, but was still very successful. He was also fired or quit his job editing the Daily Eagle. His life had many ups and downs. Whitman was very depressed from everything going on. Something interesting was that he denied a marriage proposal, which could’ve been because he was depressed. He had a paralytic stroke twice in his life and then dies of pneumonia. You could say his life wasn’t all that pleasant.
2) Compare the handwritten manuscript version of this poem (out of Whitman's Leaves of Grass collection of poems) with the transcription at the link just below. …show more content…
With this style of writing, it’s pretty clear that he was a perfectionist. He kept looking for flaws in his writing and changing things where he saw fit.
3) Read Whitman's letter to Emerson (the Transcendentalist poet and essayist we read several weeks ago). Compare the worldview Whitman expresses in his letter with the worldview we discovered in Emerson's writing; how are they similar? How are they different? …show more content…
Compare that aspect of his writing as seen here in this short, famous section of Leaves of Grass to the intense sexual repression of the novel we have just finished, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. How do you respond to this radical shift in attitudes? Discuss. Compared to Hawthorne’s book, it’s pretty insane to think that he is writing poems about the sexuality of people and how the human body is perfect. In the Scarlet Letter, everything was so hidden and so “shy” about sex. Hester was an outcast because of sex, and Dimmesdale died from his burden of having sex. Now, Whitman is shining a light on our bodies and sex.
7) Note and comment on ways in which he expresses his sexual identity in this series of
2) Compare the handwritten manuscript version of this poem (out of Whitman's Leaves of Grass collection of poems) with the transcription at the link just below. …show more content…
With this style of writing, it’s pretty clear that he was a perfectionist. He kept looking for flaws in his writing and changing things where he saw fit.
3) Read Whitman's letter to Emerson (the Transcendentalist poet and essayist we read several weeks ago). Compare the worldview Whitman expresses in his letter with the worldview we discovered in Emerson's writing; how are they similar? How are they different? …show more content…
Compare that aspect of his writing as seen here in this short, famous section of Leaves of Grass to the intense sexual repression of the novel we have just finished, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. How do you respond to this radical shift in attitudes? Discuss. Compared to Hawthorne’s book, it’s pretty insane to think that he is writing poems about the sexuality of people and how the human body is perfect. In the Scarlet Letter, everything was so hidden and so “shy” about sex. Hester was an outcast because of sex, and Dimmesdale died from his burden of having sex. Now, Whitman is shining a light on our bodies and sex.
7) Note and comment on ways in which he expresses his sexual identity in this series of