Meg Whitman

America Singing (1860), Walt Whitman conveys his concept of America as a unified nation. His poem explores the differing sort of people that Whitman contributes to creating America. They are exuberant, and strong. Although the poem is focused on the people, the title of the poem, I Hear America Singing, shows that Whitman thinks of these people as ‘America.’ These are the people that represent everything America is, in present day (1860,) with their traits and workmanship. Whitman uses…

Walt Whitman, through his works, appears to display a view of equality and tolerance as a part of his mission to create great American poetry. However, despite his seemingly harmless portrayals of certain minority groups in America, mainly African-Americans and Native Americans, Whitman often reinforces the dominant views expressed by those in his own time. Moreover, he subconsciously celebrates colonialism by his praises and encouragements of westward expansion. While Whitman does sometimes…

While verse was economically marginal in the early nineteenth century, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) became the first American poet who could live off his royalties (Gioia 74). He was also the first poet of the New World to achieve an international fame; his reputation reached Europe and even Latin America (64). Devoted to the creation of a native literature, Longfellow committed himself to developing an American poetic diction. In “Our Native Writers” (1825), his graduation address,…

forefather of modern American poetry Walt Whitman writes “Song of Myself” in his great production Leaves of Grass. This poem is one the most enjoyable, controversial, and pioneering poem among twelve other poems. Many poets and critics from the day of its publication until now have debated about it. This influential poem makes Emerson greet Whitman in his great career, which is being a poet and also leads Ezra pound to write a poem called “ A Pact to Whitman “. “Song of Myself” assembles many…

Though the meaning of “America” has changed over the years, “America” once meant the pursuit of a simplistic yet unique dream. Walt Whitman demonstrates this in section 10 of his “Song of Myself” poem. In this section, he takes on the identity of multiple American people. Among these are a rugged mountain man, the captain of a Yankee clipper ship, the viewer of a marriage between a trapper and a Native American, and one who shelters a runaway slave. These people are all different, which serves…

My Captain!” demonstrates Whitman mourning the death of Abraham Lincoln after he was assassinated in 1865. The captain is an allusion to Lincoln as a leader which represents the modernist hierarchy of nationality. Therefore, the “bleeding drops of red/ Where on the deck my Captain lies/ Fallen cold and dead,” is a gory representation of his assassination (Whitman). Lincoln’s role as the captain during the Civil War was to unify America. This social…

Allen Ginsberg’s electric “Footnote” to Howl situates itself comfortably within his bigger poem, or just plain Howl, a well-known and admired epic by Allen Ginsberg for his generation of lost and disaffected youths. Ginsberg’s epic entirety closely resembles Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass published in 1855, which marked an era of upheaval in politics, society, and social conventions. Now getting to Ginsberg’s infamous “Footnote,” which stirred up and presented a new literary style approaching…

in history full of poverty and segregation, some extraordinary writers see the brighter side of things. Walt Whitman was a poet that has a happier outlook on his surroundings, on the other hand Langston Hughes is a poet with bitter hatred, but both poets have hope for a better America in their writing. Both poets are very different but also have a lot in common. Even though Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes were very different from one another they used some of the same literary devices. They…

Walt Whitman was an American poet, teacher, and journalist that lived from 1819 to 1892 (PBS). The themes of his work were heavily influenced by social and political events as well as experiences from his own life. Individualism and American idealism were two of the major themes that Whitman used in his poems. Events like the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, and the migration of pioneer families to the newly acquired Western portion of the United States also influenced his work (Poets).…

uan Ramon Jimenez was an inspiring short and intense personal poet. They were a great inspiration to a generation of spanish writers in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Born in Spain, he went to college, but quit to devote himself to the love and joy of writing. His poems began appearing when he was just 17. He was a master of the new generation of poets. In “I Am Not I”, Juan Ramon Jimenez writes about how there is a real self as well as an illusory self. Juan Ramon Jimenez writes about the self who he…