Paul Allen

In 1831, at the age of twelve, Walt Whitman began working for his local newspaper. He soon fell in love with the written word and started writing his own poetry (“Poet Walt Whitman”). Fast forward to the turn of the 20th century, and Whitman has already made a name for himself as one of America’s most influential poets. Two of Whitman’s most esteemed works are “O Captain! My Captain!”, written in 1865 to reflect on Abraham Lincoln's death, and “O Me! O Life!”, written in 1891 to contemplate…

Fear is an emotion that leads people to do things they would not normally do. It awakens a sector of a personality they never knew they had. A major recurring theme in World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is fear as a driving force. Fear leads to insanity, inhumanity, and unity. In most wars, fear is liability that burdens both sides. If one side is able to capitalize on the fear of their opponents, this may give them the upper hand. However, when one side happens to be the living dead…

Walt Whitman’s poem, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” which is written based on prior experience, presents two different views based around focusing on how people understand certain material. These perspectives are exhibited through a class lecture on astronomy. Whitman wrote this poem based on prior experience. The poem begins with the speaker sitting through an astronomy lecture taught by an astronomer. The lesson focuses on scientific facts and mathematical figures. The information is…

This essay for first year writing students shows how a simple man made huge waves in the world of the arts with his beliefs of poetry. This simple man was William Carlos Williams. He was born in America as a Puerto Rican-American who then with hard work and determination became a well-practiced doctor. He however is better known for his works of poetry that challenged the traditional way of writing poetry. In Williams’s book of poetry, The Wedge, is prefaced by an introduction that introduces…

Fear is basically just an active imagination that comes to a person when creating the worst possible scenario. Imagining gruesome scenarios is kind of like a comfort because then you know what to expect. People don’t normally find themselves being happy when they are getting kidnapped. Fear allows people to imagine an unnatural scenario, which can blind them to act irrationally and unreasonably. In the book, The Martian Chronicles, written by Ray Bradbury, a chapter was introduced to us in a new…

Then, just when Whitman thought his luck had turned and Leaves of Grass started selling well, his publisher went bankrupt and someone stole the printing plates of the third edition. That printer is believed to have pirated 100,000 copies of the book (“Walt Whitman”, 1998). Indeed, Whitman’s poetry did not gain much fame until after his death, but towards the end of his life he gained recognition in Europe (“Walt Whitman”, 2002). Nevertheless, “in the years following Whitman’s death, Leaves of…

Author, Steven Pressfield defines resistance as a force that drives us from doing out best, by consuming us with fear about our gifts and talents. Resistance, stops us from doing things that can be good for us because the unknown afterwards is frightening. He characterizes resistance as fast, powerful, and almost addicting. It is circling around us, and yet we have no idea when it is going to hit us. Resistance is not something that we can see, instead it is something that we can feel. A…

Having said that, the influence of T.S. Eliot on Allen Ginsberg’s work resulted in a beneficial, but not quite happy influence, due to Ginsberg’s stand of anti-elitist writing (and therefore anti-Eliot). Ginsberg’s anti-elitist position allowed for him to revolutionize his work when compared to that of someone like Eliot, by way of challenging everything Eliot did in his writing. Ginsberg essentially made…

The emotions of hope and fear contrast similar to the effects of water.For instance, like a glacier water can be very dense and turn into ice. When water in this state, it can become very hard and what seems to be unstoppable. In some cases, hope is very hard to come by because the problem seems uncontrollable. Although, when water is in the liquid form, it flows easily through almost all objects. Fear is a very common emotion for most people, like water it can spread easily through an…

Adriana Ramirez March 17, 2017 English 146 March 14 & 16 Assignment 1. As an experiment to understand the aesthetic of the Beats, choose a long passage in On the Road and a dozen lines from Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California.” Compare the sound and pace of both passages. Describe the similarities you hear. What might account for these similarities? In which ways might Howl and On the Road celebrate life? A passage adapted from On the Road reads: “My first impression of Dean was of…