ipl-logo

An Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

863 Words4 Pages

The play “I And You,” covered some deep topics. It examined the fragility of life and how easily any of us could affect the lives of another. The importance of getting to know another person, sharing thoughts, connections, dreams and ideas. The play was interjected with various lines and stanzas from a Walt Whitman poem, “Song of Myself.” The lines from the poem seemed to comment on the events on the play. Sometimes being used as a foreshadowing tool. The commentary of the changes in meaning of the words “I” and “you” are hints of the changes in their “I and you” and they become “one” and “we.” The most obvious physical qualities of the characters is their genders and ethnicities. Caroline, as far as we can tell, is a petite white teenaged girl, while Anthony is a tall, thin, black teenaged boy. Anthony’s physical quirks were very obvious to me from the get-go. He had a “tick” where when he was nervous he stuck his fists into the inside of his shirt and sort of rang them together. It could be imagined that his parents would annoyed about him doing that, like maybe he stretched out his shirts. Anthony came off …show more content…

It might have been how he reacted after. How angry he got. Like all of the sudden it hit him all at once that he was dead. That he was maybe going through all the stages of dying all at once. Some of the foreshadowing that happened that I noticed in hind-sight were things like when Anthony mentioned that “This is not what I signed up for.” He tries to cover it up with excuses about the school project but I think he really meant signing up as an organ donor. Also the beeping from the smoke alarm turns out to be the sound of the machines in her surgery slipping into her subconscious. The way he reacts to her depressing talk about not being able to go to NY and live her dreams might be a hint to his state of being, or not being in this

Show More
Related
1925 Words | 8 Pages

The 1970s were a rough year for African-Americans, still fighting for social and political rights in the United States. Consequently, women still did not receive equal rights. However, in 1972, “Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution, which reads: ‘Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex’ (History.com Staff).” Out of the thirty-eight necessary states only twenty-two ratified it right away, it was relieving for the moment because the feminist advocates had been trying to be ratified since 1923. The First African-American woman elected into Congress was Shirley Chisholm.

Read More
443 Words | 2 Pages

“To Myself” by W.S. Merwin, is a poem about rememberance and loss. A man is looking back on his life, realizing he has lost who he was and envisioning his old self reminds him of a loss he wish he could regain. With the use of the title, ‘‘To Myself” he writes to the one person he lost, himself. He feels the person he once was and there is a tinge of regret in his voice, “here a moment before and the air is still alive around where you were.” He keeps remembering what he used to be, still feeling his old self while pretending to be someone else.

Read More
2326 Words | 10 Pages

William McFeely suggests that Frederick Douglass, like Walt Whitman, has written a “Song of Myself” with his slave narrative. Both fairly known in their own time, I am going to look at how they compare and how they are different from each other. Frederick Douglass with his autobiographical slave narrative and Walt Whitman with his poem “Song of Myself”. The question becomes how Douglass creates himself through his narrative and how it compares to Whitman’s self in his poem.

Read More
690 Words | 3 Pages

It’s good to get both sides of one character, how they see themselves, and how people around them see them. One example of the other character describing the other one is “She’s different. Her hair is shorter. She has bangs. She’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, which is something she admitted to never doing before last year” (Hoover 88).

Read More
302 Words | 2 Pages

Both of Walt Whitman articles are transcendentalism; Mr. Whitman shows individualism and nature in “Song to Myself” which are qualities of transcendentalism. In “Song to myself” he mostly uses individualism as you can tell just by the title he is describing himself in a song. Mr.Whitman uses repetition in his poem “I celebrate myself”(Whitman 1). Throughout the poem he uses the word “I” to describe himself which shows individualism which is a romantic quality. Mr.Whitman also uses imagery in his “Song to Myself”.

Read More
887 Words | 4 Pages

Langston Hughes uses images of oppression to reveal a deeper truth about the way minorities have been treated in America. He uses his poems to bring into question some of Walt Whitman’s poems that indirectly state that all things are great, that all persons are one people in America, which Hughes claims is false because of all the racist views and oppression that people face from the people America. This oppression is then used to keep the minorities from Walt Whitman in his poem, “Song of Myself”, talks about the connection between all people, how we are family and are brothers and sisters who all share common bonds. He says, “ 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,

Read More
1633 Words | 7 Pages

Throughout his poem, he constantly talks about the importance of coming together and merging. Whitman says, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (Whitman 1). On the surface, this quote may appear to illustrate that Whitman thinks highly of himself, but it is more than this. The last part of this quote emphasizes that we are all connected and even though we are all individuals, we should not forget that we are connected to one another. Whitman also says, “Urge and urge and urge, Always the procreant urge of the world.

Read More
989 Words | 4 Pages

The poem A Step Away From Them by Frank O’Hara has five stanzas written in a free verse format with no distinguishable rhyme scheme or meter. The poem uses the following asymmetrical line structure “14-10-9-13-3” while using poetic devices such as enjambment, imagery, and allusion to create each stanza. A Step Away From Them occurs in one place, New York City. We know this because of the lines, “On/ to Times Square, / where the sign/blows smoke over my head” (13-14) and “the Manhattan Storage Warehouse.”

Read More
420 Words | 2 Pages

Walt Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider” was initially published in 1868, in London Magazine. Originally, it was the third section of a larger poem, entitle “Whispers of Heavenly Death.” In the poem, “A Noiseless Patient Spider” the speaker, Walt Whitman repeatedly emphasizes the connection between the spider and his soul. In this poem, the speaker observes a noiseless patient spider on a promontory leaving a mark on its vast surrounding by weaving its web. The main idea of this poem is to draw the comparison between the spider and the speaker’s soul.

Read More
973 Words | 4 Pages

Romanticism in ¨From Song of Myself¨ From song of myself, is a very open minded poem as the author Walt Whitman speaks so much in this poem about himself. Throughout the poem there is a variety of topics going on through every other line in where Walt Whitman declares that he is going to celebrate himself in his poem by all the personal opinions he provides in it. In this poem, Whitman explains how much he loves the world, especially nature and how everything fits together just as it should.

Read More
197 Words | 1 Pages

It is common for a person to admire the stars in the sky. Their brightness and arrangement is a fascinating sight, of course. On the other hand, people tend to forget or plainly ignore what is right under their feet. In “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman focused on what he thought was truly important, details of the green grass. Whitman wrote, “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars” (663).

Read More
1163 Words | 5 Pages

Poems are short meaningful pieces of literature that can be interpreted in multiple ways depending upon the reader at hand. That is what makes a poem unique compared to other literature pieces because in a poem the author tends to use figurative language to fulfill meaning behind their work. One poem “Love is a Sickness Full of Woes” by Samuel Daniel describes the pains of being lovesick. Love can either benefit us if nurtured and cared for, but if not tended to then let loose can ultimately hurt us. As to another poem “American Solitude” by Grace Schulman describes a life of solitude being most warming to the soul to ward off loneliness.

Read More
800 Words | 4 Pages

Walt Whitman is one of the leading mystic poets of death in the field of American poetry. Death is assigned a distinguished space in his poetic universe of Leaves of Grasswhich immensely colours his vision of life. This paper is an attempt to present Whitman’s attitude towards death vis-à-vis global mystic perspective. Reality of Death

Read More
842 Words | 4 Pages

Gi Kim Instructor Garnett ENG 241 16 June 2015 Transcendentalism flourished and emerged effectively during the 1800s mainly with the help of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other writers, artists, and reformers. As other Transcendentalists accepted that “the individual was at the center of the universe” (Wiswall para 1), Emerson as well explicated his beliefs through writings. During 1820s and 1830s, only a certain number of people comprehended the idea of Transcendentalism because it was complex (“The Emergence of Transcendentalism” para 1). Transcendentalism influenced Walt Whitman greatly as Transcendentalists represented transcendentalism to society. Therefore, in “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman uses transcendental ideals to challenge Americans

Read More
541 Words | 3 Pages

In Walt Whitman's poem "To a Stranger" he is speaking to a passing stranger that he might know in another life. In the poem the speaker tells the reader of all the experiences that they had together. In the poem it says that they slept together and ate together, which means that they were once close. In the poem Walt Whitman uses imagery and symbolism. I believe that he is talking to a significant other.

Read More

More about An Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

Related Topics

Open Document