Category: Poetry
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Civil War and Its Influence on Whitman’s Works
Table of contents Introduction “The Wound-Dresser” and its Context Social Relations in the Poem The Narrator The Wounded The Audience Conclusion Works Cited Introduction In the course of history, there are certain incisive incidents that mark a period, ring in a new era or alter people’s individual lives most drastically. One such incident is the…
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The Symbolism and Verbs Usage in “When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer”
Propelling subjects into action, inciting inanimate objects into movement; verbs meet and surpass these functions. Without verbs a sentence would fail to be such, a clause would fall in rank down to a phrase or a simple phrase. There are three, generalized categories of verbs that pertain to “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by…
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The Poetry of Civil War: Whitman and Melville
Walt Whitman and Herman Melville were both affected by the Civil War to such a degree that they each published a volume of poetry concerning the conflict. Although both men confront similar issues and feelings, particular in their poems about death, they do so through means as significantly different as each man’s Civil War experience.…
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“The Wound-dresser” and “Song of Myself”: Representation of Equality Question
Equality in “The Wound-Dresser” and “Song of Myself” The theme of equality permeates both “The Wound-Dresser” and “Song of Myself”. Whitman remarks upon judgments that others make and refutes them with his own ideas of impartiality. These manifest particularly strongly in Whitman’s attitude towards the bravery of soldiers in “The Wound-Dresser” and section 18 of…
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Parenting and Poetic Technique in “My Father’s Song” and “Those Winter Sundays”
The poem “My Father’s Song” is based on the wisdom and values, as well as traditions passed from old generation to new one. The speaker uses his life experience between him and his father to depict the variation of values and traditions between the old and new generation. In emphasizing his theme, the writer has…
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Literary Analysis of Whitman’s Elegiac Poem
Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” is an elegiac poem in memory of Abraham Lincoln. The poem tracks the narrator waiting to lay a sprig of lilac on the president’s coffin, the physical journey that Lincoln’s coffin takes across the country, and, finally, a lone bird mourning far away from civilization. Specifically,…
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The Depiction of Concept of Nature: Comparing Emerson and Whitman
For Emerson and Whitman, nature is more than just the trees that line the street, or even the flowers that rest beautifully within the vase. Both men find such a deeper harmony and value within nature, in a way that is very relevant to the transcendental theories each of them express. In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s,…
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Crossing Brooklyn Ferry: Equality Through Differences
Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is a poem that not only exposes the differences within the people and the geography of the nation, but also shows the theme of equality that unites these differences. Incorporating his experience with the Civil War as well as the industrial revolution of the United States, Whitman threads together the…
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When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer: Poem’s Literary Interpretation
Table of contents Figurative Language Through the Lines of the Poem Whitman’s Demonstration of the Ungrounded Calm and Perfection of the Poetic Speaker Conclusion Works Cited In the poem “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” Walt Whitman writes of a speaker who is exposed to the knowledge of the stars in the sky and the…
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Fear and Loathing in Lyn Hejinian’s 13th Entry
The number thirteen carries with it symbolic connotations unique to no other digits. Widely recognized as unlucky, to the point of constructing whole buildings that omit the number altogether, it stands as a superstitious unit of fear. Thirteen likewise represents the coming of age, as seen in the Jewish Bar Mitzvah and within the syntax…