Walt Whitman was self-proclaimed Poet of the Nation and as such has been fully absorbed into American culture and arts. Whitman and his themes of democracy, spirituality, and connectivity have become ingrained in many various art forms. With my project, I have continued his theme of human connection through shared human experience using “Crossing Brooklyn […]
Author Archive | Claire
Whitmanian Connection in Visual Art
The Ties Between Me and Them
“He is the equalizer of his age and land”: The Artist as Representative
Walt Whitman, self-proclaimed poet of the people, strove to represent the national identity of America in his poetry and prose. In the 1872 preface to Leaves of Grass, he identified his purpose to produce a “thread-voice, more or less audible, of an aggregated, inseparable, unprecedented, vast, composite, electric democratic nationality.” As the poet of America, Whitman covered […]
Poetry is both the Liver and the Hand
Like Whitman, Claudia Rankine addresses the idea of a collective soul. But Rankine does not discuss this concept with Whitmanian optimism. With subdued (and at times despondent) prose, Rankine chooses to focus on the tension of the individual self and collectivity, which are linked through the human feelings of loneliness, grief, and mourning. Alongside the […]
Spahr’s Ecopoetry: Nature and Human Connection
Juliana Spahr is not a student of Romanticism. She does not wax poetic on the restorative power of nature. Instead Spahr’s poems manifest themselves in ecopoetry, in which she utilizes her freeform style to explore the interdependent and often injurious relationship between humanity and the natural world. Spahr begins “Gentle Now, Don’t Add to Heartache” […]
Human Connection through Human Experience
“Everything will be as it is now, just a little different.” This line, repeated throughout 10:04, reveals a theme shared by Whitman in Crossing Brooklyn Ferry – the theme of human experience. Both Lerner and Whitman opine the relationship between human experience and human connection. As Whitman looks at the Brooklyn Bridge and considers all the people […]
Final Project: Whitman and Modern Connectivity
“It avails not, time nor place — distance avails not” Walt Whitman, a self-proclaimed poet of the body and the soul, wrote in a vein of transcendentalist beliefs, nurturing a concept of spiritual and physical connectivity and adhesiveness among all people. Whitman writes on the continuity of the human experience and how that continuity unites […]
Whitman, Lincoln, and Lilacs
Whitman’s admiration of President Lincoln is widely acknowledged and can be seen throughout his works. In addition to several poems dedicated to the 16th President, Whitman also wrote much prose about Lincoln. In one lecture, “Death of Abraham Lincoln,” Whitman states that every year on the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination he hopes to “hold its […]
Whitman’s hand
Something that stood out to me in our readings is the prominence of Walt Whitman’s hands, especially in “Salut au Monde” and Neruda’s “Ode to Walt Whitman”. Whitman begins Salut au Monde with “O take my hand Walt Whitman!” and continues to reference his hands throughout with his salutes, and concludes his poem with a salute […]
The Common Soul and Individual Perception
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” (188) From the very first stanza, Whitman makes it clear that the narrator of “Song of Myself” is not an individual, but a common voice for the people; he is “of old […]
