Walt Whitman's contribution to poetry and his masterpiece

Walt Whiteman was, maybe, the first democratic poet in America with his work reflecting a poetic language that is accessible and newly naturalized.  Whiteman’s overarching themes including an individual, nation, soul and body daily life and work is a mirror of the basic values that founded America.  His poetry fits anyone with an interest in literature, then and no, as asserted in his master peace Leaves of Grass (Bloom, 214). Poems acts as imaginative language through which human needs and desires are expressed and emotions brought out in such a way that it is not easily termed but felt, other than the poets’ semantic context.  Whiteman’s poetry involved free verse, with content shaped by his experiences that involved working from tender age and early learning from works of others such as Shakespeare, Bible and Dante (Robertson, 15).  He changed how the traditional way of poetry, including common rhyming that was rigid. He introduced free verse that was advocating for free verse and equality to styles of clinging to sonnet (Bloom, 214). 

Whitman remained a constant observe of his environment, including nature and the surrounding.  His poems involved an expression of what he perceived and felt, so that he developed an intimate connection with poetry.  Following the Romantic Movement influence in art and literature, Whitman stuck to the theory that the main role of poet was own personality expression in his verse. Included in the work was a message for Whitman’s American brothers, which is evidentially portrayed in the Leave of Grass poem collection (Robertson, 15). In this collection, Whitman addressed United States citizens, where he urged them to have a spirit that is largely generous, a renewed race brought up in political liberty and having united bodies and souls.Whitman’s free verse was developed in his attempt to unite his persona and action, with no rhyme but increased oratorical rhythms and popular names of American places and objects. He was an audible person who refused sticking to tradition so as to adhere to regulation and custom, and managed to learn ways of handling the enumerative and conservative style through great subtlety (Bloom, 214). He especially succeeded in creation of movement and space empathy even though to majority of his contemporaries, he appeared not poetic. He was able to create a platform where individual poets who came after him would indulge issues affecting the society into their work.  His poems involved hidden language and meaning, and the use of swiftly attractive words attracted many followers comprising of people who looked after the poetic form and style.  His influence would be seen in many followers and persons across the nation. For instance , in Michael Robertson’s work Worshipping Walt , he alludes to the few “ hot little prophets” who made Whitman following a cult , and serves to remind us of religious tone of the poetry , and saw Leaves of Grass as the cult’s gospel (Robertson, 11).  

People like Peter Doyle and Harry Stafford were among the few first individuals under the mentorship of Whitman. As a man with emotional instability, Harry Stafford came across Whitman in 1876 and with an interest in the poetic growth of the young man, Whiteman helped him to grow.  Many other poets like Ralph Waldo Emerson were influenced by Whitman, and their liking for his work grew so increasingly that their thinking and writing would reflect it (Folsom and Kenneth, 107).  Whitman’s work involved high advocacy for great sexual tolerance, freedom since sex in his work was a symbol of natural innocence.  In this light, his poets involved “procreant urge of the world” and nature’s regenerative power. Its either Whitman’s transformation resulted from some kind of spiritual enlightening and which opened a way for  introduction of a poetry that was radically new or from a strategy that was carefully and originally calculated so that various cultural forces like oratory , pop music and journalism were blended to form a new American voice (Folsom and Kenneth, 107). 

 The romantic perception of Whitman involves a sudden inspiration to spontaneously write poems that would transform poetry in America. A more practical view is that Whitman personal five year devotion before the initial publication of Leaves of Grass into an experimental disciplined series led to intricate and gradual formation of the single style (Belasco, Ed and Kenneth, 88). In this sense, however, it would be important to ask whether he was truly an intoxicate poet or a poetic persona architect that copied the description by Emerson.  For instance, his “Poets to Come” work includes his assertion that he was a person who would stroll along and not fall and with a casual look would expect or leave it to understand his meaning. The impact of Whitman’s work continues to be noticed in the present times. The style and creativity he used has been evolving to spoken free style poetry, word and devices that transform poetry in its performance (Belasco, Ed and Kenneth, 88).  Majority of poetry through spoken word shows Whitman’s ideology of passing spiritual, political and social messages.

References

Belasco, Susan, Ed Folsom, and Kenneth M. Price, eds. Leaves of grass: The sesquicentennial essays. U of Nebraska Press, 2007. 88

 

Bloom, Harold. Walt Whitman. New York: Chelsea House, 2006. 214-215

Robertson, Michael. Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2010. 11-13

 

Folsom, Ed, and Kenneth Price. Re-scripting Walt Whitman: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons, 2007. Internet resource. 107-108