Whitman writing style

The writing style of Walt Whitman was very different than other poets during his time period. He believed that the poets of his time were very unoriginal. He called their poetry “copious dribble” meaning that it did not really mean anything (Connors). He thought that their poetry was boring because it was all the same with the same rhyme schemes and stanzas. He wanted to change the way that Americans viewed poetry. Walt Whitman set out to change the writing of other poets during his time. He thought that poetry of his time had little creativity and that the writing did not represent the America that he knew (Connors). He wanted to create a “new American poetry” (Connors) that could better represent his country. Whitman wanted to replace the normal exaggerated style and subject of poets in the mid- 1800’s with genuineness and honesty in the way things really are. Another thing that Whitman wanted was for Americans to become more literate. He wanted more Americans to be able to read and be literate in that sense, but mainly, he wanted Americans to be able to digest what they just read and to be able to understand and “absorb what they were experiencing” (Connors).

Walt Whitman’s poetry was revolutionary. He used expressive language when writing and he also used free verse which was new and interesting to readers. The most unordinary thing about his writing during that time was his intensity of his emotions in his poetry, especially when he was discussing love and democracy, both individual and for a whole country. He thought that what America needed was a type of poetry that was more relatable for the reader and that embraced more people. He believed that this was something that only he could accomplish.

Before Whitman was a poet, he was a journalist. He was not very popular as a journalist. He wrote about many things from politics, to crimes, to slavery and fires. His journalism coverage was described as “solid, but forgettable” (Connors). Whitman also wrote some short stories, but those too went undistinguished. Even when Whitman was a poet, he was not very appreciated. He was ignored by other poets and was often “chastised, criticized, and dismissed”(Connors).

            The subject matter that Walt Whitman used was bolder and contained a lot of nature, something that other poets of his time did not write about as much. This is represented in his poem On the Beach at Night Alone. This poem has a lot of references in it to nature and it displays Walt Whitman’s appreciation to nature. “As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future” (Whitman). In this poem, Whitman shows the importance that he puts on nature by connecting a piece of nature- the stars- to pretty much everything else in the universe. Whitman had a huge appreciation of nature and even though not many other poets of his time wrote about nature, he did anyways because it was something that he enjoyed.

Bibliography

Connors, Judith. "Whitman, Walt." In Bloom, Harold, ed. Walt Whitman, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BCWWh02&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 21, 2012).

Whitman, Walt. "On the Beach at Night Alone, by Walt Whitman." Poetry Archive. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/on_the_beach_at_night_alone.html>.