Walt Whitman Literary Devices

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.

Into the early 19th century, even with sonnets, metaphysical poetry, and romantic poetry at their pinnacle, the epic poem was still the major form of poetry. In fact, the 19th century produced almost 60 epics, topping most other centuries. With epics being written that often, it is imperative to stand out and adapt. Geoffrey Chaucer tried modernizing The Canterbury Tales by adapting the developing language, English, into his epic. As well, Chaucer incorporated the social norms of the day, from the large, red-bearded, gaping-mouthed Miller to the chivalric and prideful Knight.

In “I Understand the Large Hearts of Heroes,” Walt Whitman develops the theme of empathy for the heroes that he describes. He uses vivid imagery to describe the situations that each one faces, while describing himself as a participant in these situations. His participation in the events along with the emotional imagery help the readers understand the theme of empathy. When he describes the hounded slave he says “I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs.” By putting himself in the place of the slave he is able to communicate the slaves pain and suffering.

This poem expresses Whitman's love of America in this poem he again express the felling of be part of a nation , by singing ,but he based the poem in all the people who contribute to the life and culture of America , as the Mechanic ,the carpenter, the mason, the boatman, the shoemaker, and the woodcutter all this people felling proud and join singing the chore in other hand I thing he talk about the fact of being women having a different jobs in this time. This poem emphasizes the attitude toward America, which in Whitman opinion is part of the human. The American nation has based its faith on the labor

With time comes change. No longer do we live in the time where each subsequent generation continues the work of the past. In this day and age people are capable to do their own thing regardless of what the generation before them did … In Seamus Heaney’s poem “Digging”, he depicts a speaker who recalls the work of both his father and grandfather as a potato farmer and peat farmer respectively. These lines of work heavily contrast that of the speakers job as a writer which creates tension throughout the poem.

Pedagogy is a Weird Word (An Analysis on Whitman’s Pedagogy) The definition of a pedagogy is “the method and practice of teaching…” Walt Whitman, a well known writer in the 19th century, had an interesting way of teaching the people around him. He influenced his peers, and created new methods of writing poetry.

What is like to be non-conformist or outsider? Being non-conformist is when we do not conform to society and society rules. In a meanwhile, being an outsider is when not being heard, not having a voice. It is like being a secondary person in everything, which may cause society to treat us differently or even unequal because we are different. Being non-conformist is usually by choice but being an outsider is mostly without the choice of ours.

Influence by Whitman or Challenged? In the late Victorian period, two poets influenced the next generation of poets. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickson two similar, but very different poets. Both influenced their own string of poets.

Authors during the antebellum period took personal interest in finding possible solutions to various social issues occurring in their lifetimes. One of the biggest topics writers seek to resolve is racial and slavery tensions between different social groups. Abolitionists and scholars used literature to address African Americans’ concerns and work within the public eye to better others lives. While authors like Ralph Emerson and Henry David Thoreau choose to describe a specific social issue and its’ association to nature, others as Walt Whitman explore explaining interconnectivity to answer the problem of racial relationships. In The Leaves of Grass, Whitman depicts how people have more in common with each other than they realize and care to

The literature of America has undergone radical change since it’s beginnings with the puritan tradition. This rapid development has essentially been driven by a “desire” for a new literary “expression of American identity” and “artistic independence” from Europe, which was the center of world power and culture in the nineteenth century . In 1837, Emerson demanded that an end be put to America’s dependence on and “long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands” and encouraged his contemporaries to think with their own minds . In order to truly understand the spirit of a nation, one must look to its artists writers and philosopher, especially those of reputation and influence within the nation itself . The works of Walt Whitman and Louisa May Alcott were heavily influenced by the changing atmosphere of the nineteenth century with its new emphasis on self and society .

Walt Whitman was an American poet. Through his many years as a poet he faced the many challenges of writing pieces that would appeal all races and ages. He was the poet who knew that the way that blacks was treated was unfair, so he wrote many pieces about the particular topic. For example, his most famous work is “Leaves of Grass,” where he discusses what he sees day to day as a white american, the horrific actions that were placed upon blacks. Whitman used tone, diction, and many different themes to try and grasp the many people that were living in America at that time.