2.3: Walt Whitman, Free Verse, and the Poetics of Democracy
During the Civil War, Whitman worked as a clerk in Washington, DC. For three years, he visited soldiers during his spare time, dressing wounds and giving solace to the injured. These experiences led to the poems in his 1865 elegy for President Lincoln, Drum-Taps, which includes, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". In this poem, Whitman uses a literary device called apostrophe, which can be defined as a direct address of a person, thing, or concept that is physically absent or abstract. Examine his use of this technique and think about how it affects the meaning or content of the poem.
This article provides a brief explanation of free verse as a poetic form. How does the literary device you read about in the previous subunit, apostrophe, relate to the concept of free verse?
In his 1855 epic poem, Whitman celebrates democracy, love, friendship, and nature. Read this introductory essay to Leaves of Grass.
Whitman's expansive lyrical poem "Song of Myself", the first poem in the original edition of his lifelong project, Leaves of Grass, is one of the most celebrated poems in the American canon. In the poem, Whitman breaks away from standard meter and regular rhyme schemes, freely expressing a sense of "self" in the American vernacular.
Examine this famous steel engraving (from a daguerreotype) of Whitman, used to introduce his revolutionary volume of poetry Leaves of Grass in 1855.
Watch this lecture on Walt Whitman. Take notes to add to what you've already learned about Whitman and his writings.