Walt Whitman Critics

Question 1

Eldrid Herrington; interpretation of poem “Beat! Beat! Drums!”.

Answer 1

BBD “is often read simply as a rallying cry for war, but it is THEMATICALLY MORE COMPLEX.”

Question 2

Kathy Rugoff; the ferocity of the music of war.
(Poem: “Beat! Beat! Drums!”)

Answer 2

“While the first line is reinforced through similar sounds & the military music advances, the poet does not describe soldiers preparing for battle or in battle; instead, THE FEROCITY OF THE MUSIC OF WAR IS PORTRAYED AS OMNIPRESENT & OMNIPOTENT .”

Question 3

Kathy Rugoff; sounds of war on the poem structure.
(Poem: “Beat! Beat! Drums!”)

Answer 3

“War takes on a life of its own & overwhelms its creators. To describe its music creates a tension in syntax, sound and semantics. Whitman suggests the language of music & the characteristics of war break the bounds of order.”

Question 4

Ezra Greenspan; significance of “masks”
(Poem: “How Solemn as One by One”)

Answer 4

“Whitman overtly meant to indicate that it is always the indwelling spirit that constitutes essential identity, & not external features & manners.”

Question 5

Robert Sabuda; what the poem celebrates.
(Poem: “I Hear America Singing”)

Answer 5

“a lyrical celebration of the American spirit as it gives voice to the many faces of this land.”

Question 6

Gregory Eiselein; what the poem represents.
(Poem: “O Captain! My Captain!”)

Answer 6

“A revealing representation of the rhetorics of despair & celebration that followed the war…”

Question 7

Robyn Lowrie; structure & rhythm.
(Poem: “O Captain! My Captain!”)

Answer 7

“Whitman’s lines are unrhymed & indented in succession as a visual impression in typography signifying a falling mood as Lincoln lies dying. He uses iambic meter combined in tetrameter to signify this heavy tone.”

Question 8

M. Wynn Thomas; how Whitman tried to portray suffering.
(Poem: “The Wound-Dresser”)

Answer 8

“[Whitman] tried whenever possible to set potentially demeaning & humanly devastating suffering in a redeeming context, emphasizing the transfiguring courage of the sufferer, the love & care that attended him.”

Question 9

M. Jimmie Killingsworth; reality of war.
(Poem: “The Wound-Dresser”)

Answer 9

“war becomes a matter not of struggle & glory on the field of battle […] but rather the struggle of the body to live & adjust to injuries, illness & death itself.”

Question 10

Byrne Fone; themes.
(Poem: “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)

Answer 10

“Byrne Fone has shown that the need for affection and the impossibility of solitude which “Louisiana Live-Oak” ultimately assert are pervasive themes.”

Question 11

Michael Moon; how the oak reflects Whitman’s poetic practice.
(Poem: “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing)

Answer 11

“Whitman recognizes in the live-oak’s ability to “utter joyous leaves” while “standing alone” a reflected image of his own poetic practice.”

Question 12

R. W. French; the speaker’s emotional development.
(Poem: “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life)

Answer 12

“the poet, having at the start of the poem given up all claims to authority by recognizing that he had never known himself or understood anything, at the end of the poem is prepared to re-assert his claims on a reader.”

Question 13

M. Jimmie Killingsworth; what the poem is about.
(Poem: “As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life)

Answer 13

Whitman’s great poem of “spiritual autobiography, and the melancholy”

Question 14

Eldrid Herrington; poem’s structure.
(Poem: “A Noiseless Patient Spider”)

Answer 14

“The poem is composed of 2 sets of 5 lines, each a sentence; the pause between them perfectly enacts the difficult poise between ostensive & internal identity.”

Question 15

M. Jimmie Killingsworth; what the poem is about.
(Poem: “A Noiseless Patient Spider”)

Answer 15

“Whitman might have gone the conventional route of offering a reflection on human striving.”

Question 16

Rafael Bernabe; imagery.
(Poem: “In Paths Untrodden”)

Answer 16

“The image suggests both an excursion into unexplored nature &, paradoxically, the pursuit of the inventions of the modern.”

Question 17

David S. Reynolds; presentation of the meaning of life.
(Poem: “O Me! O Life!”)

Answer 17

The poem “poses the question of the meaning of life as something that is universally confusing & elusive; & in the final metaphor, Whitman offers a democratic explanation rather than a solution, allowing the mystifying meaning of life to be equally as perplexing to people from all walks of life.”

Question 18

Charles M. Oliver; what the poet suggests.
(Poem: “O Me! O Life!”)

Answer 18

“The poet suggests that even with occasional moments of self-pity or depression, life is worth living.”

Question 19

Margaret H. Duggar; poem’s aim.
(Poem: “Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd”)

Answer 19

“It addresses the existential crisis of individuality by the fall into selfhood following the intense affirmation of the body & the sensory life.”

Question 20

Tanmoy Baghira; the phrase “I too am part of the ocean my love, we are not so much separated”.
(Poem: “Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd”)

Answer 20

“Phrases like “I too am part of the ocean my love, we are not so much separated” becomes the keyword of conscious union of an individual psyche with the world psyche.”

• “cohesion of all” in this poem also serves the same purpose

Question 21

Charles M. Oliver; self-awareness in pioneers.
(Poem: “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”)

Answer 21

“It takes an awareness of the Self, as well as of the soul & the body, to make a pioneer, someone curious & energetic & alert to the ghosts (“apparitions”) of those pioneers who have gone before.”

Question 22

Charles W. Mignon; Whitman’s purpose of dramatizing the idea of expanding America.
(Poem: “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”)

Answer 22

“The task of dramatizing the idea of America seeking its true identity is undertaken in the larger context of the soul of creation seeking the ideal. This is not another American “westering” poem; it describes a spiritual migration.”

Question 23

Robert K. Martin; the “me” of the title.
(Poem: Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand)

Answer 23

“The “me” of the title is both the poet’s body & his book, & a commitment to either requires a loss of a former self.”

Question 24

Robert K. Martin; Whitman’s use of language.
(Poem: Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand)

Answer 24

“Underlying Whitman’s play is a sense of opacity & elusiveness of language. He will not be pinned down, any more than meaning can be prevented from dissemination.”

Question 25

Charles M. Oliver; significance of the cradle & the metaphor of the sea.
(Poem: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking)

Answer 25

“A “cradle endlessly rocking” evokes images of the continually repeating life cycle the baby rocked by its mother & the old man or woman in a rocking chair. But it also evokes the sea - one of Whitman’s favourite metaphors - the sea constantly repeating its rocking motion & reminding readers of the inevitability of their journey through life to inevitable death.”

Question 26

Charles Walcutt; significance of the song of the bird.
(Poem: Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking)

Answer 26

The song of the bird “is rich in images of human love, mature human love, of a personal & sensual nature.”

Question 27

Carol Rumens; grammar + Whitman’s homosexuality + slavery.
(Poem: I Sing the Body Electric)

Answer 27

“The grammar seems deliberately convoluted, and it has been suggested that Whitman was struggling between the revelation and the concealment of his homosexuality. But these questions, shadowed by the opposition of corruption and “discorruption”, might equally open the critique of slavery, an important theme addressed in two sections of the poem.”

Question 28

Carol Rumens; euphemisms.
(Poem: I Sing the Body Electric)

Answer 28

“The euphemism or obscure coinage (man-root, neck-slue) forms a collectible linguistic curio.”