Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
Many readers feel confused and disoriented when reading Whitman for the
rst time. Without using the aid of rhyme and meter as a guide, Whitman’s poetry
may initially appear disjointed and meandering, but at the same time readers often
take great comfort in the simplicity of the language, the clarity of the images, and
the deep cadences, or rhythms, of the verse. Such contradictions are at the heart
of Whitman’s work. Much of Whitman’s success and endurance as a poet comes
from his ability to marry embedded cultural forms to the needs of a growing and
rapidly modernizing nation. Whitman rst came to wide public attention with the
publication of the rst edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 when he was just twenty-
ve years old. Grand in scope if not in size, the rst edition established Whitman as
a poet who loved wordplay and common images; by the time of his death in 1892,
Whitman had expanded the initial collection of just twelve poems over the course
of six editions to one that ultimately included more than 400 poems. The selection
included here largely samples Whitman’s early poetry up through the Civil War. In
the selections from Song of Myself and “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” we see Whitman
at his most iconic: sweeping views of everyday life that freely mingle high and low
culture. Yet the poet of the common man did not spend all of his days gazing at
his fellow Americans. In the nal selection from Whitman, we see Whitman rising
as a national poet with “O Captain! My Captain!” one of two poems on the death
of Abraham Lincoln. An urban poet who lived almost his entire life in New York,
New Jersey, and Washington, DC, the enduring appeal of his works testies to his
ability to connect the great and the common through language.
4.24.1 “Song of Myself”
1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the
same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while suced at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
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