Walt Whitman’s Romantic thinking and Its Characteristic
Walt Whitman’s poetry is highly influenced by the Romantic ideas. Like other romantic poets, the subjects of his poetry were often ordinary people and from low life. As a democratic poet, he truly uses language of the ordinary people which he feels can express the inner feeling of an ordinary man about his day-to-day life. Following the romantics, he wants the poetry to be the spontaneous expression of the poet’s own subjective feeling and it should not follow the poetic convention of classical doctrines.
In his poem “I Hear America Singing,” Walt Whitman describes how carpenters, mechanics, and shoemakers are singing and language he uses in the poem is simple, which everyone can easily get the idea of the author. He uses free verse in almost all his poetry, which he feels a poet can express himself/herself spontaneously. For him, using traditional poetic convention may fail to express the inner feelings of the poet and the poetry following the poetic convention of classical doctrines will make the poetry artificial. The following is the best example for his usage of simple language: “Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else” (9).
“I Hear America Singing" is the best example to prove Walt Whitman as a romantic poet and the very title itself is a brilliant and beautiful romantic image. He is remembered as an important romantic poet because how he formed his poetry that is very different from the other poets.
Whitman’s Unique Writing Style
Ordinary people are often become the subjects of Romantic Poetry. Whitman uses ordinary people doing ordinary jobs as his subjects in most of his poems. He believes that everyday life and people can be the best subjects for his poetry. Taking subjects from rustic life or among common people is one of the major characteristics of romantic poetry. His practice of using subjects from the day-to-day life makes us to link him with Wordsworth. In his poem, “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman uses subjects like carpenter, mechanic, mason, boatman, woodcutter, shoemaker, etc. Here are a few lines for examples: “The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam / The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work” (3-4).
His theme of poetry itself is very simple and the title of this poem itself reveals the poetry is about the low life of the ordinary people in America.
Walt Whitman’s Romantic Thinking in His Poems
Walt Whitman has revealed his Romantic thinking in almost all of his poetry. One among them is “A Noiseless, Patient Spider.” This poem is packed with all characteristics of romanticism like emotion, individualism, love, nature, introspection etc. Here Whitman describes how a spider constructing its web and explains how it spreads its filament to connect and form a web. The spider is depicted as a metaphor for soul by explaining how it tirelessly throws out the filament to connect his strings. The repetition of the word filament gives the rhyming effect to the poetry: “filament, filament, filament” (4).
The poet uses spider web to connect the life of spider and human being. Like spider, human beings are trying “ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them” (8). The spider spreads its thread to connect his web; likewise, human beings are trying to connect their soul with the world continuously. In the following lines, he uses words like ‘bridge’ and ‘anchor’ to get support for his argument human soul is trying to spread its connection to its surrounding: “Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold / Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my soul” (9-10).
The essence of emotion is evidently presented when the speaker tries to find connection for his own soul with external world. A sense of individualism is obviously depicted when the speaker proclaims his own soul and its journey through the world. One of the romantic aspects is nature and it is clearly used in this poem by comparing the spider’s work to human being’s work. The creative energy has spread all over the lines of this poem. Introspection is effectively used by depicting how speaker tries to find the patient spider as an example and find a parallel with his life.
Works Cited
Whitman, Walt. Complete poetry and collected prose. New York, New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1982. Print.
Whitman, Walt, Sculley Bradley, and Harold William Blodgett. Leaves of grass: authoritative texts, prefaces, Whitman on his art, criticism. New York: Norton, 1973. Print.
