19th century poet : May31,1819

(Long Island, New York, U.S.)

: March26, 1892

Aged 72 (New Jersey, U.S.)

A volunteer nurse –American Civil War

Humanist – opposed the extension of slavery in U.S.

The Father of Free Verse

America's first"poet of democracy"

Major Works:• Franklin Evans (1842)

• Leaves of Grass (1855)

• Drum-Taps (1865)

• Democratic Vistas (1871)

• Theme of love, loss, happiness, sorrow, death,

poesy and their relation in language & poetry

• In a single setting and situation sea-shore

• An intense lesson in mortality of life and

inspiration

• A masterful formal control of his material

Free Verse

Personification

Inversion

Symbols

Rhyme

Rhetorical Question

Paradox

Alliteration

Repetition

Poetic Devices

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

• Whitman’s own trauma of separation

• A dramatization of his personal life

• Pain of the loss of his mother

• The eve of the civil war of the U.S.

• A communal idyll – dream of ‘Democratic America’

• Historical roots – elegy of dissolution

OUT OF THE CRADLE

ENDLESSLY ROCKING

The first aria:

• “Two together!...”

• “Singing all time, minding no time,

While we two keep together”

The two guests --Togetherness

TRAGEDY

She-bird He-bird

DEATH

SEPARATION

The Lone Singer, Wonderful “My sad brother…”

“The messenger...”“The dusky demon…”

“For I am almost sure, I see her dimly whichever way I look..”

-- He-bird

The He-bird longs for the She-bird:• Sea – winds Stars• Wave Moon• Carols Darkness• Land Night• Throat “O all -- and I singing uselessly,

uselessly all the night.”

“Loved! Loved! Loved! Loved! Loved!But my love no more, no more with me!We two together no more.”

• Becomes a poet –“To the outsetting bard of love…”“The unknown want, the destiny of me”

• Transforming experiences and dim memories into songs • Locates his inspiration in other’s experiences• The duty of a translator – not the originator of pathos

“ A thousand warbling echoes started to life within me…”

“With the thousand responsive songs, at random,

My own songs, awaked from that hour..”

DEATH• “The word final, superior to all”

• “The low and delicious word”

• “Stronger and more delicious than any”

• “The word of the sweetest songs, and all songs”

• The sea's patient answer -- universalization of the she-bird's departure

• A conversion of individual pain into natural law.

BOY

MAN

POET

LIFE

ABSORBING

BIRTH

DEATH

PEERING

TRANSLATING

• Transformation of the bird’s songs

• Change of emotions, poetic mood :

Happiness – Sorrow – Faith

• Love – Loss – Poetry

• A beautiful permutation of elegiac narrative

• Devoid of irony or insincerity

• An American folk quality – A tale of love and loss

• Suffering & Art – A Poet

`