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(2018
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2018 #2a: Short Essay (Passage) (index) |
LITR 4328 |
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Brandon Burrow
The Progressive Romanticism of
Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric”
In Walt Whitman’s poem “I Sing the Body Electric,” he
displays many of the characteristics of American Romanticism that we have
studied in this course. Whitman’s style was revolutionary, his work popularized
free verse and dealt with ideas that were progressive in an honest yet
sophisticated manner. His verse lacks consistent meter and rhyme, but it touches
something in the reader despite foregoing these formal constructions. His words
are themselves electric, they create a sensation of warmth that grows as the
reader devours the words on the page, with a yearning to digest more of the
truths he seems to be whispering directly into the soul. In the following
paragraphs, I will identify some of the Romantic elements at play in this poem,
analyze pieces of the work for meaning, and discuss what I think made him so
great.
“The exquisite realization of health; O I say these are
not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are
the soul” – Walt Whitman
In these lines, we see Whitman’s conclusion to this poem
that so intensely glorifies the human body and its beauty; he suggests that
these parts exalted by him are not just words or poetry, physical descriptions
of material flesh and blood, but the elements of an essential inner essence.
This is a powerful and Romantic notion, the mighty “O I say” with which he
proclaims it is a decree to the universe. It brings to mind the ancient Greek
tradition of invoking the muse, it is almost as if his words are flowing through
him divinely. The subject of this poem is not a Greek hero however, it is the
Romantic theme of the excellence of the common man and woman. In section 3 of
the poem he describes “a common farmer” that “all who saw him loved him,” a
self-reliant man in the tradition of Thoreau who was the progenitor of many
noble sons. He was not a man of riches, but instead a man of life and love so
that, “you would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by
him…that you and he might tough each other.” This valuing of every life and the
beauty found within it is a distinct element of Romanticism.
Whitman’s love for equality does not stop at gender
equality however, and in sections 5-7 we see that he also believes in the
freedom and fair treatment of immigrants and enslaved peoples, a progressive
stance for 1855 when the poem was written. “Before the war I often go to the
slave-mart and watch the sale, I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half
know his business,” Whitman says. Here he is making a clever satirical jab at
those who believe that a person can be sold. The auctioneer needs his help
because he is underselling that which is priceless and should not be chained,
“whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough.” The line “each
belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you, each
has his or her place in procession,” is a powerful appeal to emotion as well as
reason. Why should any man be different than another in his freedom to pursue
life, liberty, and happiness? Everyone is here as part of a “procession with
measured and perfect motion,” there is no need to construct these differences
between bodies and souls that have the same parts as Whitman shows in his
extensive cataloguing.
Whitman was not progressive just in ideals however, but
also in his form. Poetry before Whitman followed an array of specific
principles, and it had become fashionable to employ rhyming schemes. Whitman did
not observe this canon and instead wrote in free verse, demonstrating that
poetry could exist with pacing that didn’t rely on conventional methods. While
he did employ some tricks of his own, like starting lines with the same
repeating word, known as anaphora, and cataloguing to create a sense of
continuous motion, his language mostly stands on its own as poetic. In the
selection below, you can see each line beginning with the word “the,” as well as
Whitman’s frequent use of compound word constructions both hyphenated and
unhyphenated that create a repetitious pattern such as, “cow-yard,” “apprentice
boys,” “quite grown,” “good-natured,” and “thrown down.” He also uses a
multitude of commas to create a sense of rhythm when read aloud. Also
characteristic of Whitman and Romanticism is the common subjects and settings:
mothers, cows, farming, boys at play -- all scenes from a common life that are
described in flowery and elevated language.
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the
cow-yard, /
the young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving
his six horses through the / crowd, /
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite
grown, lusty, good-natured, / native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down
after work, /
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and
resistance (Section 2)
My first thought when we read Whitman in class was “Why
didn’t he just write prose?” My second was the realization that I was a fool who
had judged too soon. Whitman embodies a particularly Romantic ideal extremely
well – looking at the world in a new way. His poetry was influential to many
future authors and recognized as remarkable in his own time as well. There is an
intimacy to his words in this poem, at times a sensuality that makes the poem
feel private, like a low whisper from a friend that tells you something you need
to know but hasn’t been announced to the world yet. It’s our duty to pass that
whisper on.
