Jen E 11-19-09
One main contrast of the ideas behind every page of my verses, compared with establish’d poems, is their different relative attitude towards God, towards the objective universe, and still more (by reflection, confession, assumption, &c.) the quite changed attitude of the ego, the one chanting or talking, towards himself and towards his fellow-humanity. It is certainly time for America, above all, to begin this readjustment in the scope and basic point of view of verse; for everything else has changed. As I write, I see in an article on Wordsworth, in one of the current English magazines, the lines, “A few weeks ago an eminent French critic said that, owing to the special tendency to science and to its all-devouring force, poetry would cease to be read in fifty years.” But I anticipate the very contrary. Only a firmer, vastly broader, new area begins to exist — nay, is already form’d — to which the poetic genius must emigrate. Whatever may have been the case in years gone by, the true use for the imaginative faculty of modern times is to give ultimate vivification to facts, to science, and to common lives, endowing them with the glows and glories and final illustriousness which belong to every real thing, and to real things only. Without that ultimate vivification — which the poet or other artist alone can give -reality would seem incomplete, and science, democracy, and life itself, finally in vain (Whitman 659).Â
Theses words struck out to me because of the constant affirmation of  the the changing  of times. Whitman attitudes towards time, race, and gender was needed during that time. It was a time in which it was needed to be heard. The Revolution was over and it was a time for liberation. America needs man like Whitman wreak havoc and make people question themselves. Poetry is changing and the very existence  of it will still remain. He’s in a way bridging the gap between different group of people connected to to make a more untied America. Another part that really stood out was when he talks about Shakespeare,  to me a woner man of his time.Â
Even Shakspere, who so suffuses current letters and art (which indeed have in most degrees grown out of him,) belongs essentially to the buried past. Only he holds the proud distinction for certain important phases of that past, of being the loftiest of the singers life has yet given voice to. All, however, relate to and rest upon conditions, standards, politics, sociologies, ranges of belief, that have been quite eliminated from the Eastern hemisphere, and never existed at all in the Western. As authoritative types of song they belong in America just about as much as the persons and institutes they depict. True, it may be said, the emotional, moral, and aesthetic natures of humanity have not radically changed — that in these the old poems apply to our times and all times, irrespective of date; and that they are of incalculable value as pictures of the past. I willingly make those admissions, and to their fullest extent; then advance the points herewith as of serious, even paramount importance (Whitman 663).Â
It amazing how Whitman can see the artistry in other writers before his time. Even thought time has changed the one remaining factor is the poets writing will be forever glorified. The wold may be changing in negative and positive way , but their words will live in in books and the hearts of their followers.
November 18 2009 12:12 am | Uncategorized
November 18th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I also liked how he spoke of the other writers throughout time. They have immortalized themselves in their own writings, which Whitman admired. So then Whitman has made them immortal again by speaking about their writings in a glorified way. It is always interesting to know what writers of the past have inspired the works we are reading