Comments on: TWENTY YEARS http://camdenannotation.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/02/twenty-years/ Just another Looking for Whitman weblog Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:30:15 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.30 By: bmzreece http://camdenannotation.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/02/twenty-years/comment-page-1/#comment-67 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:14:54 +0000 http://camdenannotation.lookingforwhitman.org/?p=95#comment-67 “Twenty Years” tells of a meeting with a sailor who left the area as a boy and has now returned after 20 years of circling the world [Whitman first writes of time having “circled round and round” then immediately after speaks of the sailor “circling round and round” the globe].

But rather than focus on the adventures that transpired during the sailor’s time at sea, Whitman focuses on how Time has changed the area while the sailor was gone: “How CHANGED the place — ALL the old land-marks gone — the parents DEAD” [emphases mine].

And even this focus on the 20 year-period is short-lived, as the poem quickly shifts to the sights and sounds of the scene.

Though it is convenient for Whitman to explain detailed sights in a poem that he knew would be illustrated, the suddenness of the shift goes along with the theme of great change: Just as surely as Time leaves nothing unchanged [whether the land or the people], so Whitman’s focus within the poem need not stay steady.

]]> By: bmzreece http://camdenannotation.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/02/twenty-years/comment-page-1/#comment-66 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:47:48 +0000 http://camdenannotation.lookingforwhitman.org/?p=95#comment-66 Originally written for the illustrated Magazine of Art in 1887, “Twenty Years” was illustrated by Walter Paget, whose brother, Sidney Paget, was the illustrator for the Sherlock Holmes stories. A digital image of a copy of the original issue can be found here: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/published/periodical/figures/per.00046.001.jpg

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