Hi all,
I as thinking about Whitman’s long lines and the fact that he breaks the boundaries of the page, and I wanted to share some thoughts with you all. Whitman really seems to be pushing the reader to explore beyond the beliefs that he/she carries. He proves that he cannot be contained, even with in the page. However, I think that is goes even deeper than this. He proves that he is into breaking boundaries in all he does, whether it be sexuality, thoughts on women, ect, but also, he is breaking the boundaries of the page. This breaking of the page’s boundaries cause the reader to see a need to break the boundaries he/she puts up in life and explore past the outer layer into what lies beneath, and thus seeing the layer underneath the surface. Looking at the underlayer of his work, as well as the issues that surround us, allows us to see what truly matters.
-Jess
Whitman definitely leaves you sitting there thinking, “Wait, what WAS I thinking just a couple minutes ago?” On the surface his poems seem to be a mere list of nature and more nature, but if we look deeper in between the lines, I think you’re right: he definitely is saying a lot more than mere beauties of our land.