Thursday, 10th of December 2009 at 06:45:11 PMSo, in the waning minutes of this semester, I realized that I had not yet written about our first field trip. Since I did my final project on a revolutionary, Jose Marti, the memory of standing behind the wall on Sunken Road that the Confederate soldiers used has been on my mind a lot. Just imagining […] […]
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Well everybody, it’s been a wonderful semester. Here is my final paper. I’m pretty new to Google docs, so my paper looks pretty intimidating until you put it in Word. Well, it’s still long, but not quite as scary. […] I found Whitman in a variety of place, and discovered later that I looked super-pretentious. Oh well. I contain multitudes! There are slides explaining what I read and where. […] The readings for this week were incredible. I have to admit that, after listening to Ginsberg’s recitation of Howl (the first time I had ever heard that poem recited, much less by the writer), I texted Chelsea and said “I feel like Ginsberg just danced flamenco on my brain with cleats.” Just so everyone […] […] I am going to do my best to answer this week’s question of “how should we read Leaves of Grass” through the poem that I decided to read for this week: Passage to India. Passage to India hits on what is both one of the strengths of LoG and one of its potential weaknesses: […] […] Since we’re comparing 1892 Whitman to 1855 Whitman, I thought I would re-visit the subject of an earlier blog post of mine: “the tale of a jetblack sunrise” (66). Earlier in the semester, I noted Whitman’s idealization of the frontiersman, as well as the anonymous nature of that very man: Whitman’s ideal did not have […] […] So, since I have been so terrible about writing about our first field trip, here are some photos from our incredible trip yesterday: The centerpiece of our LoC tour! Emerson’s letter to Whitman about the 1855 edition Nuff said The good, gray … […] Not surprisingly, the question posed to us this week feels very appropriate, following our trip yesterday. When we were able to sit in Ford’s Theatre and look up to where Lincoln had sat, it really brought the events of that day home to us. However, they remain abstract to us in so many important ways, […] […] Last night, I decided that enough of the semester had passed without me trying to tie Latin America in with Walt Whitman. So, going off some vague memory, I found an article written in praise of Whitman by Cuban writer José Martí (1853-1895). Martí was integral in motivating Cuba to separate from Spanish rule and establish itself, […] […] During the nineteenth century, firearm technology experienced a series of incredible technological advances. The smooth bore, round-ball musket, which had been favored for centuries of warfare, was replaced by the grooved barrels and cylindro-conical rounds of the rifle. However, during the Civil War, a middle ground between the two styles was favored by the […] […] Today I am going to consider Whitman’s troubles maintaining close friendships, and how that may reflect on his relationship to his readers. Throughout our readings for this week, Whitman’s relationship with William Douglas O’Conner is repeatedly mentioned. Whitman’s relationship with O’Conner interests me because it seems very reminiscent of what most of the students […] […] I am going to focus my blog on the Song of the Banner at Daybreak, and its dialogic style. The poem has five distinct speakers (the poet, the pennant, the banner, the child, and the father), which differs from Whitman’s previously-favored format of one single speaker that occasionally speaks for others. Through the interaction […] […] So, earlier in the semester, I posted about how Whitman’s soldier descriptions in Song of Myself were generalized and idealized, with a promise to update on how his writing changed once he got up close and personal with war. It’s hard to think of a better time to do just that. I am going […] […] So, as I vegged out in between reading assignments today by watching football, I saw something very interesting: a Levi’s jeans commercial. This wasn’t just any jeans commercial though: it had what I thought sounded like a Whitman poem being recited. Upon further investigation, turns out I was right. Here is one version of the […] […] So, Dr. Scanlon briefly mentioned a connection between death and sex in This Compost! last class, and that’s what I’ll explore here. Why the mention of John Donne in my post title? Well, he was brought to mind by this Whitman line: “Perhaps every mite has once form’d part of a sick person — Yet behold!” This […] […] Hey guys, I am thinking that I want to cover rifles or cannons for my material culture museum entry. Just post what you are thinking about researching. We have talked at great length in class about how Whitman worked to construct a public image of himself as the great American poet: When I Read the Book seems to be a reflection by the poet on the fact that his control over his image is really quite limited. Just as Whitman rails […] […] I am very interested in comparing the different versions of poems. For example, as we sat in class tonight, I happened to open my book to the 1855 version of I Sing the Body Electric, and see how some of the punctuation differed in that edition from what we had read in the 1891-92 version. […] […] Two recurring themes jumped out at me as I was reading Calamus: obviously, the exaltation of a love that we receive different explanations of, and an uncertainty about that love that seems impossible to shake. I’m going to think about the latter in this post. Continually in Calamus, Whitman proclaims the saving power of […] […] So guys, this is my first time “finding Whitman”! […] “I hear the bravuras of birds… the bustle of growing wheat… gossip of flames… clack of sticks cooking my meals” (Song of Myself 53). A bravura can be either a noun or an adjective. As a noun, it is generally associated with music, meaning a ”Brilliant technique or style in performance… [or] A piece or passage that emphasizes a performer’s virtuosity.” […] […] This blog might be a bit crazy, but I press on with the reassuring image of Jim Groom in my mind. As I came to the close of Song of Myself about a week ago, I was struck by something completely unexpected: I was recognizing another free verse-loving American in Whitman’s words. I was […] […] After reading the fifty-six (!!) page biography of Whitman, I decided to focus this blog on the “tale of the jetblack sunrise,” on pages 66-67. What got me interested was the biography’s mention that Whitman’s poetry about war and death was (not surprisingly) drastically changed by his hospital work. However, since I’m still pretty […] […] “To behold the daybreak! The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows, The air tastes good to my palate. Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols, silently rising, freshly exuding, Scooting obliquely high and low.” […] So like um I am having trouble with these like blog thingys? And I wish that it would like go smoothly? I totally love Walt Whitman and like nature and like kitties and stuff! Yeah! Woo! […] |
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