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Group Annotation Jen and Nadia 11-19-09

November 19th, 2009 -- Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Below is the remainder of the poem titled “Last of Ebb, and Daylight Waning” and its annotation….

 

 

 

As of speakers far or hid.

 

How they sweep down and out! how they mutter!
Poets unnamed–artists greatest of any, with cherish’d lost designs,
Love’s unresponse–a chorus of age’s complaints–hope’s last words,
Some suicide’s despairing cry, Away to the boundless waste, and
never again return.

 

On to oblivion then!
On, on, and do your part, ye burying, ebbing tide!
On for your time, ye furious debouche!

 

Then to those far and away

The pool whirls and is loud 

There goes the great poets of this time

Here goes all my complaints and wishes

They disappear in the forever churning tide 

Forever in eternity

Keep churning tide

Do it forever you strong tide

 

Below  is the annotation for “And yet not you Alone”….

 

And yet not you alone, twilight and burying ebb,

Nor you, ye lost designs alone–nor failures, aspirations;

I know, divine deceitful ones, your glamour’s seeming;

Duly by you, from you, the tide and light again–duly the hinges turning,

Duly the needed discord-parts offsetting, blending,

Weaving from you, from Sleep, Night, Death itself,

The rhythmus of Birth eternal.

 

You are not alone even though you are surrounded by the twilight

You are not alone even through all the failures

The light overcomes the dark

The switch always is turning from light to dark

The both parts are tricking but are combined

When its night, people sleep, then the dark represents death

This leads to the afterlife

 

Finally the last poem “Proudly the Flood Comes In”…

 

PROUDLY the flood comes in, shouting, foaming, advancing, 

Long it holds at the high, with bosom broad outswelling, 

All throbs, dilates – the farms, woods, streets of cities – workmen at 
work, 

Mainsails, topsails, jibs, appear in the offing-steamers’ pennants 
of smoke-and under the forenoon sun, 

Freighted with human lives, gaily the outward bound, gaily the 
inward bound, 

 

The flood comes in without hesitation

It floods so much without holding back

It floods the farms, woods, and cities

Ships appear to help

Many people are scared, but they are helped by the ship*

 

What makes these poems interesting is the fact that they have much to do with water which is a powerful force and needed for survival. Whitman loves to personify water in this section and also the sun and dark. My favorite part is how he connects the darkness and twilight the passing into the afterlife. It sounds so beautifully magical-almost vampireish. 

 

Jen E 11-19-09

November 18th, 2009 -- Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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). 

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. 

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). 

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.

Jennifer for Nov 5

November 5th, 2009 -- Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

During this week’s readings, the reader delves more into Whitman’s dreams. It is as though Whitman is reminiscing the war. This is why this section is called the Songs of Parting.

“Of these years I sing,

How they pass and have pass’d through convuls’d pains, as

through parturitions,

How America illustrates birth, muscular youth, the promise,

the sure fulfillment, the absolute success, despite of

people-illustrates evil as well as good,

The vehement struggle so fierce for unity in one’s-self;

How many hold despairingly yet to the models departed,

caste, myths, obedience, compulsion, and to infidelity,

How few see the arrived models, the athletes, the Western

States, or see freedom or spirituality, or hold any faith in results,

How the great cities appear-how the Democratic masses,

turbulent, wilful, as I love them,

How the whirl , the contest, the wrestle of evil with good,

the sounding and resounding, keep on and on,

How America is the continent of glories, and of the triumph

of freedom and of the Democracies, and of the fruits of

society, and of all that is begun,” (600-601).

I chose these lines because it focuses on Whitman analyzing time. When he says “Of the years I sing” , he is going back in time thinking about everything that has happened to him personally. He speaks about all the struggles that are being overcome and all the difficulties he saw and sees America going through. Then Whitman goes on to say how not everyone can even get close to this “Western Freedom”. Beyond that, Whitman discusses the “results of the war”. He sees how slavery has ended and admires how the people of “democratic masses appear”. Then Whitman ends with just recognizing America as the country of peace and virtue and democratic integrity. From this one can sense that Whitman is finally seeing his dream beginning.

Then I chose lines from Song at Sunset because it is a song that Whitman sings for the left over battles that are yet to be won.

“I sing to the last equalities modern or old, …

O setting sun! though the times has come,

I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated

adoration”

I chose this because Whitman is coming to a close with his battles and he says that he will adore the sun and everything because he is at peace now. There he says” the time has come” so he leaves happily in for adoration because the civil war united the nation and people of color.