American Romanticism: Walt Whitman

As I read Walt Whitman’s poems, I saw both similarities and differences in the writing style of British Romantics. A very important aspect in the poems of British Romantics was their use of nature. The writers described nature using imagery, similes and metaphors to let their readers imagine the same scenery as the author. Nature was a way for the British poets to express their thoughts. On the other hand, Walt Whitman, as well as the other American Romantics, wrote poems that were more similar to stories, not just plain thoughts. Unable to completely break away from the use of nature, Whitman uses nature in a different way. He incorporates nature in his ‘stories’ and even writes a story/poem about nature like in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”

There are several principles that are in Whitman’s poems that separate them from the poems of British Romantics. In “Song of Myself” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman numbered sections in his poems. The numbered sections in “Song of Myself” serves like a timeline. As the numbers increases, the topic matures. The sections are different stories and topics connected to each other. As for the poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” the numbered sections were all about the same topic, and the sections combined to form a complete story.

Instead of using imagery and other concepts British Romantics loved to use, Whitman’s poems utilized repetition. He repeated words or phrases in a line and even began lines with identical phrases. For example:

“Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.”

In addition, Walt Whitman’s poems were more open to sexuality, while British poets were very conservative and careful not to offend their female readers. The following line from Whitman’s “Song of Myself” is a fitting example.

“Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!”

Lastly, Whitman’s poems included society issues. Racial inequality is mentioned in the line:

“Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.”