Question: Write an essay on Whitman's poetic style.
Or, What do you know about Whitman's diction and technique of communication?
Or, Discuss the poetic style of Whitman.
Or, Analyze the poetic style of Whitman.
Or, Write a note on the language, diction, and versification of Whitman.
Answer: Whitman was a revolutionary in many respects in style, diction, and versification as well as in his subject matter and attitude to life. Language must arise out of the active life of man, engaged in personal activities and social interactions. The language derives, according to Whitman, its vitality and life, when it springs from one's experiences, not from books. Book language is artificial and stale. The English romantic poet, Wordsworth, wanted to revitalize the communicative power of the English Language.
Whitman's words and phrases show an astonishing range and variety. They are from all spheres-literature, slang, colloquialisms, and vulgarisms of everyday life, coinages, and foreign languages like French and Spanish. James Miller says, “Whitman's wit inheres in his language, in his sometimes indiscriminate mixture of levels o usage; in comic, occasionally grotesque, use of foreign words and phrases; and in his babbling, gabbling and yawping in a multitude mingled voices. His book is America's linguistic melting pot, in it, all the languages of all the people are mixed and stirred into one heady, hearty stew." His gift of phrasing is astonishing, eg. "The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings," (Cross Brooklyn Ferry), “a kelson of the creation is love”. (Song of Myself "Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,” “the gentle soft bo measureless light” (When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd").
According to Emerson, "Whitman's 'wit and wisdom are seen at his best in his bringing together of such opposite concepts and fusing and reconciling them.” He could move with perfect ease and swiftness from one opposite concept to another and this duality of his vision, this dichotomy, is reflected everywhere in the mixture of discordant and incongruous elements in his style. Roger Asselinea writes, “Lyrical flights are to be found side by side with prosaic banalities, mystical effusions with the most familiar expressions from the spoken language.
Whitman's use of symbols and images is brilliant. His images appeal to all the five senses, though there is a predominance of images of sight. “I use the sparkles of star shine on the icy and pallid earth.” In this sentence, a brilliant image of sight has been created. "Skyward in the air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles,/The rustling amorous contact high in space together” creates a powerful image of the sound. His use of striking symbols was prompted by his desire to convey to his readers his way of perceiving reality in his individual way. Through symbols, he communicates a lot of meanings to the reader. He uses "grass” as a symbol of democracy, common men, because it grows everywhere, in every climate and zone. The poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd” is entirely based on a symbol. The symbol is an important aspect of his communication because he knew that the ordinary resources of language are insufficient to convey his vision of reality, his spiritual outlook on things. Whitman's use of symbols makes his communication intensely effective.
His long sweeping lines include an astonishing amount of detail. This is a very prominent aspect of his versification. They convey a feeling of all-inclusiveness, a sense of the teeming, multitudinous life of America. James Miller says, “.... the dominant impression one takes from the Leaves is of lines crammed until there is room for no more... The individual line in Whitman tends to be an independent entity, complete in itself. This independence is especially noticeable in the catalogs, where the image follows the image as the line follows the line. Such independence is perhaps natural or even inevitable in lines not confined by metrical pattern or rhyme.” He was the first poet in history to exploit to the full the possibilities of full verse. There is striking compatibility between his form and his themes. Whitman's long unrestrained lines were the medium for his purpose; to breathe into verse the spirit of democracy and freedom. The music and melody of language appealed to the sensitive ear of Whitman. His use of assonance and consonance and alliteration helped produce such a melody, “Lock'd on the haze on the hills southward” and Whitman used discord dance or dissonance equally successfully with his devices of assonance and consonance that created the remarkable melody and harmony in his verse. It may be said that Whitman's poetic style is a curious mixture of melody and dissonance, or harmony and disharmony. This aspect of his poetic style has provoked many different and contradictory reactions. For example, Emerson found in him “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom,” whereas Swinburne condemned his style as “cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in, to limits of a thoroughly unnatural, imitative, histrionic and affected.” But in spite of all these qualities of Whitman's poetic style, we cannot say that what he wrote was all good. There are many glaring examples of his bad poetry, and bad style. Randall Jarrell in his article “Some lines from Whitman” has justly remarked, "The interesting thing about Whitman's worst language ... is how unusually absurd, how really ingeniously bad, such language is.” “I dote on myself", "there is that lot of me and all so luscious.” Such poetic language is really funny and is not worthy of good poetry.
Such faults in style abound in Whitman's writing, but “they do not matter.” “Few poets have shown more of the tears of things, and of the reality beneath either tear of joy.” Whitman has created a world that so plainly is the world, “Of all the modern poets he has, quantitatively speaking,” “the most comprehensive soul”- qualitatively, a most comprehensive and comprehending one with charities and confessions and qualifications that are very rare in any time.” (R. Jarrell).
Whitman had many glaring faults. There is no doubt about this. fact. But his qualities and merits are of such magnitude as too far outweigh his defects. Side by side with his qualities, his demerits pale into insignificance. A new kind of poetry alive with astonishing vitality growing out of the new technique, prosody, diction, and poetic style, emerged in American literature. Walt Whitman fathered if.
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