This document provides a biography and overview of the 19th century American poet Walt Whitman. It notes that he was a nurse during the Civil War and opposed the extension of slavery. One of his major works was Leaves of Grass, in which he pioneered the use of free verse. The document also analyzes his poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" about the loss of his mother, focusing on its themes of love, loss, and the poet's ability to translate personal experiences into song.

2.  19th century poet
 : May31,1819
(Long Island, New York, U.S.)
 : March26, 1892
Aged 72 (New Jersey, U.S.)
 A volunteer nurse –
American Civil War
 Humanist – opposed the
extension of slavery in U.S.

3. The Father of Free Verse
America's first
"poet of democracy"
Major Works:
• Franklin Evans (1842)
• Leaves of Grass (1855)
• Drum-Taps (1865)
• Democratic Vistas (1871)

4. • Theme of love, loss, happiness, sorrow, death,
poesy and their relation in language & poetry
• In a single setting and situation  sea-shore
• An intense lesson in mortality of life and
inspiration
• A masterful formal control of his material

5.  Free Verse
 Personification
 Inversion
 Symbols
 Rhyme
 Rhetorical Question
 Paradox
 Alliteration
 Repetition
Poetic Devices

6. A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
• Whitman’s own trauma of separation
• A dramatization of his personal life
• Pain of the loss of his mother
• The eve of the civil war of the U.S.
• A communal idyll – dream of ‘Democratic America’
• Historical roots – elegy of dissolution

7. OUT OFTHE CRADLE
ENDLESSLY ROCKING

8. The first aria:
• “Two together!...”
• “Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together”
The two guests --
Togetherness

9. TRAGEDY
She-bird He-bird
DEATH
SEPARATION

10. The Lone Singer,
Wonderful
“My sad brother…”
“The messenger...”
“The dusky demon…”
“For I am almost sure, I see her dimly
whichever way I look..”
-- He-bird

11. The He-bird longs for the She-bird:
• Sea – winds Stars
• Wave Moon
• Carols Darkness
• Land Night
• Throat
“O all -- and I singing uselessly,
uselessly all the night.”
“Loved! Loved! Loved! Loved! Loved!
But my love no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.”

12. • Becomes a poet –
“To the outsetting bard of love…”
“The unknown want, the destiny of me”
• Transforming experiences and dim memories into songs
• Locates his inspiration in other’s experiences
• The duty of a translator – not the originator of pathos
“ A thousand warbling echoes started to life within me…”
“With the thousand responsive songs, at random,
My own songs, awaked from that hour..”

14. DEATH
• “The word final, superior to all”
• “The low and delicious word”
• “Stronger and more delicious than any”
• “The word of the sweetest songs, and all songs”
• The sea's patient answer -- universalization
of the she-bird's departure
• A conversion of individual pain into natural law.

15. BOY
MAN
POET
LIFE
ABSORBING
BIRTH
DEATH
PEERING
TRANSLATING

16. • Transformation of the bird’s songs
• Change of emotions, poetic mood :
Happiness – Sorrow – Faith
• Love – Loss – Poetry
• A beautiful permutation of elegiac narrative
• Devoid of irony or insincerity
• An American folk quality – A tale of love and loss
• Suffering & Art – A Poet

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