Journal 42: Whitman vs. Dickinson

Ok, so I hate both Whitman and Dickinson so preferably I would rather not read any of their poetry but I guess for the sake of this journal I'm going to have to pick the lesser of both evils and i would have to go with Dickinson because the fiery passion of my hate for Whitman is barely able to be contained. So yeah if having to choose I would have to go for Dickinson. They were both considered to be insane at the time and I don't know why anybody likes them now but hey whatever I guess it just further talks to my theory of human de-evolution and the decline of intelligence of humanity, but hey whatever. I mean her poems aren't that bad I guess but she was still an insane old cat lady who lived out in the woods all by herself so that couldn't have been healthy for her state of being or anything along those lines. Some of her poems aren't that bad and are somewhat enjoyable but they are still not very good and I just detest poetry as a whole if it's not modern or in some lyrics. I mean I freaking love Robert Smith and he is a modern day poet. I just sort of detest the whole old age poetry except for Dark Romanticism because that was some pretty dark and creepy stuff and I really enjoyed some of that. Otherwise however I'm not a really big fan of poetry as a whole unles it is from this day and age or it is all dark and kind of explores the whole of human psychology in an interesting and unique way. These are just some of my opinions and what not so I guess you shouldn't be too mad at me for hating on poetry and stuff cuz it just isn't for me but I feel very strongly about it so that's me and you should not judge your opinions on poetry or anything so yeah.

Superfluous Were the Sun

Dickinson's poem "Superfluous Were the Sun" is a standard Dickinson poem about time and eternity found in the fourth section of her complete book of poetry. The poem is a simple one about the nature of the sun and space. As McChesney writes "As subject, she provided an array of dichotomies: strength/ fragility; boldness/timidity; certainty/questioning; health/frailty; Christian/pagan. As an analyst, she explored her psyche untiringly, reaching conclusions and expressing those intellectual leaps in her poetry." This statement is found to be all too much true if one were to read and analyze the entirety of Dickinson's work. This poem in of itself is an analysis of the sun and how it sits in space and affects the earth.

SUPERFLUOUS were the sun
When excellence is dead;
He were superfluous every day,
For every day is said
That syllable whose faith	5
Just saves it from despair,
And whose “I ’ll meet you” hesitates—
If love inquire, “Where?”
Upon his dateless fame
Our periods may lie,	10
As stars that drop anonymous
From an abundant sky.

As the first stanza says the sun works in excess every day providing too much sunlight and heat than is necessary to sustain us. It exerts itself unnecessarily and does excellence work until excellence is dead. The poem's first stanza is just an admiration to the sun for sustaining human life and working for the good and survival of the human race as a whole.

With the second stanza talks of the human's on the planet who are kept alive by the sun and go about their lives without realizing how large of an impact it has on their lives. It sustains them and allows them to do things such as fall in love and meet with their beloved and only those who have faith realize what God did for them by giving them the sun and allowing them to live as such. The second stanza applauds those with faith and tell of how their admiration saves the sun from flickering out and lapsing into "despair."

The final stanza of the poem is about the inevitable decline and death of the sun. It talks of all the stars that eventually fall out of the night sky and how this will one day occur to the sun as it is nothing more than another star, although one that is especially important to humanity as a whole. It makes the sun seem insignificant in the larger roll of the universe but it stays relevant to humans despite this. There is one line that explains how our lives and beings rely on the fame and ability of the sun to sustain the planet and it's significance for just one planet in the entire universe.

On the surface this poem is a testament to the sun and thanks God for it and no further reading into it is required. It is easy to reveal the true meaning of the poem through a simple reading through of it and the simplicity and thankful nature of the poem are what allow it to excel and work as a poem and a testament to faith and the sun.

Dickinson, Emily. "116. “Superfluous Were the Sun.” Part Four: Time and Eternity. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. .

McChesney, Sandra. "A View from the Window: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson." In Harold Bloom, ed. Emily Dickinson, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BCED03&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 23, 2011).

I Can Wade Grief

This poem is about coping with grief. The author speaks of having to deal with grief in her first line, "I wade grief, whole pools of it" The author is stating that she can make it through any period of grief or any inordinate amount of suffering and bleak moments. She can wade through any amount of these through force of will and powers of endurance. Then she says that when having difficulty of dealing with wading through all the grief she is able to "rise" above the pools of grief using joy as a new form of alcohol in the line "But the least push of joy, breaks up my feet, and I tip-drunken. Let no pebble smile, 'Twas the new liquor,- That was all!" She says that she can use joy and happiness to wade of the pools of sorrow and grief in her life through use of joy and happiness in her life. She claims in the first line in the next stanza that "Power is only pain" explaining that through gaining power and using power, the quest for power in itself, will only lead to despair and end with pain and suffering for those involved. The rest of the poem is the attempt to explain that relying on freidsn and family is like using a giant to help you with work and struggles in your life. The entire poem is a testament to the strength of humanity and the power of the human mind and it's ability to overcome struggle and adversity with support from their friends and all the good moments in life. The entire poem is a story of human's being able to go through their entire lives suffering from adversity and struggle and being able to get through the misery of life through the happy moments and using their friends and family as support to their difficulties in life. These are the meanings behind this poem and what not.

Long, Too Long America

"Long, Too Long America" is a poem from the "Drum-Taps" section of Walt Whitman's book "Leaves of Grass." The poem was written about the soldiers from the Civil War and their return from war after the tragic war. Whitman had a history of being a nurse to soldiers who were wounded in the Civil War. His brother was wounded in the Civil War and he went to find him and comfort him in his time of need. Instead he found hundreds of wounded soldiers who were in agony and he comforted them as best he could. Doing this he forged a great bound with the men at arms and was greatly drawn to their struggle and their sacrifices.

LONG, too long America,

Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn'd from joys and prosperity only,

But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grap- pling with direst fate and recoiling not,

And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en-masse really are,

(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?) As Oliver wrote, "He has experienced firsthand the bravery of the soldiers both North and South, and he is writing these poems in order to describe the significance of what he has learned." This poem showed the great respect and regard that Whitman held for the men in arms and very little symbolism is used throughout. The main symbol behind the poem is the concept of the everyman and Whitman uses this concept to give the men in the poem character and have the reader emphasize with them. He wrote of the selflessness of the soldiers and the the struggle that America went through. As Oliver wrote

For too long the speaker says in this five-line poem, America has been satisfied with its "joys and prosperity," but now that the Civil War has begun—this "crises [crisis] of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not"—we must "show to the world what your children enmasse really are." The children enmasse are the soldiers returning from war and they are tired from their battle-hardened struggles. They have suffered through hell and back and have come back as weak men who had seen the end of their ropes. They went off to war as boys looking for a thrill and going to seek the glory of war. Whitman saw through this and knew that after the war the boys would be weak and unfit to do anything else.

There are no uses of symbolism in this work as evidenced in Whitman's earlier works, but the message and thought behind the poem are the same as his usual works. He uses the concept of the everyman but there are no mentions of self or relating religion and spirituality into his work. The message of the poem is to pay tribute to those disheartened souls that suffered through the tragic battlegrounds of the Civil War and there own minds to an extent.

Oliver, Charles M. "'Long, too Long America'." Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCWW257&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 7, 2011).

Whitman, Walt. "LONG, TOO LONG AMERICA. (Leaves of Grass [1891-1892])." The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 07 Mar. 2011. .

Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals

"Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals" is a poem written by Whitman that explores more into the author's realm of sexuality and his own personal viewpoints. The poem is a raunchy, lust-filled song that exhibits the odd sexual tendencies that Whitman held and his controversial viewpoints at the time. The poem delivers an odd meaning with many references to sex and Whitman's own often vague sexuality. Despite his religious nature Whitman often delved into the topic of sexuality with little holding him back, as he saw himself as a revolutionary who was in touch with the everyman. He thought that his messages would get across to the common populace and despite the ulterior meanings of his poems he believed that the common man would delve deep into his poems to reveal the meanings just beneath the surface of his poems.

"Ages and ages returning at intervals, Undestroy'd, wandering immortal, Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet, I, chanter of Adamic songs, Through the new garden in the West, the great cities calling, Deliriate, thus prelude what is generated, offering these, offering myself, Bathing myself, bathing my songs in Sex, Offspring of my loins (Whitman.)" As Oliver writes in his thematic analysis of Whitman's poem, "The Adam of the Garden of Eden is, for the poet, "immortal": "Ages and ages returning at intervals, / Undestroy'd, wandering immortal." And sexual: "Lusty, phallic, with the potent original loins, perfectly sweet." And Adam has been reborn in America." Now in my opinion what Whitman is writing is just pure smut and is a glorification of a taboo in our society. It's just rude and awkward to publicly discuss sex and our opinions on sexuality but hey I guess since the critics interpret this stuff as such and say so it must be true. But, I digress, the poem uses original sin and the concept of Adam and Eve as the basis for this work and indeed most poems in the "Children of Adam" section of "Leaves of Grass."

Our first glance of "symbolism" in this work is the line where Whitman mentions "chanter of Adamic songs." This excerpt from the poem uses the Christian tale of the creation of Adam and Eve to demonstrate Whitman as a religious man who viewed the repression of sex by the church as the sin as opposed to the public focus on sex which was not allowed with the Church. Whitman is writing of the spirituality and the true beauty of sex while the church represses these kinds of thoughts and behaviors in it's people claiming that sex for reproduction is the only good kind of sexual relations. There is no relation to Jesus or the everyman in this poem instead the poem takes a rather unorthodox approach to sex and in my opinion completely crosses the line with his focus on the sexual nature of his behaviors and thought process, while people like this critic viewed it as a religious statement. I don't buy that one bit but hey whatever, he's the critic here not me.

Whitman, Walt. "AGES AND AGES RETURNING AT INTERVALS. (Leaves of Grass [1891-1892])." The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. .

Oliver, Charles M. "'Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals'."Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCWW010&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 3, 2011).

Bardic Symbols

Whitman was a very symbolic writer who relied on several symbols and analogies throughout his works. Due to this several of his works have the potential to be misinterpreted as their literal meanings are often not analyzed enough. Although in the critics defense Whitman used some very odd topics to use as symbols in his work, and I mean really who uses kissing their father as an analogy for God. It's just kind of weird and creepy. So yeah the author of the criticism just talks about how nobody can really tell what the ulterior symbols of this poem are and that the literal meaning of the poems are just easier to see and that analyzing the poem itself would be too difficult. The critic just talks about how it's very difficult to analyze the poem and that all in all there is no message behind any of the words behind the poem. The poem is just a literal poem that has no deep symbolic meanings like any of his other poems. It is just a literal poem that Whitman was not able to insert any deep meanings into and thus it just turns out as a creepy poem about Whitman on the beach thinking about life and wanting to kiss his dad. Apparently instead of having an Oedipus Complex like any other male child Whitman got lucky and got the female equivalent in the Elektra complex which is just a bit weird. So all in all this poem was not successful in whatever the heck that Whitman was able trying to get across to the readers, instead he just came across as a creepy old man talking about making out with his dad. I mean that is just weird and I don't really feel like reading about something like this. Despite what people say the poem has no ulterior meanings and it is just a failure of a poem. That is the basic message he critic is trying to get across is that there are no hidden meaning and that the poem is just weird.

The Ship Starting

Whitman wrote "Leaves of Grass" throughout the course of his life and during his lifetime revised it several times until his death. it is a short collection of his poem that rely heavily on his concept of "Self" and draw influences from religion and spirituality, Christianity primarily. He often makes several allusions to God and Christ using common things to represent the two. His poem "The Ship Starting" was included in "Leaves of Grass" and throughout it we find many of the common themes that were characteristics of Whitman's writing style with it's heavy reliance on Christianity and his collective version of the human being which was referred to as his "Self."

"LO! the unbounded sea!

On its breast a ship starting, spreading all her sails---an ample Ship, carrying even her moonsails; The pennant is flying aloft, as she speeds, she speeds so stately---below, emulous waves press forward, They surround the Ship, with shining curving motions, and foam (Whitman.)"

This poem is one of the first poems that the readers finds in "Leaves of Grass" and the symbolism in this poem is rich. The first line introduces the "unbounded sea" which initially seems unimportant but after analyzing the rest of the poem the meaning behind the ship becomes evident. The sea alludes to the Earth, representing the place where the ship sails and the nature of it's sailing. It represents the untamed Earth and the place where the ship must navigate and the passengers must spend their lives navigating without being overcome by it's rough and destructive nature.

The next symbol the reader comes across is the ship. The ship, which spends it's day carrying passengers must navigate the sea, Earth. The ship can thus be representative of the vessel that is humanity. Humans must navigate the course of their lives on Earth and attempt to find their's way. Through Whitman's concept of "Self" we are all one and thus are all one person. This clarifies as to why there are not multiple boats for each individual human and instead there is one large ship for the entire mankind.

The third symbol in the poem are the waves. As Whitman writes the waves carry the ship "emulously" which means it has an innate desire to excel. The ships carry humanity on their mission to excel and to be the best there ever was, which Whitman was a strong proponent of. The waves are thus representative of the collective self and the human desire to become the best. These are the symbols that are used throughout the poem and each one supports the others in ways that allow it to exist or reveal the nature behind each term thus giving away it's greater meaning.

The terms alone in this poem are not much and initially the poem is seen to be about the story of a ship sailing across the ocean. Upon further analysis the real meaning of the poem is evident and the reader finds evidence of Whitman using his well known concept of "Self." Each symbol assists each other in the poem and their meaning are evident from one another.

Whitman, Walt. "11. Ship Starting, The. Whitman, Walt. 1900. Leaves of Grass." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .