Whitman's the Man

Whitman on Whitman

When looking at Walt Whitman's journal it was cool to give me an insight into his mind as I can not ask him questions about his writing because he is no longer alive. The primary source gives me a glimpse into the mind of Whitman. At first, the document was hard to read because of the quality and the fact that it was in cursive, which I haven't read all the time since third grade when I went to private school. As I kept going though I could start to understand what was written and could start to make my own opinions onto what he was saying. I could make out to what I think are names and addresses which are maybe things that he would base some of his poems off of in order to have inspiration. I also noticed the word "dialogue" which maybe shows that he was basing his poems of off people around him. On the next page, I could make out the words religious which can show why he had so many religious contexts into his works and poems. Another word I could make out was "liberated" which shows somewhat his pieces. The sketches were also cool to look at because it showed how he viewed the world and the people around him.

I found it also really cool to look at the notes of his journal. Seeing the names explained on the notes were so cool because it allowed me to see that the names were inspirations for not only his poems but his life itself. Looking at this made me realize that Walt Whitman was a very people oriented person and he focused on the friends around him. He also took a lot of things to heart and looked at peoples feelings and wanted to help, which was seen with the first time he saw Lincoln and his description of him. It was cool to see that he has Stamps from the Library of Congress. I also didn't notice the "And You: until the notes which shows he took notes on things that would soon become the name of his poems. 

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 7, 2019 at 6:02 PM

    Hey Hannah. I liked the informal tone you used in this post. However, this blog post seemed to lack true effort. It also seemed to be more of a commentary of what you were going to do rather than actually doing it. Some of the sentences lacked content that was relevant. On top of that the blog post was quite short. This led to a somewhat superficial analysis. Next post I would encourage you to increase the sentences of analysis you have.

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  2. Emi ReganApril 7, 2019 at 6:33 PM

    Hey Hannah, nice blog post! I had very similar observations as you did for Whitman's journal such as certain words I was able to make out and the drawings. I think you did a ood job of analyzing how the journal reflected some of his poems and what his inspirations for them were. Good job!

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  3. AnonymousApril 7, 2019 at 7:12 PM

    Good blog post overall. I fully understand the challenges you had reading the cursive writing that Whitman used. Not only was it in cursive, but his handwriting in general could have been bested by Helen Keller! Hard to read material, but it looks like you were able to efficiently analyze some of the words he wrote in order to find out why he wrote them. What you had to say about the notes was also interesting to read, as it was very informational surrounding real things that happened to Whitman. Good job, and only one more post to go!

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