We're reading "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman in my American Romanticism class. Some of it's repetitive, and I'll admit, boring to me. But then there are parts that grab my attention and completely absorb me into delicious reverie for their beauty and imagery. I love where he speaks of trying to explain to a child what grass is. My favorite line from that section is: "And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves." The parts where he talks about nature and the physical world are my favorite.
Whitman's poetry has a relaxed feel to it, but then there are parts that are graphic and grotesque: "The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom, It is so. . . . I witnessed the corpse. . . . there the pistol had fallen." The juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness is unnerving to read, and it gives the poem a random, disjointed feel to it.
Whitman's poetry has a relaxed feel to it, but then there are parts that are graphic and grotesque: "The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom, It is so. . . . I witnessed the corpse. . . . there the pistol had fallen." The juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness is unnerving to read, and it gives the poem a random, disjointed feel to it.
But my favorite quote of all would have to be: "Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sunrise would kill me, If I could not now and always send sunrise out of me." I think I'll paint it on my wall, in addition to the Jonathan Safran Foer quote. Do you think the two authors would object to their works being mingled in such a fashion?
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