Walt Whitmans lifetime is The Book Leaves of Grass - Essay Example

Walt Whitman’s lifetime is The Book Leaves of Grass Any text that is assigned as class reading usually turns out to be a bore unless one can actually relate to it and understand it. The most famous work of Walt Whitman’s lifetime is the book Leaves of Grass that was edited throughout his life, originally starting off with just twelve poems but, by the time of his death, it had around four hundred poems. One of these includes “I Hear America Singing” which remains popular to this day because of the above mentioned reason. The poem celebrates the life of the common people of America: every man, woman or child, they have their own talent and their own song for it; they rejoice in their work and take pride in it. These are the people who make the country. It is their hard work in their respective areas of interest which results in a prosperous America. The land is so vast and widespread, it consists of a variety of people who live their own different lives and yet all of them stand united for their country. In his poem, Whitman makes sure to include the people of all genders and age groups. He mentions men and boys, women and girls, all of whom are busy with their own jobs. There is “the carpenter singing”, “the (ploughboy) on his way in the morning”, “the young wife at work” and “the girl sewing or washing” and they are all “singing what belongs to him or her and to none else” [Whi55]. America is huge and consists of thousands of people who are different in their own way. Dividing them in such a manner only seems to give a sense of uniformity. It shows that no matter what the age and sex of the person, everyone is important because of the contributions that they make to the society. They are all responsible for the condition of the country for they are the ones who run it. Separately, they do their own jobs but put together, they help in the development of the country. In particular, Whitman treats both the genders equally which is surprising considering the time period this poem was written in but this revolutionized thinking is one of the things that he is most known for. He writes about “the delicious singing of the mother”, singling out the occupation in particular because of the depth of its importance [Whi55]. Some people may argue that the poem is about the working class and that a line about a mother should not have been included. Giving birth to a child and then bringing him up may not be an official employment but it is a much more important job for which the mothers are not even being paid. Without the women giving birth to the children, there would be no workforce to speak of. With no people, there would be no nation, no America. He also writes about “the girl sewing or washing” not because these are generally accepted to be the roles to be played by the females, but because of the truth that it is the men who do the muscular work so it is easy to assign the job of cleaning to the females, especially those who are just young girls [Whi55]. Of course, this cannot be counted for every individual – there are some muscular women the same way there are men who do not have much strength – but generally, this is the case. Regardless, all the jobs require the workers’ hard work, they just happen to choose those which seem to suit them best. In fact, it is a good thing that despite their young age, the girls are so actively involved in making their country a better place. They are doing whatever they can do to help. It also must be noticed that the jobs that Whitman mentions in his poem are all hands on. He writes about “the shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands” [Whi55]. The men are either rowing their boat back and fro or the girls are busy sewing clothes. All these jobs are laborious; they require the person to use a lot of not only their time but also their physical strength. There are no offices or talk of businessmen doing their desk jobs; instead there are fields and streams, the common folk are working out in the real world amongst nature. Normally, the people doing what are considered to be menial tasks are looked down upon but Whitman writes his poem as a salute to them. They are doing the jobs which are not considered to be important when, in fact, they are. Without them, the higher class would not be where they were, America would not be progressing. If there were no farmers growing the crops to feed the entire country, there would be no point to the riches of the businessmen. The money was of no use if they could not buy themselves some food and without provisions, they would have no strength to do any work even if their job was to just do some paper work or order other people to do the work. Whitman portrays these people as being profoundly happy and satisfied with the work that they do. He hears “varied carols” including “those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong” [Whi55]. They are all singing as they carry on with their daily tasks because of the joy they get in what they are doing. Also, it must be considered their work place surroundings do not require them to follow a set of strict rules about their behavior which would have made their jobs boring and tedious. They would have lost interest in their jobs and, as a result, produced floppy work. However, luckily that is not the case; the Americans sing as they work, giving their best to whatever task is assigned to them. It might seem unprofessional to the white-collar workers as it is in extreme contrast to their working conditions but singing makes the workers happy and that makes their work even better. All in all, it is for the better of America. Looking into the content of the poem aside, we may never be able to thank Whitman enough for bringing forward the idea of free verse. This poem is flawlessly written and yet it does not follow the traditional methods of poetry writing – there are no meter or musical patterns. Each verse of his first stanza ends with “I hear”, “blithe and strong”, “plank or beam”, “leaves of work” and “steamboat deck” [Whi55]. He does not stick to a particular format; his words do not always rhyme. Instead, there is a lot of repetition which works in his favor because it reinforces what he is saying. The easy language that he uses allows even those possessing the simplest of minds to connect to the content of the poem. Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” is a glorious piece of work which envisions a nation that is progressing because of the hard work of its people. America consists of people who try their utmost to give back to their homeland by all the tasks that they do. He gives importance to every person who has a hand in the betterment of the society irrespective of their age or gender. Everyone has their own respective jobs of high or low position but it is because of their togetherness that the country is moving ahead in the world. Bibliography Whi55: , (Whitman 33), Read More