After reading Whitman’s poem, I was surprised to see how much some one
could get out of riding a ferry. I’ve personally been on ferries and have not
given it as much thought and meaning as Walt Whitman did. In the first part of
his poem he writes “And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence
are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.” By using
the word you in this line, he makes the poem more personal as if he is speaking
to the reader. This line seems important to the entire poem because in it he is
saying that the reader, along with everyone who will ride the ferry in the
future is somehow connected, which is one if the themes throughout the entire
poem. In the fifth stanza, lines 3-7 are of him describing something that the
reader has in common with him. Like when he writes, “Just as you feel when you
look on the river and sky, so I felt./ Just as any if you is one of a living
crowd, I was one of a crowd.” His repetition of the phrase “just as you” shows
that he wants the reader to feel as though everyone who rides the ferry will
have something in common. Whitman spends a lot of time in the beginning of his
poem describing the scene around him, specifically the water and its movements.
For example, “Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the
falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.” He is very descriptive and he makes
sure that the reader knows exactly what he is describing by his use of
figurative language. His style of writing is not exactly clear. He does not
rhyme but he does use repetition in some stanzas, although he isn’t consistent
with that pattern throughout the rest of the poem. Every line in his 3rd
stanza begins with “The”, in the 4th with “Others” and so on. He
doesn’t seem to repeat in any specific order, but when he does use repetition
he is being very descriptive. He also uses personification to bee descriptive.
One of his personifications that stood out to me was “Stand up, tall masts of
Mannahatta! Stand up beautiful hills of Brooklyn!” In this line I also noticed
that he misspelled Manhattan and I wondered what the purpose of that was.
1 comment:
I agree with you that he does show some sort of connection between humans that is themed throughout the entire poem. Although his style of writing does seem to be unclear I like how you were still able to point out certain things that seemed familiar to you and was able to explain it. I too did wonder why he misspelled Manhattan but I chose to not bring it up.
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