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Walt WhitmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The form is prototypical Whitman—that is, entirely like Whitman and entirely unlike any other poetry of his era. At first read, there is a stabilizing form: two five-line stanzas (called quintains), each stanza actually a single sentence, separated by function—the first centered on the spider, the other an explication of that image. The lines themselves, however, defy expectations. They develop their argument according to the argument itself. In the opening stanza, about the spider and its web, the tidy lines match the relatively narrow range of the image. In the second stanza, when the poem celebrates the reach of the soul into the cosmos itself, the lines explode, reflecting that feverish energy. The lines are longer, sinewy, and tensile like the “ductile anchor” (Line 9), the rich webbing the soul sends out.
Thus, the poem is not so much free verse—that suggests chaos and carelessness—but rather organic verse. In truth, Whitman’s unconventional message of the immanence of eternity and the essential connectivity of all elements of the cosmos could hardly be contained, much less expressed, in traditional, conventional poetic forms. Even as the noiseless, patient spider sends reels and reels of filament out in the universe, busting through the apparent smallness of its frame and the insignificance of its actions, the poet himself proclaims his own position in the cosmos, the reward of his constant restless questioning and his refusal to accept the status quo in poetic form that reflects that empowerment.
By Walt Whitman
A Glimpse
A Glimpse
Walt Whitman
America
America
Walt Whitman
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
For You O Democracy
For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Hear America Singing
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman