This piece from specimen days was nostalgic. That was the sense I got from it any way. He is looking back as he says, "The Yellow-birds, the Red-birds, the original Broadway, the Fourth avenue, the Knickerbocker, and a dozen others of twenty or thirty years ago, are all gone." From there the writing has that very nostalgic feeling and all the positive memories that go with it. I myself have met a rare handful of bus drivers that I have liked, but Whitman loves them all in this passage. He loves them for their half true stories or carnal desires as he ponders on the conversations he has had with them.
He then puts them in the context of great writers like Cervantes Homer and Shakespeare, claiming they would be great subjects for such artists. The driver as subject with his stories and character provides more of that Whitmanian tradition of celebrating the low and the high together. The driver provides subject matter and becomes a muse for great art, and in turn great art is created for and around the driver.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Vivas to those who have failed
"Vivas to those who have failed, and to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea,/ and those themselves who sank in the sea,/ And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes, and numberless/ unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known."
We often remember heroes more for their deeds than for their deaths, and understandably so. We like to remember them for what they did not how they died. But I find their is a certain beauty in the last moments of hero. His struggle before the fall as he stands for one last round prepared to defend his beliefs. Whitman captures the essence of that beauty in this section. He raises the memories of forgotten heroes "equal to the greatest heroes," the one's who's resolve and beliefs were equal to that of the victor. And in this passage is that sense of melancholy grace that the loser of battle exudes, such as the felling one gets from Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade." As an aesthetic sense I find it greatly moving, and as a celebration of life through loss I believe these lines have touched on an important subject that Whitman does not fear to celebrate.
Whitman's celebration of these fallen and losers is a celebration of himself and through him it is a celebration of ourselves as we struggle daily and constantly lose. That is my favorite part about these lines. The sense that even though we suffer constant losses, for not everyone can win all the time, we should be glad to have them. It proves we are living and that there is still a chance to improve from their. The Fallen "Heroes" of this poem teach us about resolve as they put their lives on the line for their beliefs they should indeed be celebrated.
We often remember heroes more for their deeds than for their deaths, and understandably so. We like to remember them for what they did not how they died. But I find their is a certain beauty in the last moments of hero. His struggle before the fall as he stands for one last round prepared to defend his beliefs. Whitman captures the essence of that beauty in this section. He raises the memories of forgotten heroes "equal to the greatest heroes," the one's who's resolve and beliefs were equal to that of the victor. And in this passage is that sense of melancholy grace that the loser of battle exudes, such as the felling one gets from Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade." As an aesthetic sense I find it greatly moving, and as a celebration of life through loss I believe these lines have touched on an important subject that Whitman does not fear to celebrate.
Whitman's celebration of these fallen and losers is a celebration of himself and through him it is a celebration of ourselves as we struggle daily and constantly lose. That is my favorite part about these lines. The sense that even though we suffer constant losses, for not everyone can win all the time, we should be glad to have them. It proves we are living and that there is still a chance to improve from their. The Fallen "Heroes" of this poem teach us about resolve as they put their lives on the line for their beliefs they should indeed be celebrated.
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