Today: Current Events Presentations Intro to Walt Whitman

Current EVENTS: 4-5 minutes (15 points) Present article Provide specific examples from the article Relate to specific quotes directly from the essay Answer the question: What would a transcendentalist say about this article?

Emerson: “The poet has a new thought: he has a whole new experience to unfold; he will tell us how it was with him, and all men will be the richer in his fortune. For, the experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its poet.”

Walt Whitman Inspired by Thoreau and Emerson Believed he was the poet Emerson called for in “The poet.” Said: “The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”

Poetic Form Free Verse Unstructured, no limits on lines/stanzas

Poetic devices to look for: Repetition: (Anaphora) Alliteration: Repeating sounds at the beginning of words Assonance: Repeated vowel sounds Consonance: Repeated consonant sounds Parallel structure: phrases/lines whose pattern is similar Cadence: rising and falling Juxtoposition: two contrasting images, side by side

Devices continued… Metaphors and similes: descriptive comparisons Montage: several brief images, pictures placed side by side for effect Personification Imagery Lists

FREE VERSE A form of Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set fixed metrical pattern 20 th Century poets were pioneers of this which allowed them to break from formula and rigidity of traditional poetry Walt Whitman

Themes/Subjects Romantic view of nature Body and Soul are one Nature is God Rebirth and Regeneration Death is a part of life Symbols of regeneration (grass on graves) Value of the Everyday Dignity of the common person/labor Power of Poetry to transcend time Speaks to future generations

Homework Italie essay on Whitman; annotate key ideas (bottom of article) Read and annotate: “I Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing”