Walt Whitman "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" 1856/1881

Encompassing all of societies views
1. Links to Coleridge
  1. Concerned with shared experiences & abilities to transcend barriers of space, morality & generations
  2. Whitman regarded as "Emerson's poet" but the links to Coleridge suggest that he is going against Emerson's theories voiced in "The American Scholar"
2. Repetition & Anaphora
  1. Specifically in sections 1 & 2
    1. "The"/"Others"/"Just"/"Saw"/"Look'd"
  2. Mirrors the theme of constant revisiting & the possibility of continuity within humanity based on common experiences
3. Revisiting as an action which encompasses all humanity
  1. "Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore.../Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross..."
    1. Borad suggestion that all of humanity has the same perspective
  2. "A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them"
    1. Timelessness of journey
Vision & Perspective
1. "It avails not, time nor place-distance avails not"
2. Use of the physical to establish identity
  1. "I too had receiv'd identity by my body,/ that I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should/ be of my body
3. No differentiation between physical/man-made and nature
  1. Similarities in descriptions
    1. "Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, i/was refresh'd"
    2. "Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I/stood yet was hurried"
    3. "Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd/pipes of steamboats, I look'd"
  2. Disruption of continual experience by history & development

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Walt Whitman "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" 1856/1881

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	Created by meg.weal about 11 years ago