Poetry Webquest

Poetry Webquest

Questions:   

  Walt Whitman was an American poet during the transcendentalist movement.  This movement was founded on the idea that reflection and examination of one's self would ultimately lead to choosing the correct decisions in life and living a more harmonious life.  Also, the movement thought of political institutions, and other large groups, as corruptions to society; people were naturally good however large groups could blind them from living a good life.  

     This form of poetry broke from the traditional style of writing for the time.  In the past, writings were religious or stuck strictly to society's social attitudes.  However, transcendentalism broke from that tradition by portraying more liberal ideas about religion, i.e. they were oppressive, and that modern day society was corrupt.  This transcendentalist style of breaking societal traditions suggests that Whitman did not always agree with what society said.  Examples of this stem from the fact that Whitman was a religious skeptic and was a homosexual; two ideas that, at the time were not popular.  His personal beliefs helped Whitman develop a writing style that was free; it did not obey traditional rules from the timeperiod.  

     As a Civil War veteran, I may disagree with Whitman's notion that people are naturally good.  By seeing men killing each other on a battlefield over the issue of slavery of other humans, it is hard for me to agree that people are good.  However, I may agree with Whitman's ideaology that groups of people corrupt the populous.  Without plantations or southern forms of government, slavery might not have lasted and war wouldn't have been possible.  In this way, I could understand Whitman's thinking that institutions of power corrupt society.  

     Despite seeing America at its worst, Whitman thought of America as a great land full of potential.  He even wrote that "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem."  This quote symbolizes his belief that America was a great land of liberty and opportunity and, with more free-thinking, could expand into an even greater nation.  

     

Essential Question:

     Poetry can help us in our lives by giving us a voice for our concerns and problems.  Instead of keeping feelings bottled up, we can either express them through our own composition of poetry or by reading styles of poetry that relate to our feelings at the time.  

Poem:

Teeming with life, these cities sprawl all around.

Jumping with life, immoral as it is, these cities fill with people who

carry on with their unfounded traditions; dogmas

If only they could see the true value of life:

Life is not for following social order;

life is about living!

Why cling to traditions that only entrap you like a bird in a cage?

Be free! 

Fly away into the great America that awaits you.

This land, this continent, is full of room to roam

full of space to come into your own thought.

No longer, I say, stay founded in your stict beliefs

Look into yourself, your heart

There lies the truth to life; a truth lost on so many today.

Life is about living!