Introduction Main body

Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring form, color, perfume to you,
If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers, fruits, tall branches and trees.
If the other poems are to be read as anything but a discussion of poetry, it has to be admitted that "Calamus" is not unified, that Whitman's action in preserving it essentially unchanged through all the successive editions of Leaves of Grass was pointless. It is of course undeniable that there is a great deal of homosexual imagery in "Calamus" or that the poems deal with intensely personal emotions. But "Calamus" represents one of the ways in which Walt Whitman artistically transcended his personality, fused and trans­muted the raw material of emotion into a unity which is no longer a discussion, celebration, or a confession of that raw material but an entirely new entity with a coherence and vitality of its own. And it is only by reading "Calamus" in this way that its rich fullness can be savored.

Walt Whitman as a poet of democracy.

Whitman is not only the greatest poet of America but also one of the greatest poets of the world. Democracy is the keynote of his poetry. In his poetry we find newness. As a revolutionary poet he gives voice to the new urges and aspirations of man in an age of science and democracy. His contribution to the American poetry is praiseworthy. He earned wide acclaim for his technical innovations.
Whitman is a great democracy. He is considered as the greatest poet of American democracy. A faith in the inherent dignity and nobility of the common man is the very root and basis of Whitman's democracy. In his view all men and women are equal and all professions are equally honourable. Whitman laid stress on liberty, fraternity and brotherhood. Without these ideals there is no question of democracy. In his poems Whitman celebrates himself. But the self-celebration is the celebration of himself as a man and an American. This makes him at once the poet of democracy and the poet of America. In fact, Whitman's democracy is ideal and universal. The body of his thought is nationalistic. His democracy is spiritual too. It is because he sees in democracy the possibilities of universal peace, tolerance and brotherhood. To conclude, Whitman is not a mere idealist, a theorist of democracy but his democracy is practical. His ideal of democracy is essentially pragmatic and earthbound. Whitman is the most revolutionary of poets. He is a revolutionary not only in the matters of versification but he is equally a revolutionary in regard to the subject matter. His treatment of love and sex is equally revolutionary. This treatment is frank and realistic. He again and again asserts that he is the poet of the body and the soul both. For such treatment he has been called a believer in the flesh and appetites, gross and sensual. His 'Leaves of Grass' is avowedly the song of sex. As a serious student of love and sex Whitman deeply explored the psychology of love and sex. Sexual imagery runs through his book. He does not hesitate to sing of love outside marriage, even of casual sex-encounters and homosexuality. But a careful reading reveals that all this sexuality has been sublimated and philosophised. Like all mystics he conceives of God as his beloved. The sex-encounters are the poet's meetings with his Maker. The body is glorified because it has been created by the divine. Sex is conceived of as energy and as the life force. Whitman is as much a poet of science as of democracy. This is seen in his frequent references to the theories of inventions of science. In Whitman's poetry we come across repeated references to scientists, engineers, technicians, architects, inventors and others. In 'Song of the Open Root' Whitman gives expression to the Darwinian theory of the continuous struggle for existence. The scientific theory that matter is indestructible has been expressed in 'Song of Myself'. Whitman believed in the deterministic theory. He believes that whatever has been created has its significance. Nothing that has been created is useless. Even the evil has also its place and significance. That's why the poet shows his interest in the body along with the soul. Nothing is really evil or trivial and worthless. Therefore, he sings of the entire expanse of the round globe.
Union, equality, human dignity and progress are major themes of Whitman's poetry. Whitman is the most uncompromising champion of democracy, liberty, equality, fraternity and brotherhood in the annals of American poetry. The idea of union attains a great height in the theme of death. His 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed' deals with the death of Abraham Lincoln, leader and hero of American democracy. In his handling of his theme, Whitman is the undoubted forerunner of the poetry of socialism. Whitman was the first to introduce the theme of labour into poetry. Whitman is a great technical innovator. His poetry was a new kind of poetry. It deals with new themes and ideas. Thus it required a new kind of language. In order to increase the expressive range of his language, he freely used words taken from the life of trade, commerce and business of the average American. He compounded and coined words. He imported words from foreign language. He did not even hesitate to use slangy and colloquial words. He was symbolist long before symbolism became a conscious movement in Europe. His poetry is highly symbolic. He used symbolism to communicate his apprehension of the mystery of the universe.
Walt Whitman - The Poetry of the Future.
Strange as it may seem, the topmost proof of a race is its own born poetry. The presence of that, or the absence, each tells its story. As the flowering rose or lily, as the ripened fruit to a tree, the apple or the peach, no matter how fine the trunk, or copious or rich the branches and foliage, here waits sine qua non at last. The stamp of entire and finished greatness to any nation, to the American Republic among the rest, must be sternly withheld till it has expressed itself, and put what it stands for in the blossom of original, first-class poems. No imitations will do. And though no esthetik worthy the present condition or future certainties of the New World seems to have been even outlined in men's minds, * or has been generally called for, or thought needed, I am clear that until the United States have just such definite and native expressers in the highest artistic fields, their mere political, geographical, wealth-forming, and even intellectual eminence, however astonishing and predominant, will constitute (as I have before likened it) a more and more expanded and well-appointed body, and perhaps brain, with little or no soul. Sugar-coat the grim truth as we may, and ward off with outward plausible words, denials, explanations, to the mental inward perception of the land this blank is plain. A barren void exists. For the meanings and maturer purposes of these States are not the constructing of a new world of politics merely, and physical comforts for the million, but even more determinedly, in range with science and the modern, of a new world of democratic sociology and imaginative literature. If the latter were not carried out and established to form their only permanent tie and hold, the first-named would be of little avail. With the poems of a first-class land are twined, as weft with warp, its types of personal character, of individuality, peculiar, native, its own physiognomy, man's and woman's, its own shapes, forms, and manners, fully justified under the eternal laws of all forms, all manners, all times. I say the hour has come for democracy in America to inaugurate itself in the two directions specified, – autochthonic poems and personalities, – born expressers of itself, its spirit alone, to radiate in subtle ways, not only in art, but the practical and familiar, in the transactions between employers and employed persons, in business and wages, and sternly in the army and navy, and revolutionizing them. I find nowhere a scope profound enough, and radical and objective enough, either for aggregates or individuals. The thought and identity of a poetry in America to fill, and worthily fill, the great void, and enhance these aims, involves the essence and integral facts, real and spiritual, of the whole land, the whole body. What the great sympathetic is to the congeries of bones and joints, and heart and fluids and nervous system, and vitality, constituting, launching forth in time and space a human being – aye, an immortal soul – in such relation, and no less, stands true poetry to the single personality or to the nation. Here our thirty-eight States stand to-day, the children of past precedents, and, young as they are, heirs of a very old estate. One or two points we will consider, out of the myriads presenting themselves. The feudalism of the British Islands, illustrated by Shakespeare, and by his legitimate followers, Walter Scott and Alfred Tennyson, with all its tyrannies, superstitions, evils, had most superb and heroic permeating veins, poems, manners – even its errors fascinating. It almost seems as if only that feudalism in Europe, like slavery in our own South, could outcrop types of tallest, noblest personal character yet – strength and devotion and love better than elsewhere – invincible courage, generosity, aspiration, the spines of all. Here is where Shakespeare and the others I have named perform a service incalculably precious to our America. Politics, literature, and everything else centers at last in perfect personnel (as democracy is to find the same as the rest); and here feudalism is unrivaled – here the rich and highest-rising lessons it bequeaths us – a mass of precious, though foreign, nutriment, which we are to work over, and popularize, and enlarge, and present again in Western growths.
Still, there are pretty grave and anxious drawbacks, jeopardies, fears. Let us give some reflections on the subject, a little fluctuating, but starting from one central thought, and returning there again. Two or three curious results may plow up. As in the astronomical laws, the very power that would seem most deadly and destructive turns out to be latently conservative of longest, vastest future births and lives. Let us for once briefly examine the just-named authors solely from a Western point of view. It may be, indeed, that we shall use the sun of English literature, and the brightest current stars of his system, mainly as pegs to hang some cogitations on, for home inspection. As depicter and dramatist of the passions at their stormiest outstretch, though ranking high, Shakespeare (spanning the arch wide enough) is equaled by several, and excelled by the best old Greeks (as Æschylus). But in portraying the mediæval lords and barons, the arrogant port and stomach so dear to the inmost human heart (pride! pride! dearest, perhaps, of all – touching us, too, of the States closest of all – closer than love), he stands alone, and I do not wonder he so witches the world. From first to last, also, Walter Scott and Tennyson, like Shakespeare, exhale that principle of caste which we Americans have come on earth to destroy. Jefferson's criticism on the Waverly novels was that they turned and condensed brilliant but entirely false lights and glamours over the lords, ladies, courts, and aristocratic institutes of Europe, with all their measureless infamies, and then left the bulk of the suffering, down-trodden people contemptuously in the shade. Without stopping to answer this hornet-stinging criticism, or to repay any part of the debt of thanks I owe, in common with every American, to the noblest, healthiest, cheeriest romancer that ever lived, I pass on to Tennyson and his works. Poetry here of a very high (perhaps the highest) order of verbal melody, exquisitely clean and pure, and almost always perfumed, like the tuberose, to an extreme of sweetness – sometimes not, however, but even then a camellia of the hot-house, never a common flower – the verse of elegance and high-life, and yet preserving amid all its super-delicatesse a smack of outdoors [198] and outdoor folk – the old Norman lordhood quality here, too, crossed with that Saxon fiber from which twain the best current stock of England springs—poetry that revels above all things in traditions of knights and chivalry, and deeds of derring-do. The odor of English social life in its highest range – a melancholy, affectionate, very manly, but dainty breed – pervading the books like an invisible scent; the idleness, the traditions, the mannerisms, the stately ennui; the yearning of love, like a spinal marrow inside of all; the costumes, old brocade and satin; the old houses and furniture, – solid oak, no mere veneering, – the moldy secrets everywhere; the verdure, the ivy on the walls, the moat, the English landscape outside, the buzzing fly in the sun inside the window pane. Never one democratic page; nay, not a line, not a word; never free and naïve poetry, but involved, labored, quite sophisticated – even when the theme is ever so simple or rustic (a shell, a bit of sedge, the commonest love-passage between a lad and lass), the handling of the rhyme all showing the scholar and conventional gentleman; showing the Laureate, too, the attaché of the throne, and most excellent, too; nothing better through the volumes than the dedication "To the Queen" at the beginning, and the other fine dedication, "These to his Memory" (Prince Albert's), preceding "Idylls of the King." Such for an off-hand summary of the mighty three that now, by the women, men, and young folk of the fifty millions given these States by their late census, have been and are more read than all others put together.
We hear it said, both of Tennyson and the other current leading literary illustrator of Great Britain, Carlyle, – as of Victor Hugo in France, – that not one of them is personally friendly or admirant toward America; indeed, quite the reverse. N'importe. That they (and more good minds than theirs) cannot span the vast revolutionary arch thrown by the United States over the centuries, fixed in the present, launched to the endless future; that they cannot stomach the high-life-below-stairs coloring all our poetic and genteel social status so far – the measureless viciousness of the great radical republic, with its ruffianly nominations and elections; its loud, ill-pitched voice, utterly regardless whether the verb agrees with the nominative; its fights, errors, eructations, repulsions, dishonesties, audacities; those fearful and varied and long continued storm and stress stages (so offensive to the well-regulated college-bred mind) wherewith nature, history, and time block out nationalities more powerful than the past, and to upturn it and press on to the future; – that they cannot understand and fathom all this, I say, is it to be wondered at? Fortunately, the gestation of our thirty-eight empires (and plenty more to come) proceeds on its course, on scales of area and velocity immense and absolute as the globe, and, like the globe itself, quite oblivious even of great poets and thinkers. But we can by no means afford to be oblivious of them. The same of feudalism, its castles, courts, etiquettes, wars, personalities. However they, or the spirits of them hovering in the air, might scowl and glower at such removes as current Kansas or Kentucky life and forms, the latter may by no means repudiate or leave out the former. Allowing all the evil that it did, we get, here and to-day, a balance of good out of its reminiscence almost beyond price⁷. Am I content, then, that the general interior chyle of our republic should be supplied and nourished by wholesale from foreign and antagonistic sources such as these? Let me answer that question briefly: Years ago I thought Americans ought to strike out separate, and have expressions of their own in highest literature. I think so still, and more decidedly than ever. But those convictions are now strongly tempered by some additional points (perhaps the results of advancing age, or the reflections of invalidism). I see that this world of the West, as part of all, fuses inseparably with the East, and with all, as time does – the ever new, yet old, old human race – "the same subject continued," as the novels of our grandfathers had it for chapter-heads. If we are not to hospitably receive and complete the inaugurations of the old civilizations, and change their small scale to the largest, broadest scale, what on earth are we for?
The currents of practical business in America, the rude, coarse, tussling facts of our lives, and all their daily experiences, need just the precipitation and tincture of this entirely different fancy world of lulling, contrasting, even feudalistic, anti-republican poetry and romance. On the enormous outgrowth of our unloosed individualities, and the rank self-assertion of humanity here, may well fall these grace-persuading, recherché influences. We first require that individuals and communities shall be free; then surely comes a time when it is requisite that they shall not be too free. Although to such result in the future I look mainly for a great poetry native to us, these importations till then will have to be accepted, such as they are, and thankful they are no worse. The inmost spiritual currents of the present time curiously revenge and check their own compelled tendency to democracy, and absorption in it, by marked leanings to the past – by reminiscences in poems, plots, operas, novels, to a far-off, contrary, deceased world, as if they dreaded the great vulgar gulf tides of to-day. Then what has been fifty centuries growing, working in, and accepted as crowns and apices for our kind, is not going to be pulled down and discarded in a hurry. It is, perhaps, time we paid our respects directly to the honorable party, the real object of these preambles. But we must make reconnaissance a little further still. Not the least part of our lesson were to realize the curiosity and interest of friendly foreign experts, * and how our situation looks to them. "American poetry," says the London "Times," † "is the poetry of apt pupils, but it is afflicted from first to last with a fatal want of raciness. Bryant has been long passed as a poet by Professor Longfellow; but in Longfellow, with all his scholarly grace and tender feeling, the defect is more apparent than it was in Bryant. Mr. Lowell can overflow with American humor when politics inspire his muse; but in the realm of pure poetry he is no more American than a Newdigate prize-man. Joaquin Miller's verse has fluency and movement and harmony, but as for the thought, his songs of the sierras might as well have been written in Holland."

Walt Whitman: Poems Whitman's influence on American writers and leaders.

Walter Whitman wore many names throughout his life and posthumously. When Whitman was born, his parents shortened his given name to Walt, paying homage to, and yet differentiating him from, the father whose name he bore. As a freelance writer, Whitman often signed his pages with the pseudonym, Mose Velsor. Since gaining acclaim later in life, and thereafter, he’s been called everything from the Bard of Democracy to the Father of Free Verse. Today, the name that appears on his works—Walt Whitman—has taken on novel connotations, serving as a byword for early Western poetic notions of the transcendental and physical; as one who strived to be unabashedly true, a realist reveling in the everyday and the common, championing the other while claiming everyone, as well as himself—warts and all. "I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume," he tells us in the poem, Song of Myself, "for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
The Influence of Emerson and a Young Nation. For Whitman, I would argue the moniker he felt the most comfortable donning was, simply, Poet. And that he took this name very seriously. Some say it was Emerson, in an 1842 New York lecture that Whitman attended entitled The Poet, that made him acutely aware of its weight—made all the heavier by the context in which the cloth was cut. "We have yet had no genius in America… [who knows] the value of our [seemingly] incomparable materials, and saw, in the barbarism and materialism of the times, another carnival of the same gods whose picture he so much admires in [the greats]," Emerson said at the time. "Our logrolling, our stumps and their politics, our fisheries, our Negroes, and Indians, our boats, and our repudiations… are yet unsung. Yet America is a poem in our eyes." And so it seemed to many who called themselves Americans. Two generations removed from Great Britain and her baggage, the New World was as a blank page or canvas, with all the potential and uncertainty that entails—which Whitman himself was witness to from the Civil War, where he volunteered as a nurse on the battlefield, on through Reconstruction and the nation's slow and contested shift from a largely slave-based agrarian system to an industrial one. With the precarious state of America and the rise of transcendentalist philosophy inspiring his thought—and the literary celebrities to come from it serving as evidence—Whitman knew that the artist, more than ever, was in a unique position to sing a song and pen a verse to tomorrow, today, all the while acknowledging the negligibility of critics in the face of what is genuine. "Has it never occurr’d to anyone how the last deciding tests applicable to a book are entirely outside of technical and grammatical ones, and that any truly first-class production has little or nothing to do with the rules and calibres of ordinary critics? or the bloodless chalk of Allibone’s Dictionary?," Whitman writes in an excerpt from a journal found in the book Specimen Days & Collect.
Tapping Into the Past to Create the Future. Art is often said to recreate life. While this is true for this writer, and I believe for Whitman, it is as Oscar Wilde penned in his dialectic The Decay Of Lying, "Life imitates Art, far more than Art imitates Life" or at least, ought to; the richest art acts more as a reflective window which, from a distance, functions as a looking glass, broadcasting back the image of the day; but, up close, reveals new and impressionable views. The reason we still sing Whitman’s Song—what has allowed him, his contemporaries, and the names of those they inspired to still usher forth from our mouths, as prophets and visionaries—is the fact that they understood both the function of the artist in society and the nature of the craft. Just as the young America was doing, they towed the line between convention and invention, erecting their own edifices using the scaffolding of the past. Whitman walked this line with the gusto of a trapeze artist, the ornateness of a preacher, and the guile and determination of an entrepreneur. Whitman's seminal work, Leaves of Grass, reads as much as a religious text or metaphysical treatise as it does a book of poems. In the vein of a sage, Whitman tells us "past and present and future [for the poet] are not disjoined but joined. The greatest poet forms the consistence of what is to be from what has been and is. He drags the dead out of their coffins and stands them again on their feet… says to the past, 'Rise and walk before me that I may realize you'… places himself where the future becomes present." Apart from Whitman's Eastern-derived transcendentalist thought, echoes and allusions to both the Old and New Testament, and their themes, sound throughout the pages of Leaves of Grass. The former in its national overarching thread, the latter in its focus on the individual, and both in the redefining of identity. This was, arguably, all intentional; as was Whitman's steadfast commitment to making his book accessible to the masses in form and shamelessly casting it into the light by any means (publishing the first edition himself, writing his own favorable reviews under aliases, and slapping a private letter of praise from Emerson onto its second printing without his consent). Whitman and those artists whose worlds we continue to peer into for inspiration realized artistic expression is just as contingent on the old as it is the new; that you need to lean on the rules to bend and break them; that the strength of a piece lies more in the reconfiguration of the parts gifted to one through their "I" and eyes, rather than wholly reinventing the wheel and blindly reaching into the ether. Like Nietzsche’s Madman, Whitman made his proclamation. He knew, as in the Parable, that in a sense, he had come too soon. But just as Nietzsche did, Whitman understood this always appears to be the case, and maintained his artistic proselytizing until his death, out of the belief that he might help to carve a higher lane—despite those contesting, or blind to its coming. "Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged," Whitman writes in the conclusion to his life’s work, Leaves Of Grass. "Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."

Conclusion.

Poets are known for their outstanding poetic styles as well as their core concerns in the society. As one specializes in poetry, chances are that as a poet he or she will evaluate the various available styles and finally settle on the one they consider the best. The same poet will also tend to be inclined and only write about particular types of issues in society which may include love, civil wars, politics as well as religion. This was more common with early poets and each poet had a trademark poetic style as well as a particular interest in society. Once the poet chooses a particular line of specialization, say love, then the whole of the poet’s literary works would be about love and nothing else. Subsequently, poets chose between free verse poetry and stanzas. The choice of style was majorly affected by the region of origin and as a matter of fact, most American poets advocated for free verse while British poets seemed more comfortable with poems in stanzas.⁸ Walt Whitman was a renowned American poet who also worked as a teacher and a journalist besides poetry. These occupations placed him in command of large linguistics as well as literary knowledge. Some authors and poets refer to him as the “The King of American poetry” due to his poetic prowess. Furthermore, he is remembered for adherence to the American free verse style of poetry and also regarded as the father of American modern and democratic poetry. During his period, Whitman was known for his opposition to the spread of slavery in America as he advocated for the inclusion of African-Americans in the American legislative system (Reynolds 30). His literary works are characterized by romantic, political and social thematic concerns. He emphasized the relationship between poetry and society and in most cases opted to use the average common personas in his verses rather than the usual heroic personas. In line with this, most of his works make use of the first person narration or omnipresent narrators. Another outstanding feature of his poetry is the musicality in his rhymes. In fact, he is ranked among poets with the highest number of literary works that have been set to music by a large number of composers. The diction in his verses is such that the musicality in the articles clearly comes out. The subject matter of the verse is about human love for nature. However, the themes are indirectly presented in that one needs an in-depth analysis in order to get the subject matter in question. Most poets employ this strategy to capture the readers’ emotions in their verses. Indeed good poets indirectly present their themes so as to leave room for the readers’ contribution and Whitman is no exception. In this verse, he presents a speaker who is in an astronomy class and is amazed by the lecturer’s content especially the mathematical concepts in the lecture. He gets bored during the lecture and almost dozes off. However, he opts to move out and the serene sky with bright stars takes him back to the subject matter of the lecture. He stares at the sky while trying to infer comparisons between the inside environment and the actual astronomical environment he meets outside the lecture room (Broderick 46). The speaker shows admiration and fascination at the mathematical concepts as presented by the poet, “The charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them” (Whitman line 3). Thus, when the speaker feels he can no longer take abstract facts about astronomy, he moves out of confinement to explore the outside world. This implies the extent to which information about nature if freely available to human beings upon their will can be able to achieve and inspire. The atmosphere outside still brings out the admiration and the romantic attachments of the speaker to nature. The poet uses a first person speaker to achieve tone. Throughout the verse, the speaker sounds appreciative of astronomy and although he does not keenly follow the lecture on astronomy, he opts to move out and practically observe the stars since astronomy is the study of stars.
Thus, the persona is appreciative of the studies on the stars and that is why he still stares at the stars in perfect silence perhaps to relate the lecture to the real topic in discussion, “Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars”, (Whitman line 8). The mood in the poem is divided into two. In the first part, the persona is fascinated and retired and he does not comprehend the charts and graphs that the lecturer is talking about. However, on moving out he is relaxed and contented and takes his time to examine the stars on his own. Change of mood in the rhyme is a deliberate strategy by the poet to maintain the reader concentration by trying to vary the empathic attachments of the reader. Several aspects of poetic style and figurative language stand out. The poet uses his trademark style of poetry by writing his work in a single verse. The advantage with this style in poetry is that the poet has the freedom to decide on the length of the verse in order to meet the thematic concerns of the poem. More so, free verse does not also confine the poet to a certain sentence structure. The poet also uses shortened form of words since he opts to write “learn’d” (Whitman line 1) instead of learned which helps the poet achieve internal rhyme within sentences. The actual pronunciation of the shortened words also brings out the musicality. The diction chosen is such that it extensively uses short words. This could be best revealed when the verse is recited out aloud. The intonation brought out through the pronunciation of these words brings out the close tonal intensity as intended by the poet. A similar intonation is also employed to simplify the recitation as well. Most poetic works written by Whitman are largely characterized by musical aspects. The poet achieves musicality through various aspects of rhyme which in poetry largely depends on the choice of words by the poet as they may decide to use internal rhyme or terminal rhyme as deemed necessary. For instance in this poem, the poet opts for repetition of certain words in the verse to create musicality. The word “when” (Whitman line 3, 4 and 5) is repeatedly used at the start of the first five sentences. This makes it easy to recite musically. Rhyming words are also extensively used, for example, heard and learn’d, proofs and figures as well as gliding and rising. It would be prudent to note that each line in the rhyme contains rhyming words. Repetition and rhyme are the two main literary styles used by the poet to achieve musicality which is an important aspect of poetry especially when it is to be recited out. It does not only make the verse interesting and easy to recite but also makes it sound simpler and with simplified themes. It stands out that poetic works which do not have rhyme do not have musicality. Again, a lack of rhyme in a verse is wholly designed by the poet through diction and sometimes the subject matter may influence diction subsequently resulting in absence of rhyme. Walt Whitman was to a large extend concerned with social aspects in society although this particular one is not famous among his works, it is squarely within his scope of concern. It touches on the love of natural phenomenon. The verse is intended to enhance and emphasize the need for appreciation and conservation of nature. Studies on the natural environment are meant to enhance and widen human understanding of nature. This knowledge is intended to encourage conservation of the same natural environment. Astronomy is thus used in this context to represent the general natural environment and although human beings have virtually nothing to contribute to the existence of stars in the sky, the poet points out such studies on the same stars can turn out to be so soothing and interesting. Hence, this piece of art is so relevant in the social context especially when emphasizing on environmental conservation. Poems written by Walt Whitman are simple and easy to understand. They also deal with simple themes that are easier to analyze. This brings out a new and most important aspect in poetry. Unlike the current modern poetry, poets do not necessarily need to be complex to develop their themes. Walt Whitman maintained a simple diction, simple themes and still managed to attain the targeted reader effect. Complex themes and sophisticated poetic styles make poetries hard to analyze and understand. In the case of social verses, the poet intended effect on the reader can only be achieved if the verse is correctly analyzed and subsequently understood by the reader. For this reason, poets should carefully choose on diction that keeps the whole article simple and easy to understand. Poets should also get used to tackling simple themes and in incidences of complex themes; they should find means of breaking them down into subsequent simple themes. The whole point here is to remain simple but precise. This is what makes poetry done by “The King of American poetry” stand out due to its simplicity and precision (Reynolds 31). Walt Whitman indeed deserves to be called the King of American poetry. His poetic works are precisely designed to achieve a certain objective. “When he chose to educate, his limericks are worth lectures and when he decides to entertain, his works are real pieces of music”, I strongly agree with these words by James Truslow (Reynolds 32). In when I heard the learn’d astronomer, he decides to enlighten the society on the need for environmental conservation through a simple but quite comprehensive (Whitman line 5). These are pure qualities of a complete and seasoned poet. Modern poets should therefore embrace methods used by this great poet in order to vary their poetic approaches as well as reach out to a larger reader population.

References:

1. 
   Broderick, John. “Walt Whitman’s Earliest”. The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, 30.1 (1973): 44-47.
   
2. 
   Library of CongressStable. Web. Reynolds, David “Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography”. Archives of American Art Journal, 34, 3 (1994): 29-32.
   
3. 
   The Smithsonian InstitutionStable. Web. Whitman, Walt. 2013. When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.
   
4. 
   Blake, David H. u.a. (Hrsg.): Walt Whitman, Where the Future Becomes Present. Iowa City 2008.
   
5. 
   Renker, Elizabeth: The 'Twilight of the Poets' in the Era of American Realism, 1875-1900. In: The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Poetry. Hrsg. von Kerry Larson. Cambridge 2011, S. 135-153.
   
6. 
   Killingsworth, M. Jimmie: The Cambridge Introduction to Walt Whitman. Canbridge 2007.
   

Internet resources:

1. 
   http://people.stu.ca/~hunt/www/whitman.htm
   
2. 
   https://www.englitmail.com/2016/11/walt-whitman-as-poet-of-democracy.html
   
3. 
   http://lyriktheorie.uni-wuppertal.de/texte/1881_whitman1.html
   
4. 
   https://www.nypl.org/blog/2019/05/08/no-sweeter-fat-poetics-walt-whitman
   

1^ Killingsworth, M. Jimmie: The Cambridge Introduction to Walt Whitman. Canbridge 2007.

2^ Killingsworth, M. Jimmie: The Cambridge Introduction to Walt Whitman. Canbridge 2007.

3^ Poem Themes. American Democracy. 'Song of Myself' was first published in 1855

4^ Broderick, John. “Walt Whitman’s Earliest”. The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, 30.1 (1973): 44-47.

5^ Library of CongressStable. Web. Reynolds, David “Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography”. Archives of American Art Journal, 34, 3 (1994): 29-32.

6^ The Smithsonian InstitutionStable. Web. Whitman, Walt. 2013. When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.

7^ Blake, David H. u.a. (Hrsg.): Walt Whitman, Where the Future Becomes Present. Iowa City 2008.

8^ Renker, Elizabeth: The 'Twilight of the Poets' in the Era of American Realism, 1875-1900. In: The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century American Poetry. Hrsg. von Kerry Larson. Cambridge 2011, S. 135-153.