Walt Whitman and Herman Melville "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and "Bartleby the Scrivener" Walt Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" and Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" are set in New York City during the early years of the industrial revolution, but are markedly different in tone, theme and the perceptions and feelings of the main characters. Melville's characters exist without joy, love or hope, and merely drag themselves through a life of

This lack of tradition is what makes Whitman seem slightly worried towards the middle of the poem. He seems adamant to remind the audience that, though this technology is amazing and beautiful in its own way, we should not allow it to eclipse the wonders of the past. Much of this poem can serve as a warning to make sure that we also bring along our poetic sensibilities as we

In "Song of Myself," the longest and most complex of the three poems from Leaves of Grass, Whitman celebrates not only the self, but also the self with, and among others. This poem has 52 separate sections, each of them uniquely rich in imagery; theme; setting; sensory impressions, and sensuality. Section 1 of the poem, for example, freely celebrates Whitman's "Self": his essence, health, body, individuality, and joy of living,

The full tragedy of war is expressed in the longer narrative poem "Come Up From the Fields, Father." This poem tells the story about a family who receives a letter from their son, Pete, who is fighting in the war. It soon becomes clear, however, that the letter is not from Pete at all. Whitman brilliantly draws this out by pointing out, from the perspective of one of the family

His constant use of the firs person "I" also shows the strong independent streak in Whitman's character and poetry. "Song of Myself" makes it very clear that this independence is not born of ego, nor does it desire or require isolation. Rather, the independence and freedom of the repeated "I" is of a part with the nature and society that the speaker observes, which ironically seems to call the

"(Krupp, 44) I think that Whitman's stance is extremely important for my studies and my future development as an individual. On the one hand, the poet's admonition indicates that the study of the spiritual development of humanity is equally significant and useful as the progress of technology and the exact sciences. The human spirit can not be comfortable if it becomes alienated from the true contact with its environment. Thus,