This paper examines several key texts from nineteenth-century American literature. It identifies three elements of free verse — repetition, punctuation, and spacing — in Walt Whitman's "Aboard at a Ship's Helm," then evaluates a thematic claim about direction in Whitman and Emily Dickinson's "The Moon is Distant from the Sea." The paper also analyzes Herman Melville's attitudes toward his own writing as revealed in his 1851 letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, drawing conclusions from three notable quotations. Finally, it argues that Melville's letter demonstrates a warm, affectionate bond with Hawthorne rooted in their shared radical literary views.
Free verse gives a poet nearly unlimited freedom in their writing, breaking the conventional rules of how a poem is supposed to be structured. The elements of free verse, however, can themselves be seen as a kind of structure, and all three are clearly present in Walt Whitman's poem "Aboard at a Ship's Helm." Repetition, punctuation, and spacing stand out as the defining free verse elements Whitman employs in this poem.
The first element is repetition, visible in the lines: "O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing / Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place" (lines 5–6). The word ringing is repeated three times — at the end of the first line and twice at the beginning of the second — giving the reader a sense of the continuance and insistence of the sound.
The second element is punctuation. This can be seen in the line: "But O. The ship, the immortal ship! O. ship aboard the ship!" (line 11). Although repetition also appears here with the word ship, the exclamation point places particular emphasis on this line and makes it stand apart from all others in the poem.
The third element is spacing. This is evident in the lines: "The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly / and safe" (lines 9–10). By placing "and safe" on its own line, Whitman adds emphasis to those two words and highlights their importance in completing the sentence. This deliberate line break is a hallmark of free verse structure.
Emily Dickinson's poem "The Moon is Distant from the Sea" and Walt Whitman's poem "Aboard at a Ship's Helm" both deal with the theme of finding direction in life. However, the claim that Whitman's poem envisions personal direction coming from within, while Dickinson's envisions direction coming from an external source, is only partially correct. While Dickinson's poem does envision direction as coming from an external source, Whitman's poem does not straightforwardly envision direction coming from within.
Whitman's poem seems instead to express a desire for internal direction, using the ship as a contrast to the human condition. He carefully distinguishes the young steersman from the ship itself: "Aboard at a ship's helm, / A young steersman steering with care" (lines 1–2). The ship receives direction through external warnings from a bell, and because the steersman heeds those warnings the ship remains safe. The tension between the ship's guided safety and man's unguided existence is expressed in the lines: "The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly / and safe. / But O. The ship, the immortal ship! O. ship aboard the ship!" (lines 9–11). The separation of man from ship, and the longing that separation implies, culminates in the final line: "Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging" (line 12). Rather than depicting personal direction coming from within, Whitman expresses a yearning for the same external guidance the ship receives.
In Dickinson's poem, by contrast, direction clearly comes from an external force. She depicts the moon as a guiding, God-like figure directing the everyday behavior of the sea, which represents God's followers. In the lines "The Moon is distant from the Sea -- / And yet, with Amber Hands -- / She leads Him -- docile as a Boy --" (lines 1–3), she shows how an external force is followed without question as a means of knowing which direction in life to take.
Herman Melville makes several revealing comments about his writing in his 1851 letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Each quotation offers a window into his complicated attitude toward his own work.
a) "So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches."
"Melville's frustration and ambition from his letter"
"Affection and shared philosophy with Hawthorne"
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