The influences of Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman is considered one of the few great poets that have existed. He wrote multiple poems but seems to be the most famous for his poem ‘Herb leaves’. Whitman did many great things with his work throughout his life and influenced other people but more to writers. He influenced some people before his death and continued to do it even after his death. Two poets in which he influenced were Langston Hughes and Allen Ginsberg. Whitman’s work was not only good for himself, but influenced different writers because they completed and studied equal or similar works to his.
Langston Hughes was one of the two writers whom Whitman influenced. Hughes was a poet known especially for his wonderful work throughout Harlem’s Renaissance. Hughes’s work and Whitman seemed to be very similar in some aspects. The work of both men seemed to reflect romanticism. Walt Whitman believed that America was perfect, but Hughes did not feel the same because of the way African Americans were treated. Hughes is against African Americans being mistreated and uses what Whitman says to try to fight for justice for African -American race. One of the poems of Hughes ‘El Negro speaks of the river’ resembles the same writing style and also to Whitman’s shape. The writing of Hughes resembles Whitman’s because he saw Whitman as one of the bosses of poetry in America and was like a model to follow because he admired him. When the civil war and everything ended Whitman had no choice but to realize that the nation was not what he expected. The poems that Whitman wrote after the war were terrible and the poems talked about all the bad things he experienced while he was part of the war. Like Whitman, Hughes experienced some changes in his America after World War II, which made blacks want to fight for equality. We started seeing a kind of shady harlem in the works of Hughes, just like Walt Whitman Hughes began to think that the nation will never be the type of world that blacks expected.
Another poet whom Whitman influenced is Allen Ginsberg. Allen Ginsberg was also a poet. He was also considered a great figure during his life as well as Whitman and continues to be even after his death. Ginsberg was better known for his poem ‘howl’. Ginsberg’s poem ‘Sunflowol Sutra. According to Whitman ‘I see on my own continent the Pacific Railroad overcoming all the barriers, I see continuous trains of wag reverberating through the world’s greatest landscape ‘. In both poems the authors write about the admiration of nature and the increase in industrialization in the western part of the world.
In Ginsberg’s poem he also writes about the beauty of nature in the sunflower of the western part of the world. He states: ‘Poor dead flower? When did you forget that you were a flower? When did you look at your skin and decided that you were an old helpless locomotive? The ghost of a locomotive? The spectrum and shadow of an ever powerful American locomotive?’. As can see how both poems of the writer have been said to resemble. Whitman was someone who Ginsberg admired and was also the reason he wrote some of his poems. As you can see, Whitman was very influential for Ginsberg and can be demonstrated through his similar writings.
Whitman’s work will always live and cannot be forgotten. Whitman’s work was essential for him his years on earth, but never knew that he would be influential for all types of people today, especially for writers. Whitman influenced people to write using a writing style similar to yours, but also influenced people simply reading their poems. Whitman will be forever one of the greatest poets that have existed, and his legacy will continue to live through many poets, people and things in which he was very influential.
Cited works
- Jordan, Glenn. ‘Re-Membering The African-American Past’. Cultural Studies, Vol. 25, No. 6, Nov. 2011, pp. 848-891. Ebscohost, Doi: 10.1080/09502386.2011.605269.
- Levine, Robert S. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. SHORTER NINTH EDITION. W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.
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