What do you get when you mix a joke with a rhetorical question?

In my paper, I plan to discuss the author Walt Whitman and his novel, song of myself. I plan on expanding on his use of symbols, metaphors, imagery, and anthropomorphism, as well as other figurative language and how those elements get his message across and enhance the meaning of his work. Also, on how these literary techniques contribute to the theme or overall meaning of his work and get the reader to better understand it. I would also like to discuss Whitman’s take on environmental problems and adaptations. I will aim to answer questions such as these: How does Whitman feel about the natural world and what does he believe about human interaction with it? What do humans gain from interacting with nature through direct or first-hand contact? What is the relationship between the human and non-human world supposed to look like according to Whitman? What is Whitman trying to get the reader to think or believe? I want to explore how Whitman, himself is in touch with the sensual world. I would also like to discuss how Whitman’s writing is seemingly ahead of its time and if it could apply to generations in the future and what did it meant for his very own generation.  

CRITICAL ESSAY 

CIRCULATING MULTITUDES: FROM ANTIQUITY TO CELL THEORY 

Stefanie Heine.Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. 

CRITICAL ESSAY 

WHITMAN’S NATIVE FUTURISM: FRONTIER EROTICS IN THE 1860 LEAVES OF GRASS 

Benjamin Meiners.Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

WALT WHITMAN: A CURRENT BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Ed Folsom.Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. 

Mountains aren't just funny.. they're hill areas

^^^^This is peak humor people! ^^^^

The poem “Summit” by Gabriela Mistral was a very confusing and thought provoking one. It took much re-reading and analyzation for me to be able to even begin to understand it. I have yet to capture the full essence of the poem. I can tell it is a very deep and meaningful one, but I shall try to unravel it. In this poem, the speaker’s relationship to the natural world seems to be one filled with grief, longing, and hurt. The poem evokes feeling of deep sorrow. The speaker’s relationship to the natural world does not seem to be similar to Abram’s. The natural world plays a very prominent role in the poem as it directly influences the speaker’s emotional responses. The aspects of nature that are expressed in the poem are evening, sunset, mountains, and valleys. It seems as though the sunset is a symbol for blood. The evening hours are the last hours of the day. The day is slowly loosing light and therefore life as the sun sets. Lack of light and life draws out the presence of darkness and death.The poem expresses a betrayed and abandoned woman as “an anguished woman is loosing..the only breast she ever clung to”.  There is a sense of loss and death in that line. The woman has become a victim of the evening hour. As the speaker questions, “am I the one who plunges the summit into crimson?”, she acknowledges a somber acceptance of the suffering life entails. She expresses internal anguish and despair that are interconnected to the “bloodstained peak” of the mountain.