I Hear America Singing & I Too.
Poetry is a compact language that expresses complex feelings. To
understand the multiple meanings of a poem, readers must examine its
words and phrasing from the perspectives of rhythm, sound, images,
obvious meaning, and implied meaning. A good beginning involves asking
questions that apply to most poetry.
1. Who
is the speaker?
2. What situation is presented?
3. What is
the tone? (formal/informal)
4. Who or what is the audience?
5.
Identify the metaphors?
6. What circumstances gave rise to the
poem?
7. What does the title suggest?
8. What is the poem
about?
Furthermore, I want you to consider the time and
context of the poems.
What aspects of the American dream are
presented in the two poems?
This poem demonstrates typical Whitman techniques. Although there is no end rhyme, we hear a sense of melody in his chiming repetitions and a rhythm in the length of his lines that substitutes for the metrical pattern we expect in conventional poetry. Line one announces the main metaphor. Individual Americans doing their various jobs are a harmonious chorus of happy, proud, creative workers.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker hears the "singing" of mechanics, a carpenter, a mason, a boatman, a steamboat deckhand, a shoemaker, a maker of hats, a woodcutter, and a ploughboy. Each tradesman or laborer performs his labor with the same pride and exultation that one might hear from a singer. In democratic America, the speaker seems to say, there is no gradation of importance attached to the jobs performed or the performers of those jobs.
He concludes with mention of female voices. A mother performing her motherly duties is "singing" and the sound of her voice is "delicious." The same goes for "the young wife at work, or . . . the girl sewing or washing." In the last two lines we hear the after-work or off-duty songs of a "party of young fellows, robust, friendly,/ Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs."
Whitman mentions no brilliant artists or corporate executives. The people in his poem are common folk without individual names, but in his celebratory verse they are all idealized. Each one finds joy in the dignity of his or her labor. In eleven lines of verse, the word "singing" appears eleven times, or twelve if you include the title. The word is used figuratively to reflect happy pride in performance of labor.
Free verse is not just prose written with irregular line endings. Although it is "free" of metrical restrictions , it is still patterned and unified by the conventional poetic devices of repetition, assonance , and alliteration . The article "the", ordinarily disregarded, begins seven of the eleven lines and establishes a pattern that is seen on the page and heard when the poem is given voice. Alliteration is less obvious than it is in a line like Poe's "silken, sad, uncertain rustling " in The Raven. Still there is ear-pleasing melody in lines 4 and 5 with the "m's" of mason and makes, and the "b's" of boatman . . . belongs . . . boat. The assonance of "ing" sound in the repetitions of singing, sewing, and washing lend the sense of activity inherent in all present participles.
This is a poem that voices American democracy. Its language is muscular, its pulse vibrant, its mood exultant. We will hear similar tonalities and exuberance in the free verse of Carl Sandburg, who was 14 when Whitman died.
In "I Hear America Singing", Walt Whitman encourages industry in America to be heard as something pleasant, as a chorus of many different songs. Granted, the unity and positivity evoked by this poem is hardly accurate, but nevertheless Whitman decides to glorify and celebrate work, as well as a perception of nationalism.
ReplyDeleteImportant to note: he omits mention of the CULTURAL diversity within American society and industry. Yes, all sorts of occupations are mentioned, but no one is given a skin colour or ethnicity.
This is probably why Langston Hughes alludes to this piece
This poem is a response to Walt Whitman's peom, "I Hear America Singing," And this poem really shows the difference between whites and blacks. Hughes had hope for the future ("tomorrow").
ReplyDeleteIn this poem Hughes uses the word “America” as a symbol of diversity, equality, and perseverance. He shows that America was a place of segregation, but its future held the hopes of becoming a place of real equality for all.
In this poem we are told about a lot of different people, with different professions. Men and women, young girls and boys. All of them are singing while at work. When I read the poem out loud it feels a bit clumsy to me. I don´t feel as though there are any rhythm in it, and no rhymes either. The language is easy understandable and with no difficult words or expressions, and this makes it a poem for everyone, for the people in general and not only for the highly educated whit a big vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker in this poem could be any American man or woman, who feels pleased with the situation in America. Still I think the one speaking in this poem is Walt. This poem shows how delighted Walt was over the state America and its newcomers were in at this time, but I will get to that later. When thinking of which time this poem was supposed to represent, I don´t think Walt intended it to be timeless. I think he wanted to tell a story of his time. When looking at the professions and the different objects appearing in the text, the only thing that really makes me realize that this was in the 19th century is when the steamboat appears. Not saying they don´t exist anymore. In terms of which environment we are localized in, I would say that it is in the middle-class society. The working-class, people making a living by the hand, and not by the book. I would also say that this poem is directed for the same audience, the working-class.
To me this poem speaks of the American dream flourishing, and a diversity that is thriving in all these new possibilitys that came along with this new land, and with the mentality that was brought along when the newcomers first got there. I would like to talk about singing, and what singing in chorus has meant to people. In the medieval times, story’s were told. Story´s that were supposed to teach the lessons of life, and some of these story´s were sung. Singing in chorus has been said to create a feeling of unity, as did the folk-dance. I realize that in this poem, the people are not singing I chorus, but they are all singing. America is singing. A unity. Everyone is singing what belongs to them -their own individual American dream. Most of the time people sing because they feel happy and uplifted. In this poem we are told about people who are singing while at work, so this to me shows that these people are happy doing what they are doing -each one happily filling out their part of society, making one big strong America. A complete society consists of little pieces put together, and all of these different songs of belongings, sung at once, are to me a story of just that. Unity.
- Maria Louise