Walt Whitman, The Aging Soul and Body–Pre and Post Civil War

My topic will focus on exploring Whitman and his relationship with both the death of the body and the soul. I will explore this both through his work during the pre and post civil war eras and through various critical sources that I have found during my research. So much of Whitman’s work revolves around the body and soul interaction, and subsequently, the death of them. I intend to explore both his views on aging and death within his pre-civil war work and his post-civil war work. This will provide and stark and interesting contrast. I will use my own arguments, along with critical arguments, to show in what way his work was transformed or influenced by the civil war. Whitman was deeply involved in the civil war not just from afar; he volunteered as a nurse. This gave him an up close and personal look at all the tragedies occurring. This made the changes and developments of his work inevtiable. One of the critics I have chosen to use for my project explores Whitman’s early work and relationship to death. He calls him a “oft-time sentimentalist” during the late 1830’s to 1840’s and a “radical poet” from 1855 on. This particular critic touches on Whitman’s use of the apostrophe was a “staple” of his early work. Many times he used it to connect with both the subject of his work and his reader. He provides different kinds of examples where this occurs and I hope to find my own examples in Whitman’s work that seem relevant to my project. I perhaps want to find other types of rhetorical or structural devices Whitman uses in his work to help extend my argument. This will help me explore the shift in his work throughout his life.

This transformation from sentimental to radical (for lack of better word currently) cited by the above critic is exactly the one I want to explore as my project goal. Some questions I seek to answer: How and why did this happen? And further–in what way or ways did this affect his work? How did it change and was it drastic? Did this change come from his experience in the civil war or perhaps was it due to his own aging soul and body? I hope to achieve an in-depth understanding of Whitman’s beliefs and opinions on aging and death and how and why it changed during the mid 1800’s.

My project will take on the form of a traditional paper. I believe my analysis will be most interesting in this form. This form will best allow me to explore other critical ideas and how they are relevant (or irrelevant) to my project and argument. I have my sources but I would like to start working on the annotations by Sunday. That way, by Monday I can start working on a first draft. I’m hoping my first draft will have excess examples and analysis so that when I edit I can just choose the most relevant evidence.