Walt Whitman Essay Example for Free

Walt Whitman Essay Walt Whitman is one of America’s most popular and most influential poets. The first edition of Whitman’s well-known Leaves of Grass first appeared in July of the poet’s thirty-sixth year. A subsequent edition of Leaves of Grass (of which there were many) incorporated a collection of Whitman’s poems that had been offered readers in 1865. The sequence added for the 1867 edition was Drum-Taps, which poetically recounts the author’s experiences of the American Civil War. Walt Whitman was born May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Long Island. His early years included much contact with words and writing; he worked as an office boy as a pre-teen, then later as a printer, journalist, and, briefly, a teacher, returning eventually to his first love and life’s work—writing. Despite the lack of extensive formal education, Whitman experienced literature, reading voraciously from the literary classics and the Bible, and was deeply influenced by Goethe, Carlyle, Emerson, and Sir Walter Scott (Introduction vii). Whitman was drawn to the nations capital roughly a year after the Civil War began, at the age of forty-three. The wounding of his brother, George Washington Whitman, who served in the Union Army, precipitated his contact with the carnage of the war. Reading the notice of his brother’s injury in the New York Herald, Whitman went immediately to Falmouth, Virginia, where he found his brotherly only slightly wounded. Perpetually short-handed, Army officials asked the poet to help transport injured soldiers to field hospitals in Washington. Whitman agreed, and began a mission of mercy that would occupy him from 1862 until the war’s end in 1865 (Murray). Drum-Taps is the personal-historical record of Whitman’s wartime occupation. Drum-Taps’ early poems were written prior to Whitman’s contact with wounded soldiers, and betray a starkly different attitude toward the war than one finds later in the sequence. The chronologically earlier poems celebrate the coming hostilities, expressing Whitman’s early near-mindless jingoism (Norton 2130). As one progresses through the work, he finds a less energetic, sorrowful, jaded narrator who seems little like the exuberant youth who began. Understandable so, [Whitman] estimated that over the  course of the war, he had made ‘over 600 visits or tours, and went †¦ among from some 80,000 to 100,000 of the wounded and sick, as sustainer of spirit and body in some degree, in time of need’ (Murray). What follows is a contemporaneous review of his work that speaks of the esteem that much of the world extended Whitman as patriot and poet of Drum-Taps: New York Times, 22 November 1865, p. 4. Mr. Whitman has strong aspirations toward poetry, but he is wanting entirely in the qualities that Praed possessed in such large measure. He has no ear, no sense of the melody of verse. His poems only differ from prose in the lines being cut into length, instead of continuously pointed. As prose, they must be gauged by the sense they contain, the mechanism of verse being either despised by, or out of the reach of the writer. Considered as prose, then, we find in them a poverty of thought, paraded forth with a hubbub of stray words, and accompanied with a vehement self-assertion in the author that betrays an absence of true and calm confidence in himself and his impulses. Mr. Whitman has fortunately better claims on the gratitude of his countrymen than any he will ever derive from his vocation as a poet. What a man does, is of far greater consequence than what he says or prints, and his devotion to the most painful of duties in the hospitals at Washington during the war, will confer h onor on his memory when Leaves of Grass are withered and Drum Taps have ceased to vibrate. (New York) Timely assessments of Whitman’s Drum-Taps largely concur with the Times. Whitman shared their outlooks; Whitman himself thought not of Drum-Taps as particularly literary, but human, [poetry with] no dress put on anywhere to complicate or beautify it (Lowenfels x). The most celebrated poem of the sequence comes near the end, in what is a sequel to the original collection of war poems and the events that provoked them. That sequel, Memories of President Lincoln, delayed the publication of Drum-Taps, and includes his masterpiece of the 1860s, When Lilacs Last on  the Dooryard Bloomed (Walt 2130), as well as the much celebrated and anthologized, O Captain, My Captain (Price). Whitman’s feelings toward Lincoln ran deep; his sense of sadness over the death of Lincoln was profound (Price). After the war Whitman worked in the Office of Indian Affairs. Upon his supervisor’s discovering that he was the author of Leaves of Grass, he was summarily released. Friends [then] secured for Whitman a post at the attorney general’s office, where he remained until suffering the first of a series of strokes in 1873, which left him a partial invalid (Introduction). In March of 1892, Walt Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey. As Whitman’s life was nearing its end, his esteemed positions in literature and society were rising to the heights one finds them today: American public opinion was gradually swayed by new evidences that the invalid at Camden could command the respect of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet Laureate, and many other famous British writers (Walt 2131).

Analysing a TV Advertisement Essay -- Papers

Analysing a TV Advertisement The TV advert that I am going to analyse is advertising Comfort, the clothes washing liquid. This advert is very, very unusual. It is about a family made out of fabric, a little bit like rag dolls. I am going to analyse this advert shot by shot so it is easy to understand. The first shot is set in the bathroom of the 'Clothes family'. Little Lisa cloth is extremely upset that her boyfriend is leaving town for a little while. At the start of the advert she is standing in the bathroom looking extremely upset. Her mother then comes in. This first shot is a tracking shot as it moves with the mum as she enters the bathroom and walks forward to talk to her daughter. The set is the bathroom of the house and it is in fact very plain and minimalist. The bathroom is a simple cream colour but it looks as if this is made out of cloth, for the reason that it has stitches all around the edges of the whole room. I believe that the writers have created the bathroom to be this way so that the people stand out, as they are bright colours. The mum is made out of orange and brown material and the girl is purple, pink and lilac. The lighting used in this advert is also very important. If the lighting was dark or there was no lighting at all, then no body would be able to see the advert or the people in the advert and the whole advert would be useless. Therefore, the lighting is very bright, lively and cheerful. Nothing is dark. The reason for this is maybe because the advert is set in the daytime. Nevertheless, it may give connotations of the product making people jolly and cheerful even when they might be upset. ... ...till standing their hugging. Lisa then says in a fed up sort of way, "Darren you're creasing me now!" Once this phrase is said the Mother appears on the screen from behind the door. She looks at the couple in an 'I told you so' look. This is a shot reverse shot looking into the house from the road, onto the girls face and her Mother. I think that this advert is very clever. It gives the connotations that the product will basically make clothes feel fresh and cool without damaging them in any sort of way. I like the way that the writers have used people made out of clothes and that the comfort is used like a moisturiser to make the clothes soft. The comment about the creasing at the end of the advert is also quite funny. The music throughout the advert is light and bouncy. It makes the advert seem bubbly and lively.

Mitb

Malaysian Treasury Bills (MTB) MTB are short-term securities issued by the Government of Malaysia to raise short-term funds for Government's working capital. Bills are sold at discount through competitive auction, facilitated by Bank Negara Malaysia, with original maturities of 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year. The redemption will be made at par. MTB are issued on weekly basis and the auction will be held one day before the issue date. The successful bidders will be determined according to the most competitive yield offered.Normal auction day is Thursday and the result of successful bidders will be announced one day after. MTB are tradable on yield basis (discounted rate) based on bands of remaining tenure (e. g. , Band 4= 68 to 91 days to maturity). The standard trading amount is RM5 million, and it is actively traded in the secondary market. Malaysian Islamic Treasury Bills (MITB) MITB are short-term securities issued by the Government of Malaysia based on Islamic principles. MITB are usually issued on a weekly basis with original maturities of 1-year.Normal auction day is Thursday and the results of successful bidders will be announced one day after, on Friday. Both conventional and Islamic institutions can buy and trade on MITB. The MITB are structured based on Bai' Al-Inah principle, part of sell and buy back concept. Bank Negara Malaysia on behalf of the Government will sell the identified Government's assets on competitive tender basis, to form the underlying transaction of the deal. Allotment is based on highest price tendered (or lowest yield).Price is determined after profit element is imputed (discounting factor). The successful bidders will then pay cash to the Government. The bidders will subsequently sell back the assets to the Government at par based on credit term. The Government will issue MITB to bidders to represent the debt created. MITB are tradable on yield basis (discounted rate) based on bands of remaining tenure (e. g. , Band 4= 68 to 91 da ys to maturity). The standard trading amount is RM5 million, and it is actively traded based on Bai ad-Dayn (debt trading) principle in the secondary market.

South Afric A Country Of The Country - 788 Words

Many years ago, Africa grew several powers from the control of European countries. The Western countries send emissaries to explore and establish trade with native, but in that case same other attract on working people having come there to work and live and to government the country when they need. The word imperializem in my attention came as a domination by one country of the political, economic or cultural life of another country. We have to be clear with what happened in Africa and the region which represents a great rich country for materials and get attention of many European country for goods and wealth potential. Europian estabilished colonies in the African coastal region became more aggresive later on once they were expanding into other lands. We can see that in the names Africa s countries have under the colony. For example, the Belgian Congo instead of The Congo, Anglo Egypyian Sudan istead of Sudan, or German Southwest Africa Namibia insted of Namibi. Those countries hav e both Europian and African names which means that they belong and under which power rule they are. However, The African countries nowadays tried to take way the kind of patterns they have, but the Congo, Cameroon and Central African Republic are still suffering from the legacies of western imperialism. The Congo has a very interesting story behind it. The King of Belgium was given the Congo during the Berlin Conference. He used the Congo as a storage place for many of his possesions. ThisShow MoreRelatedSouth Afric A Country Of Diversity1269 Words   |  6 PagesSouth Africa is a country of diversity, with 11 languages that are officially recognized--Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, and Zulu (Statistics South Africa, 2011). Although South Africa has diverse communities, much of its history has proven a lack of representation. 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