Walt Whitman's Writing Style - Analysis

Walt Whitman has been considered by many as a "tweener." This slightly humorous name is given to authors who do not fit into a specific literary period, but fall between two periods. Whitman fell between the Realism and Modernism periods. Realism writing focused a great deal on the characterization more than the plot of their stories. Most examples of Realism writing pertained to real life events or events that could be plausible. The characters in Realism writing show their personalities and how they react to things. Modernism writing is slightly different from Realism writing. Literary works that represent modernism writing style weren't always presented in a logical order. Loss was also a major theme in Modernism writing. There was a great movement from religion and the narrator cannot always be assumed to be telling the truth.

Walt Whitman began his writing career as a journalist for the Brooklyn Eagle (Price). He seemed to know all there was to know about politics, which would lead a reader to assume that he was a realism writer. Journalists were supposed to write about life events that were happening as well as details about those events. Soon after, he was offered a job at a journal in New Orleans, and he moved down to take the job (Price). The poetry that he wrote following his trip was very bland. Whitman never seemed to be inspired, such as in his work "Sailing the Mississippi at Midnight" (Price). Whitman's writing style reflected Realism characteristics during this period in his life. His journal seemed to depict every day items, but soon after his movement to New Orleans, he was struck with a profound transformation (Price). Whitman became more open to the Democratic party's views, which may have fostered the experimentation with unorthodox poetry (Price). Whitman seems to be favoring Transcendentalist characteristics with his free verse poetry. Whitman's poetry was commented on by renowned Realist thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson (Price). Whitman even labeled his book Leaves of Grass as "al fresco poetry, poetry written outside the walls, the bounds, of convention and tradition" (Price). Transcendentalism writers were some of the first to break the traditional methods of literature. Whitman was doing exactly what the Transcendentalist writers had done many years before. Whitman's style of free verse poetry was closely related to the ideas of the Transcendentalist writers, even thought they were popular before his time. Walt Whitman was known for adding to his work Leaves of Grass, as well as rearranging them. Modernism writing tended to not follow a specific order. Whitman was able to rearrange his poems, making the order unimportant. That characteristic leads a reader to believe that his writings could be Modernism writing. Walt Whitman used nature as a major topic of many of his poems, which would be a typical topic for Transcendentalism writers to use.  Overall, I believe that to call Walt Whitman a "tweener" would be an unfair label. He has very distinct characteristics from the Transcendentalist literary period as well as the Realism literary period. He doesn't show very strong characteristics from the Modernism literary period, which is why I believe that it is unfair to associate him with such. 

Price, Kenneth M., and Ed Folsom. "About Walt Whitman." Welcome to English « Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/whitman/bio.htm>.