The Analaysis of "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman (1860)

Poem Text

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong.
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.


Theme Analysis
Individualism

When Walt Whitman express his awe at these Americans singing, he is making a statement about human greatness by telling the reader that human achievement is not measured by what one does, but instead by how one goes about doing it. He inspires admiration for these people, not by stating outright that he thinks they do great things, but by giving brief, specific images of each one tending ti his or her own business and combining their individual jobs with "singing," which we usually associate with cheerfulness and lightness of spirit. It only one case does the poem direct the reader's thought by using a specific, judgmental adjective (the positive word "delicious"), but we can assume that this anomaly says more about Whitman's lack of knowlegde concerning domestic life than any change of strategy. This assumption is supported by his vague mention of the young wife "at work," indicating that he just could not come up with any specific details about what women do, in the way he provided information about such jobs of the carpenter, mason, and boatman. This poem uses opposites to show how wide the range of Americans and their work environments are: male and female, ashore and on water, preparing or finishing work in the morning, afternoon, or evening.

According to the poem, the independence that all of these different types display in their work is left aside at the end of the day, when they come together as a "party of young fellows" (reflecting the social practices of the day, the females in this poem do not socialize with the males). Here, the corporate mentality that dominates the late-twentieth century is shown to us in its mirror image: While today we think of people working together all day to enjoy "free time" to pursue individual interest at the day's end, Whitman shows individuals who choose to spend their leisure time by uniting with other people. Perhaps the American way of life has changed this much since the poem was written. Then again, it is possible that the shift in the workplace, from manual labor to manipulating information, has made American jobs less individualistic, or that the rise of self-sufficient leisure activities, such as television and computer games, has given contemporary Americans less incentive to gather with others when the day is through. It could be, though, that the workers in Whitman's poem reflect an ideal that was just as unreal then as today, while being just as admired today as then. His workers are responsible and proud of their accomplishments and are also friendly and sociable. It is not easy to tell whether these admired traits were more common then, or Whitman just brought his vision to life in particularly effective way.

Style Analysis

"I Hear America Singing," like much of Whitman's poetry, is written in free verse. Free verse is characterized bu no regular pattern of meter and, is in this poem, usually incorporates no pattern of rhyme.

The major poetic device employed in the poem is its controlling metaphor. A metaphor is simply a figure of speech in which one thing is substituted for or used to identify another. A controlling metaphor impacts, controls, or unifies the entire poem. The expression "I Hear America Singing" substitutes "America" for "American people," and the effect is to identify the two--as well as the pople the poem depicts--as one in the same. This distinction, while subtle, is important because the rest of the poem builds on this metaphor by offering examples of the sorts of persons the speaker thinks quintessentially "American."

Similarly, references to "Singing," "song," and "carols" also serve as metaphors in the poem. "The varied carols" the speaker hears suggest the uniqueness of the persons singing them, and they become metaphors for individuality. Finally, when read in light of controlling metaphor, such references appear to allude to "American" individualism in particular.

Edna St. Vincent Millay Biography

Millay was born in 1892, in Rockland, Maine, to Cora Buzzelle Millay and Henry Tolman Millay. Inspired by her mother, who raised her following her parents' divorce, Millay became an independent child who freely explored her interest in music (for which she displayed a considerable aptitude), theater, and both the reading and writing of literature. Much of this pursuit took the form of writing poetry, and, by the time she was a teenager, Millay had already published poetry in the noted children's magazine St. Nicholas. At the age of nineteen Millay wrote what is considered her first major poem, "Renascence." The work was enthusiastically received, and, in part, earned Millay a scholarship to Vassar College. While it was obvious that she possessed a talent for verse, Millay's time at Vassar refined her natural skills and provided her with a significant source of culture and Scholarly acumen, including much of the feminist and political sensibilities that surfaced in her later work. While studying at Vassar, Millay continued to write. She regularly published her poems and plays in the school quarterly, and even composed the lyrics for a Founder's Day song.

Following her graduation, Millay took up residence in the New York borough of Greenwich Village, a noted haven for people of artistic sensibilities as well as a center for issues of women's rights and free love--both of which Millay espoused. While making a nominal living, she busied herself with writing poetry and acting with the Provincetown Players theater troupe. She also developed a taste for fast living, keeping a busy social calendar, and becoming romantically involved with several notable men of letters, including poet Arthur Davison Ficke and literary critic Edmund Wilson. By the arly 1920s, however, this lifestyle caught up with Millay, and she was beset with nervous exhaustion and ill health. Seeking better climates, she sailed for Europe, where she remained for two years. her income during this time came primarily from the writing of articles under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.

Upon her return to New York in 1923, Millay met businessman Eugen Boissevain at a party; the two were married later that year. While his practical business skills freed Millay from day-to-day financial details, Boissevain was also the poet's ideological and spiritual partner, as he respected both her artistic pursuits and her feminist concerns. In addition to these advances in her personal life, Millay's career was on the rise; she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 and was granted an honorary degree from Tufts University in 1925. Her increased public profile  gave Millay a platform to voice her social conscience, and she regularly engaged in protests, including a campaign against the conviction and death sentence leveled against political radicals Sacco and Vanzetti.

Millay's writing throughout the late 1920s and 1930s reflected her political views, with many works taking the form of outright protest. This is particularly evident in her railings against the atrocities of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. Despite her attempts to maintain an active schedule, however, Millay's health was quickly deteriorating. She had been in precarious shape since an auto accident in 1936, and the pressures of maintaining her artistic and social concerns, combined with the troubled climate during World War II, precipitated a nervous breakdown in 1944. Her recovery was slowed by a number of personal setbacks, the most significant being the death of Boissevain in 1945. Although her emotional and physical powers ere appreciably depleted, Millay continued to write. She was in the midst of compiling a poetry collection when she was struck by a fatal heart attack; she died at her home in Austerlitz, New York, on October, 1950.

The Analysis of "The Courage That My Mother Had" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1949)

Poem Text

The Courage That My Mother Had
by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1949)
 
The Courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still;
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more;
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she'd left to me
The thing she took into the grave!--
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.


Theme and Style Analysis

Theme: Memory

 "The Courage That My Mother Had" is Millay's elegy to her mother. It is a somber commemoration. Much of the poem's tension arises from two contrasting elements: the vividness with which the poet remembers her mother, and an awareness of her death that is present from the beginning of the poem until its end. The mother is described in the past tense, implying that she is now dead; however, some of the details suggest she is still alive--at least for the poet. for example, her courage "went with her," but it "is with her still." The juxtaposition of real death and imagined life produces a poignant sense of loss which grows over the course of the poem's three stanzas. The sense of loss is all the greater because the death of the mother is only hinted at in the first two stanzas. She is "granite in a granite hill"; she "left behind" a brooch. It is not until the final stanza, when the poet mentions "the thing she took into the grave," that death is confronted directly.

In the first two stanzas, the poet recalls her mother in a remarkably economical portrait. In two lines the poet suggest the complexity of her mother's character, which comprised both "rock from New England quarried" and "the golden brooch" she wore. The first metaphor describes the mother' courage. This is her most remarkable characteristics, emphasized by being mentioned both in the poem's first line and in its concluding thought. The metaphor also associates the mother with a specific location and culture, evoking the steadfast, proverbial strength New Englanders are reputed to posses. In the second descriptive line, the brooch reveals a very different aspect of the mother's character, a soft, feminine side. One can almost see an old photograph of the mother in her best dress.

The brooch recalls both the living mother and the fact of her death; it was the living mother who wore the piece, but the poet would not have it if her mother had not passed away. The paradox is underlined in the last lines of the second stanza. "I have no thing I treasure more," she writes, "yet, it is something I could spare." She values the brooch because it is a link to her mother, but she would gladly do without the jewelry to have her mother back with her.

Style

"The Courage That My Mother Had" consists of three quatrains, or four-line stanzas. Within each quatrain, the final words of the first and third lines rhyme, as do the final words of the second and fourth lines.

Although the meter of the poem varies in places, each line tends to be arranged in iambic tetrameter. "Iambic" refers to segments in a poem called iambs, units of two syllables where the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. "Tetrameter" indicates that there are four such segments, or feet, to each line--"tetra" meaning "four."

The following line illustrates the poem's iambic tetrameter construction:

     The gold / en brooch / my moth / er wore.

The poem's rhythm lends "The Courage That My Mother Had" a song-like quality when it is read aloud. When you are reading the poem, you will also notice that each stanza contains a complete thought. The stanzas are linked together thematically, but each addresses a slightly different sentiment.