IB Lit and Lang Blog 14: Witty Whitman
Step 1:
In his documents, the first thing I notice is that I cannot read his handwriting, or very barely can read his handwriting. I can only pick out a couple words, all mismatched. For example, near the bottom of the documents page, I was able to make out "Come now we will see what you are made of." Other quotes I was able to make out are: "whether there is any this in you," "welcome the trial," "Ship of the world - ship of humanity," and "the last war." I can't make out the words and sentences around these because either I cannot read cursive, which is very likely, or Walt Whitman has even worse handwriting than I do, but I think he may be brainstorming for poems he was either thinking of writing, or for poems that he did write. The pictures in the notebook, however, are relatively easy to make out. The first picture is of Walt Whitman himself, but just his face looking off to the left. Another is him again, with almost the same head on a midget's body, with the right hand going off to the left as if holding it up to shake someone's hand. The next is him wearing a big hat, then another picture of that, then a harp, then a picture of what I assume is a sign for something, then lastly, what looks like a scarecrow in front of a sunset with knives or something coming out of its body. I don't know why there are a bunch of pictures of himself in his notebook or why there is a harp, a sign of something, and a scarecrow, but I assume those are in places that he admires, or that those help him brainstorm future ideas for poems.
Step 2:
When reading what he actually was talking about in his notebook, I see that they were mostly just random scribbles, more or less. he did write made up conversations between himself and Abraham Lincoln even though they never spoke a word to each other, and if they did, it was only pleasantries, as the website suggests. It does have a lot of random musings about Jesus and Satan because of the Civil War, as well as addresses and names of friends that died in the war. Based on these, it doesn't seem that I was entirely wrong, but I was somewhat wrong when predicting what he wrote about in this notebook. He writes lots of things that seem to not relate to poems or works that he later published, being that this notebook was probably mostly just a place where he dumped his thoughts or musings that he had.
In his documents, the first thing I notice is that I cannot read his handwriting, or very barely can read his handwriting. I can only pick out a couple words, all mismatched. For example, near the bottom of the documents page, I was able to make out "Come now we will see what you are made of." Other quotes I was able to make out are: "whether there is any this in you," "welcome the trial," "Ship of the world - ship of humanity," and "the last war." I can't make out the words and sentences around these because either I cannot read cursive, which is very likely, or Walt Whitman has even worse handwriting than I do, but I think he may be brainstorming for poems he was either thinking of writing, or for poems that he did write. The pictures in the notebook, however, are relatively easy to make out. The first picture is of Walt Whitman himself, but just his face looking off to the left. Another is him again, with almost the same head on a midget's body, with the right hand going off to the left as if holding it up to shake someone's hand. The next is him wearing a big hat, then another picture of that, then a harp, then a picture of what I assume is a sign for something, then lastly, what looks like a scarecrow in front of a sunset with knives or something coming out of its body. I don't know why there are a bunch of pictures of himself in his notebook or why there is a harp, a sign of something, and a scarecrow, but I assume those are in places that he admires, or that those help him brainstorm future ideas for poems.
Step 2:
When reading what he actually was talking about in his notebook, I see that they were mostly just random scribbles, more or less. he did write made up conversations between himself and Abraham Lincoln even though they never spoke a word to each other, and if they did, it was only pleasantries, as the website suggests. It does have a lot of random musings about Jesus and Satan because of the Civil War, as well as addresses and names of friends that died in the war. Based on these, it doesn't seem that I was entirely wrong, but I was somewhat wrong when predicting what he wrote about in this notebook. He writes lots of things that seem to not relate to poems or works that he later published, being that this notebook was probably mostly just a place where he dumped his thoughts or musings that he had.
Hey Alec! Great blog post! I thought your initial observations were very interesting; I too struggled to read his handwriting, which suggests that 1) WCPSS failed or 2) despite being a renowned poet, he was but a typical boy. You certainly observed and understood much of his notebook, but I would have liked to see some more analysis, particularly in Step 2. Why do you think he was musing about Jesus? What was the connection to the Civil War? These aspects could have been further explored. Other than that, great job! Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteYo Alec I thought that your blog post was super good, I really liked the way that it was sectioned off because you made sure to fully answer section one before moving on to the second section. This was also good as a reader because we were able to see how your ideas and notes flowed into the final answer in the final section. I agreed with a lot of you points and I also agree with Megan in that his handwriting was ABSOLUTELY GARBAGE. Good blog, keep it up.
ReplyDeleteNice job Alec! I legit gave up trying to read his handwriting after the first picture so I kudos to you being able to decipher some of it. The quotes were super interesting but I wish that there was some more analysis on them. Your observations were well done and I though it was interesting how you talked about religion and the civil war. Just as stated earlier, I wish you went a little bit more in depth but the observations were well done.
ReplyDeletehey my dude! good job on your blog overall! I could not read full quotes like you so it was so cool to see those! Since you included quotes I wish that you wrote more analysis on them but still overall job! I also agree with the above comments that the handwriting was trash! Overall good job tho dude!
ReplyDeleteHey Alec!
ReplyDeleteAgreeing with you and the comments above his handwriting was not the most legible, but you did a good job deciphering it! I saw that we picked out a lot of the same words and phrases, so that's pretty cool! I do agree with Hannah though, I wish there was more analysis in Step 1 and in Step 2. Great job!
Alec, I have read through your blog post in its entirety. It was very good. I completely agree with your analysis of the proficiency of Whitman's handwriting. I also thought this seemed to be his brainstorming, but I wish that you perhaps would have explored this conversation between Whitman and Lincoln more and contextually how that was significant. Other than that it was wondrous.
ReplyDelete