Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

kapelian's picture

As I start thinking about my

As I start thinking about my own dreams and the unconcious, I always think back to my psychology class back in high school and talking about Freudian theory.  How every symbol means something deeper then what you think it is at the time, and their combination can enlighten someone as to what you're really thinking about, or something like that.  But, everyone interprets things differently.  Even if in the unconcious we all see the same thing, when we step back and think about it everyone will come up with a different response like what we did with the abstract art a few weeks ago.  I think this is the feeling that Whitman is trying to get at.  By keeping his basic drunken thoughts so simple that everyone can relate to it, even if they relate to it in very different ways.  I think reading Whitman's poems just as they are, and trying not to make too much sense of it is the best way to go.  If Whitman is really a drunk man blabbing away on paper, even if we all got as drunk as Whitman when he was writing this, every person would still say it meant something different about it.

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
2 + 12 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.