Walt Whitman: Crossing Brooklyn Bridge

by Clinton LeFort

Images of Motion and Motionlessness in Walt Whitman’s Crossing Brooklyn FerryThroughout Walt Whitman’s Poem Crossing Brooklyn Ferry he often resorts to literal images that seem to give life and sustenance to the life of the poem. They can be referred to as the soul or life or breath, yet in each case, Whitman ties them to images of the elements. He breathes life into his poem by this recurring theme of seeing the elements themselves as the cause of giving life and breathing life, even when seemingly stable objects. Well-joined schemeThe first of these images comes at line 7 of the “The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, / yet part of the scheme”. (7)

7 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 26, 2013