Walt Whitman Poem Reflection

From the first stanza of "On the Beach at Night Alone" you can tell that it has to do with Naturalism. The first stanza goes "On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future" (Whitman). The old woman is on the beach and being one with nature. Nature is such a common theme in all of these poems. I think that this was such a common theme because Emerson and Thoreau were such strong believers in nature. They thought pretty much everything came from nature, and this is why I think that all these poems have such strong themes. Emerson and Thoreau definitely had an impact on later writers because they have some common themes that all of the writers follow. Emerson and Thoreau were big on philosophy and I think that they were very strong believers and very strong willed. They had a lot of good ideas that transferred down to all these writers that came after their time. They had some ideas that were very different from people of their time (Quinn). I feel like people may have looked down on them in that time because they thought a little differently than others. It reminds me of the quote, Stand up for what you believe in even if you are standing alone. Whitman had quite a few poems that had to do with nature, and again this is because he is a writer of the Naturalism period. Nature was a huge impact on everything that they did especially the arts with literature and other things. Even the art that was done at this time had to do with nature. Even still today there is an impact from nature, but I do not think it is as big as it was. However, even today exercises come from nature such as yoga. You become one with nature at that time and it reminds me a lot of this literary time period.

Quinn, Edward. "Transcendentalism." A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= DLLT1007&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 14, 2012)


Whitman, Walt. "On the Beach at Night Alone, by Walt Whitman." Poetry Archive. Web. 12 Mar. 2012