Summary:

Walt Whitman’s  “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” uses catalogs in order to generate a democratic perspective that unites his readers. The repetition of the catalogs, rather than formal rhyme or meter, allows Whitman to open his text to contemporary readers who imagine what Whitman sees over a period of timeless vision.

Completed in 1869, the transcontinental railroad opened the United States to transitory populations. People began to move inward to cities, and this resulted in a more homogenous national culture. In response, regionalism became a dominant literary mode that sought to capture and preserve threatened ways of life. Dr. Croxall demonstrated the persistence of regionalism in American literature by drawing a map of the United States and listing writers who are primarily associated with the West, South, or Northeast.

Twain (Samuel Clemens) worked in newspapers as an adult like Whitman, but used his experience as a steamboat pilot in the 1850s for inspiration in his fiction. A popular lecturer and joker, Twain used satire in “War Prayer” to critique the idea that one population deserves victory during battle. He also questioned the glorification of death.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) was one of the first books written entirely in the vernacular. Twain uses the picaresque to demonstrate the difference between who is civilized (Huck) and who merely appears to be so (the feuding families, for example). Huck’s experience teaches him that nature is civilized, rather than wild, and comes to understand Jim as a human rather than a slave. While Huckleberry Finn is a satire, it is also an important example of regionalism in its use of the vernacular dialects of Missouri and in its depiction of the particular cultures of the Mississippi Valley during the the antebellum time period of 1835-1845.

Word Count: 289

Passages:

"I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old,

Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,

Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow,

Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south,

Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,

Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,

Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light around the shape of my head in the sunlit water,

Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward,

Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,

Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,

Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,

Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor,

The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars,

The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,

The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses..." (Whitman p. 22, lines 27-41) 

• In one of his poetic catalogs, Whitman records his impressions of everything he sees on his journey on the ferry. In creating a panoramic scene, he also participates in a democratic process as he arranges objects and people next to one another in a way that would not have otherwise existed.

“With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by their neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths” (Twain, "The War Prayer" 322).

• Twain reveals in his satire that the “noblest of noble deaths” is to die for honor, which has no reason but itself. The war is fought between humans who glorify their own cause without realizing they kill others like themselves. In the process, Twain also demonstrates that praying to God for victory violates the Golden Rule and teaches readers more about the people who are asking.

“In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work; but pains-takingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding” (Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 108).

• By pointing out the intentional differences in his character’s speech patterns, Twain reiterates the regional emphasis of his work. He invites the reader's to notice the differences that they might have otherwise assumed were all versions of teh same dialog.

“Then he got up slow, and walked to the wigwam, and went in there, without saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back.

It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger – but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither. I didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way” (Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 160).

• Huck experiences shame for tricking Jim, and in the process learns to treat Jim as a person rather than a slave.

Key Terms:

Catalog: seen in Whitman, the catalog is a series of long sentences placed congruently, often with verb repetition.

Parataxis: intentionally paired phrases not usually seen together combine to create a new meaning.

Regionalism: seen in nineteenth century American literature as the nation became increasingly urban and homogenized. It was used to capture and preserve the unique cultural attributes of each region as well as their fading, usually agrarian-based lifestyles. Regionalism is frequently nostalgic.

Satire: literary genre that attacks an institution with the desire to bring about change in the status quo, usually completed by taking on the guise of what is attacked.

Dialect: the vernacular language of a particular region and people.

Picaresque: a road novel, usually with a lower-station/rogue protagonist who travels and on the way encounters characters who represent different aspects of the country.

Other Class Materials:

• Consider contemporary examples of satire: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Onion, the Simpsons, the July 21, 2008 cover of the New Yorker featuring the Obamas