Whitman And Ginsberg Comparison

Poetry has come a long way since the early days of American history. During the early 1800s, American poetry was reminiscent of European poetry, both in content and form. The poet that began to change all of that was Walt Whitman. His poetry had a drastically different form to poetry that came before his, employing free verse instead of traditional rhyme schemes, and reflecting American culture. More modern poets may have grown away from Whitman’s themes, but many still employ literary devices pioneered by Whitman, such as the free verse in Allen Ginsberg’s ’’Howl", or the almost spiritual structure of Ishmael Reed’s ’’Neo Hoodoo Manifesto". Even though Ginsburg’s and Reed’s work differs from the work of earlier poets, there are still similarities
The way the poem is written, it is more for Ginsberg than anyone else, making references and alluding to places and people that only he knows. He wrote it to express his feelings, to put his anger, frustration, and hopes into words, not because he wanted recognition, but in spite of it. That is where Whitman and Ginsberg differ. Whitman wrote poetry to reach out to people, to recognize others and celebrate them, as well as celebrating himself. Ginsberg wrote poetry because he needed to. He needed to express his feelings in some way, and he chose poetry. He did not care if anyone else understood it, or liked it, he just felt the need to do it. There are some similarities between Ginsberg and Whitman, however. Both recognized and respected people society normally ignored, Whitman with the prostitutes and the company working man and Ginsberg with the artists and misfits. They both understood that it is these people that make our society great, having the freedom to be what they want to be, and both hoped that society would be liberal enough one day to accept everyone as they are. Both men also employed similar techniques in their poetry, relying on free verse and vivid imagery to express their thoughts and