Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Walt Whitman
- First Published: 1856
- Type of Work: Poem
- Genres: Poetry, Dramatic monologue
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Nineteenth century, New York City, Future, Rivers or waterways, Romanticism, Boats or boating, Transcendentalism
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is a subtle, oblique attempt to transcend time and persuade the reader of the simultaneity of past, present, and future. Whitman shed light on the poem in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass: “Past and present are not disjoin’d but joined. The greatest poet forms the consistence of what is to be from what has been and is. . . . He . . . places himself where the future becomes present.” The poem is also rich in imagery that suggests the coexistence of opposite values, such as fixity and motion, rest and activity, time and...
[The entire page is 1183 words long]
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