Journal #37

I thought that parts of the article relating to Whitman and his works were very interesting. At some points, Mark Bauerlein brought up some interesting and valid points regarding some of Whitman's stories, and Bauerlein had a mindset that must be much different than my own. Some of his thoughts I never would have dreamed up; although, to be honest, I would not ever really want to waste my time dreaming about Whitman and his poetry. While I did find some of Mark Bauerlein's points and remarks to be fascinating and eye opening, it was also incredibly boring. He could have said a lot of his opinions in much shorter, simpler terms; for a common reader in our century and in our culture, big long articles such as that are extremely boring to read, and, frankly, no one really wants to read them if they can help it. That is just my opinion; maybe there are high school students that find that sort of stuff fascinating. I, obviously, do not find it very joyous to read and therefore struggled through the article. Also, I do not really like Whitman in general. While Bauerlein did do a great job expressing what Whitman might have been thinking or referring to in some of his poems, it would have been a whole lot more enjoyable for me to read if I actually liked Whitman's poems. I find Whitman to be a self centered writer who focuses on his viewpoint and his viewpoint only, and he blatantly declares that any other mindset is wrong. I think this is incredibly annoying, and biased authors are just not pleasurable to read. Bauerlein also did what I find annoying in literary critics. He analyzed Whitman to death. He took a simple sentence and broke it down into kind of absurd meanings that may have been true; however, he did this quite often. I feel that poetry should be written so that the listener, viewer, or reader can enjoy it and interpret it in their own way, and when poetry is over analyzed, I believe its whole purpose has been destoryed. Bauerlein's article did indeed serve as a useful tool in understanding Whitman's works; however, I do not care much in general about Whitman and therefore found this article much too drawn on and boring.