From Pent-Up Aching Rivers Reflection

Walt Whitman's work of poetry, "From Pent-Up Aching Rivers," is a little different that many poems written in his time. Actually, it is extremely different than most literature that was being produced in general. Frankly, the entire poem describes sex and all of the joys of sex (Whitman). Walt Whitman was known for not writing what was the norm; he caused quite the uproar with all of his new ideas and thoughts. After reading this poem, I understand why. While I am not a shy or bashful person by any means, I felt a little uncomfortable reading this poem in an open room with my parents in the next room. I was ready at any time to click to a different link just so that they would not catch a glimpse of the literature I was reading. Does that seem right? I feel that a man of great literary achievement who was so influential on modern literature more than a hundred years ago should not have been writing so crassly about this topic, although I guess that is also why he was such an eye opening and powerful author.

"From Pent-Up Aching Rivers" describes Whitman's thoughts regarding nature, and how the human really is, in all, just an animal in nature's course (Whitman). It also describes how sex is not just merely for pleasure, but that God created us in his image and therefore we are all perfect creations and sex is a divine activity (Oliver). While I do see the truth in some of those statements, I find that they are a bit contradictory. I do agree with Whitman when he writes of other animals and their mating patterns, relating them to ours (Whitman). I think this is an accurate realization and he expressed it in an interesting and captivating way. When he starts to write about how divine the body is and how sex is divine, however, I become a bit confused (Whitman). Whitman was, first of all, homosexual; his literature, however, is sometimes in regards to having sex with a woman (Whitman). This right here is completely against the Bible and what God says in many different chapters. For example, Matthew 5:27-30 is all about adultery and how even talking about it or thinking about it is a sin; this can lead to an afterlife in Hell (Jones). If Whitman was trying to relate sex and his thoughts of it to a divine being such as God, he failed completely. Instead of acting pleasing towards God, he was instead writing of lust in which women and men both were the objects of his attention, so obviously he was not married to or even thinking about marrying his subjects (Whitman). In the Bible, in many, many passages, this is regarded as a very serious sin; it is even one of the Ten Commandments. While I understand where Whitman was coming from, he was just displaying his "every man" concept of how every man is like each other and every man came from God, I think he misinterpreted it and took advantage of his literary power to write a very creative yet crude poem that certainly had an impact on all future forms of literature.

WORKS CITED

Jones, Michael. "Bible Verse List - Scriptures about Sex from ScriptureMenu.com." Scripture Menu: Bible Topic Scripture Verse Lists. Crossway Bibles, 2005. Web. 06 Mar. 2011. .

Oliver, Charles M. "'From Pent-up Aching Rivers'." Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCWW168&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 6, 2011).

Whitman, Walt. "From Pent-Up Aching Rivers." Leaves of Grass (1891-1892). The Whitman Archive. Ed Folsom & Kenneth M. Price, 1995. Web. 6 Mar. 2011.