"On the Beach at Night Alone"-Walt Whitman

I chose the poem "On the Beach at Night Alone" by Walt Whitman.  This poem signifies a writing style that we have been looking at through many other works.  This poem by Walt Whitman exemplifies something else, something further than just the plain Realism style that focuses on the main point and ease of understanding.  This poem reflects the branch off of Realism called Naturalism. Naturalism mainly tends to keep on focus with the idea and or presence of nature within the literary work.  The only thing that may be confusing is that this work does not seem to display the Realism period, but still classifies the ideas of Naturalism.  This poem is very descriptive but still has ideas of nature, so overall, it may be hard to analyze what specific style of writing this poem is portraying.

"ON the beach at night alone,  As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song."(Whitman) In the quotation above, Walt Whitman describes the ocean as a mother(Whitman).  This metaphor signifies the importance of nature in general and within the work.  Emerson and Thoreau both agreed upon the idea that nature was significant and extremely important.  Naturalism, essentially, will pretty much always in agreement with the philosophies of Thoreau and Emerson.  Whitman was very into expressing himself into a lot of detail.He talks about the moons and planets and even just spheres.  He also explains the soul into great detail. Every line deals with some sort of description of nature and how its importance applies to life.  "All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,   All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes..."(Whitman) In the verse above, Whitman explains that even though all humans are different, all bodies, and all living things are different, we are all the same inside, physically, because we are all rooted from the same thing.  This agrees with the philosophies of Emerson and Thoreau because this goes along with their idea of equality(Emerson).

Whitman, Walt. "On the Beach at Night Alone, by Walt Whitman." Poetry Archive. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://www.poetry-archive.com/w/on_the_beach_at_night_alone.html>.