Analysis of To Oratists
Walt Whitman 1819 (West Hills) – 1892 (Camden)
TO ORATISTS--to male or female,
Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power
to use words.
Are you full-lung'd and limber-lipp'd from long trial? from vigorous
practice? from physique?
Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
Come duly to the divine power to use words?
For only at last, after many years--after chastity, friendship,
procreation, prudence, and nakedness;
After treading ground and breasting river and lake;
After a loosen'd throat--after absorbing eras, temperaments, races--
after knowledge, freedom, crimes;
After complete faith--after clarifyings, elevations, and removing
obstructions;
After these, and more, it is just possible there comes to a man, a
woman, the divine power to use words. 10
Then toward that man or that woman, swiftly hasten all--None refuse,
all attend;
Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings, machines,
cities, hate, despair, amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration,
form in close ranks;
They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth
of that man, or that woman.
.... O I see arise orators fit for inland America;
And I see it is as slow to become an orator as to become a man;
And I see that all power is folded in a great vocalism.
Of a great vocalism, the merciless light thereof shall pour, and the
storm rage,
Every flash shall be a revelation, an insult,
The glaring flame on depths, on heights, on suns, on stars,
On the interior and exterior of man or woman, 20
On the laws of Nature--on passive materials,
On what you called death--(and what to you therefore was death,
As far as there can be death.)
Scheme | XXAXXXA XAXXXXXBA XXXCXXC BXX BXXXCXDD |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111 1100100010000110 111 1111010111101100 10101 11101111111 110100110111 11011101011010010 10101001 101010101001 100101100101010010 1010101 100111010100010 010 10101111100111010 1000110111 10111111010101101 101 101010001101001 101011001110010 1011 11111101101000101 1111110 111011001110100 01111111011100110101 01111101100011 10110100111100 11 1001110010101 010111111111 1001000010011110 1011101100100 111110111111 1111111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,816 |
Words | 271 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 7, 9, 7, 3, 8 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 37 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 253 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 63 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:22 min read
- 64 Views
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"To Oratists" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/38214/to-oratists>.
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