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Walt Whitman's "I Sit and Look Out" Analysis

The poem expresses the speaker's anguish at witnessing various injustices in the world through three observations: oppression and suffering, secret cries of young men in pain, and a neglected mother dying alone. The speaker sees acts of betrayal, unrequited love, battles, tyranny, famine, and the poor treated with arrogance and disrespect. Despite seeing all this meanness and endless agony, the speaker remains silent.

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Tanya Chhablani
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622 views2 pages

Walt Whitman's "I Sit and Look Out" Analysis

The poem expresses the speaker's anguish at witnessing various injustices in the world through three observations: oppression and suffering, secret cries of young men in pain, and a neglected mother dying alone. The speaker sees acts of betrayal, unrequited love, battles, tyranny, famine, and the poor treated with arrogance and disrespect. Despite seeing all this meanness and endless agony, the speaker remains silent.

Uploaded by

Tanya Chhablani
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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2

I Sit and Look Out


WALT WHITMAN

About the Poet


Walter 'Wale Whitman
(1819-92) was one of the most influential
poets in American literature.
education before working as anWhitman had only a few of
ofhice boy for several years formal
worked as a
typesetter for newspapers and lawyers. He later
determined to become a writer, and his journals. Whitman was
most famous work,
Grass, a collection of poems, was first Leaves of
to
expand and revise this collection until
published in 1855. He continued
his death. Leaves Grass
remains a milestone in the of
American literary canon, and has been
read and
1S
appreciated by generations of readers and critics. Whitman
Considered a trailblazer in both the form and content of his
e was a great admirer of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His other poetry. works
hclude Franklin Evans
(1842), Drum-Taps (1865), Memoranda
During the War, Specimen Days, and Democratic Vistas (1871).

About the Poem


First
to published in his 1900 edition of Leaves
be a of Grass, this poem seems
ycry of anguish at all the things that are going wrong in this
world. The
speaker can either be seen simply observing but helpless
as
44 Pearls of Wisdom

to do anything about theseinjustices, or as someone


who is try
be more aware of everything that is wrong and at least talk ah
over.
that they are not hidden away or glossed

I Sit and Look Out


I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and pon all

oppression and shame;


I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with

themselves, remorseful after deeds done;


I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband-I see the treacherous seduce
of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
hid-I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny-I see martyrs and
prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea-I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be killd, to preserve the lives of the
I observe the
rest
slights degradations
and cast by arrogant persons upon
laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these-All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, lo0k
out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

Glossary
oppression: prolonged cruel or unjust treatment
convulsive:
anguish: violent,jerky, uncontrollable movements
Severe mental or
remorseful: physical pain for o
to be extremely sorry or feel lty
actions
gaunt: due to
lnes

very lean and haggard, especially


mistreatment
treacherous: to
betray or deceive someone
seducer: a
do to
or
bel
person who entices someone to m e o n e

something inadvisable or foolhardy

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