Blog Post 14: Witty Whitman

Step 1:
In looking throughout Whitman's journal, the very first thing that I noticed was that the book looks completely ancient.  I think that this gives character to the ideas that are inside no matter what is inside.  On the very first page, I can make out what seems to be addresses of some sort as if it is a personal journal just for Whitman's own memory, which makes sense.  Looking throughout the rest of the journal, I think that Whitman is really showing how many ideas that he had and how he planned to execute them.  The journal says "brochure" and talks about having two characters talking to each other.  This shows more of Whitman's thought process and the reader can see how they evolve and change throughout the journal from beginning to end, like how most people tend to change over time.  I also noticed a stamp that seems to be on most pages of the journal, which I don't know if that was included while Whitman was writing or after.  What is interesting for me is that Whitman's writing is in cursive, which shows more of the time period.  Cursive is slowly dying because technology allows us to have it with just a click of a button.

Step 2:
In seeing the analysis of the annotations, I see that I was right about the addresses and names that are included in the journal.  What I didn't notice was that Whitman wrote about talking to, or at least being near, Lincoln in his journal.  I didn't pick up on that part of his writing, but I was right about how "brochure" was mentioned by Whitman and how Whitman was most likely thinking about his characters.  That red circular stamp actually turns out to be the stamp of the Library of Congress, so it was placed after the journal was out of Whitman's possession, I'm assuming. I think it is interesting that Whitman hated slavery just as Lincoln did, and how he referenced religion in his journal.  This does seem pretty normal, since it was Whitman's personal journal full of his opinions.  Of course, there are mentions of Whitman's ideas and little snippets of poems he wrote and poems to come at the time, but it is interesting to get a look directly into what would've been Whitman's whole life.