American Literature
Whitman extended cadence of poetic lines through
parallelism, alliteration and assonance. For example, in "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," he writes: When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lectureroom...(l.14) Whitman uses parallelism in this poem when he
repeatedly states "When" at the beginning of each line. Whitman suggests that the working class is valued highly in his opinion because the
astronomer in this poem seems to be a hard worker who earns his applause in the lectureroom. The poem has no periods or ending punctuation
except at the end. It is all one long sentence. Whitman is the father of Modern Poetry; his work suggests the revolutionary power of democracy and
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