Blog Post #14 

Whitman's (impossible-to-read) Notebook: 

In the first couple of pages it is easy to infer that Whitman is brainstorming for a future work. He is jotting down some ideas. It reminds me of making thumbnail sketches for a future art project. Through much decoding and cursive translators, the brainstorming nonsense looks like it is hinting at a possible dialogue between W W. and President Elect. His writing is hard to read throughout, but when I got to the bottom there were some very interesting sketches. It seemed like a couple self portraits, a harp, and an intriguing newspaper title, "The Bohemian". "The hills of Brooklyn... Here stood Washington/ The last war" read at the bottom as his potential poem. To conclude his journal he drew in a lovely skeleton, with its hear- torso pierced. It is all very convoluted. The entire journal seems like a train of thought. Whatever conclusions he was going for are hidden well in his book of evidence.

Whitman's (understandable) Notebook:

It looks like I was right about the alleged conversation between Abe and Walt. Whitman ties in a bit of religion and american-dream ideals to his brainstorming; mainly the idea of liberty. It isn't all connected very well, but it seems that he is bringing about a comparison of sorts to ancient or expired ideals. This is clear when he talks about the Jews and Greeks. These are sort of brushed under the rug, and this is paralleled to the past understanding of liberty. I beleive he is bouncing around the the civil war in his dialogue and talking about all of its fallacies as it is destroying the nation in a way. He is questioning the nation to guide it towards a better state. It is revealed that Whitman cared about the state of his environment and cared deeply about the righteousness of politics.