Song of the Open Road Analysis

We'd forgive you if you thought Walt Whitman was always the freewheeling free verser he's now known to be, busting onto the poetry scene like some kind of cross between the Kool-Aid man and Gandalf...

We like to think of our speaker as the most enthusiastic travel agent we've ever met. We might have gone into his office just to get a brochure, but we're coming out with a fully booked lifetime va...

This may come as a shock to you, but the setting for "Song of the Open Road" is… the open road. Now that you've gotten back up from falling out of your chair, it's worth saying a bit more about t...

Like any great classic rocker, Whitman created his own sound. If you're even just a little familiar with his poems, you'll certainly know one when you hear one. It's not that he hits you with a ton...

It wasn't always this way, you know. "Song of the Open Road" was not, in fact, Whitman's first choice when it came to slapping a title on this poem. Nope, that honor went to—wait for it—"Poem o...

Reading a Walt Whitman poem is like coming across the most enthusiastic encyclopedia entry you've ever read. The guy wasn't a goof, nor was he pointlessly happy, but his poems were packed with an i...

The road is open here, gang. Sure, some funky syntax and 19th-century vocabulary might put a few boulders and trees in the way, but that's just part of the bargain when you're traveling Whitman's s...

Schoolin' schmoolin—Walt Whitman was largely self-taught. (Source.) Ol' Walt was a PR genius. He wrote anonymous book reviews for his own work. (Source.) The first time Whitman headed out onto th...

The poem's speaker is seriously into other people, but not in a creepy way. He just wants to hang out with them on the open road for some good, clean living.