University of Portland Pilot Scholars English Undergraduate Publications, Presentations English and Projects Spring 2015 'Facing West': Walt Whitman's Evolving Attitudes Toward Manifest Destiny Philip Ellefson University of Portland Follow this and additional works at: http://pilotscholars.up.edu/eng_studpubs Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Citation: Pilot Scholars Version (Modified MLA Style) Ellefson, Philip, "'Facing West': Walt Whitman's Evolving Attitudes Toward Manifest Destiny" (2015). English Undergraduate Publications, Presentations and Projects. 2. http://pilotscholars.up.edu/eng_studpubs/2 This Student Project is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Pilot Scholars. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Undergraduate Publications, Presentations and Projects by an authorized administrator of Pilot Scholars. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Ellefson 1 Philip Ellefson Senior thesis December 8, 2014 ‘Facing West’: Walt Whitman’s Evolving Attitudes Toward Manifest Destiny In “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Walt Whitman makes a bold attempt to transcend time and space. He tells his readers that “It avails not, time nor place – distance avails not” (Leaves 1892, 120), and he is confident that his ferry ride home to Brooklyn will resonate with all his readers, even those generations in the future and in distant parts of the world. But despite the poem’s impressive language and grand scope, contemporary readers cannot help but think that Whitman falls just short of spatiotemporal transcendence. In 1883 (within Whitman’s lifetime) the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge forced his beloved ferry into obsolescence. He claims that “Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d” (LG 1892, 121).