Walt Whitman's Notebook

Step 1: I thought this notebook was very interesting and unique, but yes it was very difficult to make out the words he wrote. The words and phrases he wrote in the notebook seemed to be very concise and straight forward. The notes he wrote in his notebook could be his thoughts on the world around him, since that is what a lot of his poems were about. They could also been ideas, titles, or topics for his poems and what he was going to write about in the future. There are a few drawings at the end of the notebook that could either be self portraits of himself or sketches of ideas for characters in his writing. There are also a few marks on a select few pages with a stamp of a symbol that I can't quite make out, but he might of stamped his notebook himself.

Step 2: After looking through Whitman's notebook a second time and seeing what he actually wrote, it made me question Walt Whitman even more as a person and what was going through his mind most of the time. On the beginning page he wrote down different addresses of people he was close to, possibly as a reminder note in case he forgets the addresses in the future. On many of the pages in his notebook, he writes a lot about President Abraham Lincoln and his encounter with him outside of a hotel in New York, Whitman only briefly saw him and described the expression on his face as deeply sad. He then interestingly creates an imaginary conversation between him and President Lincoln. It is possible that he wrote up a dialogue that he wish he would have had with Lincoln that day and wrote it for his own amusement in hopes of one day publishing this fake conversation. Evidence of this is Whitman writing down potential titles on page 3 in hopes of publishing the dialogue he has written. Whitman also jots down a lot of his thoughts on religion and seems to have many strong feelings on it. He also seems to emphasize the word "libertad" a lot in his notebook as a way to describe the union. Throughout his book, he jots down side notes, thoughts, and ideas for future writings. Also writes down his opinions on the Civil War and the world around him.