Whitman Song of Myself Essay

Individuality in Whitman's Song of Myself During a lecture in 1907, William James said "the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos" (Bartlett 546) Individuality has been a prevalent theme in every type of literature for quite some time. Whether it is a character discovering

Throughout Self-Reliance and Song of Myself by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, many common threads tie the two works together. One key similarity between the writings is a shared view of society and its various institutions. Emerson and Whitman both condemned established organizations, whether they were religious or social. However, Whitman expanded on Emerson’s views to create a more inclusive vision. He removed any restraints, which brought his work to a greater audience. Therefore, even

individualism, eroticism, and democratic ideas. His poems showed individualism, “I celebrate myself and sing myself” is a good example (Whitman 1024). The fact that he referred to first person, “I” in “Songs of Myself” also showed his individualistic personality. Whitman displays eroticism in “Songs of Myself “, verse 3 “out of the dimness equals advance, always substance, always sex” (Whitman 1026). Whitman related nature to his experiences in the civil war in “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

of; Walt Whitman's (section of ) "Song of Myself" And Emily Dickinson's " 712 " or, Because I could not stop for death Two colossus figures in American poetry are both Whitman and Emily Dickinson. Both deemed influential and grandpaternal characters to all American literature that followed. And what poet is a poet whom never poems on death? The segment of Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Dickinson's "712" both give a personal deconstruction on just this topic. Whitman who is considered also the grandfather

How would you deal with a death in the family? “Home Burial” by Robert Frost is about a couple whose child has just passed away and how they deal with the death. This poem showed what a masterful poet he was. “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman is a meditation on himself as a person. It includes some of his views on government, society, life and death.These two poems are vastly different in the ways that the authors write, but similar in the authors use of symbolism throughout these poems. In Robert

where someone is in the habit of being independent and self-reliant to the world around them. Walt Whitman is an author who believes that all people should have a sense of individualism because without it everyone would be the same. The overall topic is going to be about how Whitman perceives individuality differently based on the settings of the writings. In two of Whitman’s writings, “Song of Myself” and “Drum Taps”, the idea of individuality is present and clear to each of the characters that are

already taken place in Seneca Falls. According to Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass is a women’s book. In the epigraph of Sherry Ceniza’s Walt Whitman and 19th-century women reformers she quotes him having said “Leaves of Grass I essentially a woman’s book: the women do it know it, but every now and then a woman shows that she knows it” (Ceniza). The implication here combined with the text in Song of Myself suggest a phenomenon that is all too common. Whitman is seen as and sees himself as a poet beyond racial

Birmingham, makes this suggestion: “religious Americans might profit spiritually from a committed reading of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself" (Birmingham). By a committed reading he means “one in which, having suspended disbelief, readers allow themselves to experience the text as a meaningful aesthetic event, only later bringing to bear the critical practice of their faith”(Birmingham). Whitman, Birmingham warns, was “a great poet of experience and the possibilities it contains, but is actually a terrible philosopher”(Birmingham)

Transcendentally Democratic Diction in Whitman’s “Song of Myself” Whitman’s strategy in “Song of Myself” is to link his “soul ... with all that is not [his] soul”, and to admire life’s interconnectedness, thereby affirming the self, the universal soul, and the transcendental holiness of all things (52). In case this logic did not seem heretical enough to his contemporaries, Whitman chose a form and diction so unpopular in his time that most of them rejected him as a poet. But it was exactly

in use by over 60% of modern day countries. Walt Whitman utilizes the theme of democracy in his poem, Song of Myself, not only encouraging it as a system, but also as a way of life, seeking unity in all. Although Whitman uses the seemingly singular pronoun “I” in his poems, he is not using the pronoun to signify only himself but also the rest of humanity as a unified entity. Whitman opens his poem with the words “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every