An Analysis Of Whitman 's ' The Grass ' Essay

Frances Willard and Walt Whitman are two significant nineteenth century American figures. Although Willard and Whitman are famous for different reasons, they do have one characteristic in common: they have both been accused of being homosexuals. However, most people do not know this because it is not put in history textbooks or taught in the classroom, for good reason. Public school students should not learn about Willard and Whitman’s homosexuality through their textbooks and teachers because it does not affect the significance of what these two Americans had accomplished. Not only does it not affect their importance in United States history, but it also cannot be proven. Teaching public school students that Willard and Whitman were homosexuals would be disrespectful to the brave and inspiring acts they have made towards the history of America.

Goodman Brown seems to be a religious man that is becoming skeptical about his faith and the goodness in people. Nathaniel Hawthorne names his main character Goodman, which is a representative of the general good in all men and women. As Goodman Brown takes his journey through the forest he begins to lose his faith. Goodman Brown says “What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand!” (Hawthorne 1) and when he tells his companion “having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot’st of” (Hawthorne 3).

The soul is also mentioned earlier in the poem as beautiful, despite the faces he sees which are at most "despising," (Whitman, `Faces'). Whitman was apparently very much intrigued by the soul, he tried to find a "path," to the soul even though he admits that he was not sure what the soul was. However, he was determined he would find a "path between reality and their souls," (Allen, 192). Like most of the pantheists of his time he wanted to connect many things, reality and the soul; even individualism and the nation. Whitman quoted, "The empowerments of each element of the country individually but at the same time their merger in the collective empowerment of the nation

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown illustrates vividly how society and culture can very much influence a person's sense of identity and belonging, or in the case of Young Goodman Brown the lack thereof. Being a Puritan man in a society that scorned the ways of witches and the devil, Young Goodman Brown grew up with a very pious outlook on life. Yet when it occurs to him to look at life a little bit differently, Young Goodman Brown receives more than he has bargained for. The journey he embarks on sheds a whole new light on his society that not only creates a struggle between himself and his fellow men but also one within himself.

Walt Whitman’s poem “This Compost” utilizes incestuous allusions to communicate a mood of revulsion, that is at once wondering and terrified at the ability of Mother Earth and her humans to turn death and decaying forms into provisions for life. By forming an incsestous relationship with the natural world, Whitman displays his belief that a perverse relationship with the Earth is what yields the food that humans need to survive. Furthermore, he shows that human’s relationship to the Earth is unbounded by conventional morals like the taboo against incest. The speaker’s terror comes from the perverse, yet eternally loving relationship that other men seem to disregard with their need to waste and decay the natural gifts; given to them for their own industry and agriculture.

Walt Whitman could be seen as a narcissist because of his confidence in knowing the “ways” of the world. He is confident in his theory that the physical self and the emotional self, or the soul, are equals in all aspects. But I’m unsure if this is such a bad thing, as narcissism has negative connotations. On the other hand, the object of a visionary poet is not to sway people a certain way or impress them but to be able to reveal a moment or feeling in time and share their findings, which Walt does. Through his work he isn’t saying look at me and all I know. He is sharing his self-discovery and soul searching with the reader to show how magical it can be. He shares his uncertainties, what it’s like to love and what it’s like to be at peace

  There is no end to the ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”; this essay hopes to explore this problem.

In “Song of Myself”, grass is the central image surrounding Walt Whitman’s ideology. The idea behind it is grass, in some ways, is very similar to people in society and natures lifecycles. As Whitman was “observing a spear of summer grass” (5), he began to question the human condition. One of Whitman’s first thoughts was that one individual, like a single spear of grass surrounded by more grass, is part of a large community of people. It’s impossible to differentiate from others, for all people are equal despite cultural, religious, or gender differences. Nevertheless, Whitman’s use of symbolism alludes to the idea that grass reflects the thoughts and condition of people in society.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne introduces Goodman Brown, who doubts himself and reiterates his false confidence to himself repeatedly. His struggle between the evil temptations, the devil, and the proper church abiding life, is a struggle he does not think he can handle. This story is about a man who challenges his faith in himself and in the community in which he resides. Goodman Brown must venture on a journey into the local forest, refuse the temptations of the devil, and return to the village before the sunrise.

“Young Goodman Brown”, like most Nathaniel Hawthorne stories, is littered with themes from beginning to end. These themes aim to show the troubles of our society and in human nature. The particular tale of “Young Goodman Brown” had multiple themes such as the inevitable loss of innocence, symbolism, and weakness in public morality. The inevitable loss of innocence is constant throughout the story.

The dominant themes that are more pervasive in Whitman’s poetry are democracy, life/death cycles, individualism, and nature. These themes play major roles in some of his more notable poems such as “Songs of Myself” or “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” He used democracy as a theme to bring society together, and unite everyone based on their general beliefs. He depicted life and death cycles to merge society together on a spiritual level. Despite his eagerness to unite society he also embraced individualism, and is also a persistent theme in most of his poetry. Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people who there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature connect us all, and encourage people to

Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman’s life legacy and at the same time the most praised and condemned book of poetry. Although fearful of social scorn, there are several poems in Leaves of Grass that are more explicit in showing the homoerotic imagery, whereas there are several subtle – should I say “implicit” – images woven into the fabric of the book. It is not strange, then, that he created many different identities in order to remain safe. What Whitman faced in writing his poetry was the difficulty in describing and resonating manly and homosexual love. He was to find another voice of his, a rhetoric device, and his effort took two forms: simplified, and subverted word play.

In Walt Whitman’s collection of Leaves of Grass, he includes many poems that are a compilation of his musings and thoughts. One thing that he does throughout his collection is that he creates goals through each poem to get different messages across. Some of his common messages, or underlying themes, are the Self, democracy, and the individual, but an interesting common theme found scattered throughout Leaves of Grass is the cycle of life and death, especially in comparison to the United States, the Civil War, and life itself. In “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” does such thing. Published in 1865, the pastoral elegy was written after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. This is the best way that Walt Whitman mourns a beloved public figure in his own modern world, and also the way he copes with the natural world. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” best captures Whitman’s notion what it means to be human: the common understanding of the never-ending cycle of life and death through the form of the elegy, the symbol of the lilac, and the personification of death.

Title- The song of myself sounds like a poem of self expression, and a gospel of Walt Whitman's’ self beliefs. When his optimistic outlook on life is brought into perspective, one could also conclude that the poem was about his positive and radical outlook on life, because it is a song of himself, his personal expression.

This is another poem that links Whitman to the Romantics. The "birth of the poet" genre was of particular importance to Wordsworth, whose massive Prelude details his artistic coming-of-age in detail. Like Wordsworth, Whitman claims to take his inspiration from nature. Where Wordsworth is inspired by a wordless feeling of awe, though, Whitman finds an opportunity to anthropomorphize, and nature gives him very specific answers to his questions about overarching concepts. Nature is a tabula rasa onto which the poet can project himself. He conquers it, inscribes it. While it may become a part of him that is always present, the fact that it does so seems to be by his permission.