Critical Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

Alfaro Connor Byrne English 214 01 October 2017 Analysis of Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” Walt Whitman was a self taught poet who left school to find studies on his own, believing that school doesn't give the necessary information for life. Evident in his two poems “Song of Myself” and “When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer” is his beliefs about school, as well as focusing in some way on nature. The poem “Song of Myself” focuses on his views about who he is, how important

Walt Whitman’s exciting language and style reflect and further the opinions he voices in “Leaves of Grass”. In one of his poems, “Song of Myself”, Whitman, through his use of symbolism and free verse, points out his views on democracy. He was surrounded by those who established a fine line between what was deemed right and wrong, there being no in-between. The ideas that were not whole, or right or wrong, were widely rejected. He chose risky subjects to discuss and used risky language, which was

self worth. Where Allen Ginsberg is lost in the market, desperately trying to find inspiration from Walt Whitman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti portrays the image of the poet frantically trying to balance on a high wire, risking not only absurdity, but also death. Both of these poems deal with their poet’s struggle to find meaning and their fears of failure. Where Ginsberg fears he will never find Whitman’s dream, Ferlinghetti fears falling off the high wire and being submitted to absurdity and death.

In his canonical collection, Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman creates a poetic persona that envisages a particularly American brand of nationalism. Written almost a century after the instrumental document of American republicanism; the Declaration of Independence (1776) was actualized; Whitman’s poems draw on some of its key tenets, mainly equality and liberty. Like the Declaration of Independence, his poems perpetuate a framework of American democracy and the importance of the democratic individual

TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS The purpose of Text Interpretation and Analysis is a literary and linguistic commentary in which the reader explains what the text reveals under close examination. Any literary work is unique. It is created by the author in accordance with his vision and is permeated with his idea of the world. The reader’s interpretation is also highly individual and depends to a great extent on his knowledge and personal experience. That’s why one cannot lay down a fixed “model”