Essay On Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

The suggestions of equality between all people are not blatant and are not abundant in “Song of Myself” but they do exist, showing that Whitman was not as neutral as most readers are led to believe. He believed in equality.

Also included in the poem is the image of a young child being embraced by their elders. This shows the gap in life and the aging process that we go through. When we are young we are carefree, but as we age we hold on to the ones we love because of the knowledge that we will one day have to make our departure. Out of this idea of death, Whitman shows that this is a natural part of life and

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman emphasize the importance of living true to yourself and developing complete self-acceptance. To live a genuine life and completely accept who you are, you must understand your identity and your sense of self. In Self-Reliance, Emerson explains that your identity and your sense of self are spiritual. Whitman argues, in Song of Myself, that your identity and sense of self are based on both your soul and your body. While both Emerson and Whitman allow for intimate connections and friendships, Emerson encourages people to have relationships with a select few, whereas Whitman encourages people to connect with everyone and anyone, due to their different views of self.

Imagery is present throughout Walt Whitman’s Song Of Myself (-----). Whitman is able to draw the reader into the text and ground the abstract ideas back to the readers by appealing to a range of senses. Whitman also uses visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory to imagery give a sense of reality to the setting.

Whitman begins by creating a contradictory image of himself. On one hand he relays an egotistical representation by alluding that he is the center of the universe, "a kosmos, of Manhattan the son," almost a deistic type of character. Whitman also describes himself as not being above any one person, woman or man, an obvious contradiction to his previous representation. His God-like persona is depicted in human terms, physical qualities that all humans possess. Whitman creates this contradiction to show his belief that he is everything, but is only this way because everything is a part of him. He represents himself as part of a whole&emdash;nature, mankind, and the universe are all a part of him. By being everything in nature and nature being a part of him, Whitman has the power to become the voice of nature as a whole. He speaks for nature and mankind when they do not possess the power to do so. Whitman is the voice of all.

While this appears to be a loss of the sense of self as a discrete individual, it actually lends power to the individual, who now becomes “part of the scheme” (89). Each man within the crowd has a role to play in the forming of a coherent organic whole. By transporting his poetic self from his own time and place to the time and place of the reader through the repetition of the phrase “Just as you… I” (90), Whitman blurs the line that separates poet and reader,

To move onwards, Walt Whitman, a poetic mastermind of the 19th century revealed to man a multitude of positive things in regards to individualism, man’s relationship with the society that always manages to cast a shadow upon man itself, and how the 19th century American identified himself to the broad and rather daunting world that was presented upon him. Whitman manages to present such an overwhelming amount of encouraging information in regards to the individual and society through a few, yet plentiful, marvelous strokes of pen on paper. One of Whitman’s most notable works, “Song of myself”, presents a rather eye opening fact in regards to the “insignificant” individual; to explain, Whitman presents the following information in his aforementioned work “A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfulness, A novice beginning yet experiment of myriads of seasons, Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion, A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker, Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest” (Whitman 7). Whitman’s statement serves to stress the fact that the individual isn’t one measly persona, but the contrary, a persona with many positive and overall outgoing characteristics, such serving to highlight the mass

He demonstrates being non-judgmental, which is something people of his time do not understand, let alone today in present time. He goes on later to say "I resist anything better than my own diversity, and breathe the air and leave plenty after me, and am not stuck up, and am in my place" (2756). Whitman feels that he has explored the world and the options around him and now has found his place. He knows his inner self and it has guided him to the place he needs to be.

Every sentence in Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" tends to either repeat or contradict. He even says of himself, "I contradict myself" (Lauter, p. 2793). This can make Whitman's poetry a little confusing to some. In his many stanzas, definition of the soul is ambiguous and somewhat contradictory.

On this verse, we can see how Whitman tries to connect to mind, body, spirit and nature. In “Song of Myself” Whitman attempted to change the meaning of American poetry. I described identity issues that pertain to him, but that the audience was able to identify with. Whitman, opened the door to

The implication of individualism in Walt Whitman’s poem, “Song of Myself,” is in the title; “Myself” means the reader and or Whitman. He composed his free verse poem to be universal, because he expects everyone to obtain a different meaning since it took place a few years before the Civil War. Words such as me, myself, and I are used throughout the entire poem to express his self-reliance. On Whitman’s journey to find himself, he never allowed someone to judge him; he found belonging in the universe which made him encourage others to follow his path. He became curious and experienced towards the ending of his journey and he will explore much more after death. Whitman explains, everyone has different journeys so the answers to the questions being asked will be different, “... you must find out

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.

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman. In this poem, the speaker Walt Whitman talks about his connection to nature and how everything is connected to nature. He speaks as if what he says is a new or unheard language. Mr. Whitman believe that he is not tamed from himself and that he has transcended the notion. By that he means he have created a new language that is foreign to others since they have never heard of it. Around this time many poets were becoming more expressive and open. Walt Whitman motivated many artists that would have been considered “weird” during the time to become more open.

Not only does he imagine himself as the passengers currently on the ferry, but he feels as if he is everyone who had every rode the ferry. The symbolism behind the ferry is important because it expands the meaning of the speaker’s imagination. He is imagining himself as anyone that has ever or will ever experience life and the importance of nature. He begins to see the world differently. In stanza two, he describes his new insight as “the simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme” (7).  Each passenger in the past, present, and future are joined together in Whitman’s imagination for a greater purpose. Ultimately, the speaker begins to disregard identity. While looking into the water in stanza 9, he said he saw “fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or anyone’s head, in the sunlit water” (126). He does not care to identify whether the face he sees is his own or someone else’s. In the end, everyone is the same person and has the same experiences. Everyone is looking at the water and seeing a reflection. As he said in stanza five, we have all been “struck from the float forever held in solution”

In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, the poet showcases his feelings of people and himself by using literary descriptors to convey his thoughts on these and various other subjects. In section 20, Whitman’s purpose is to showcase self-assuredness regardless of what the world tries to state otherwise by maintaining his resolute happiness in being himself. This is what sets him apart from being like the other people in the world.