Transcendentalism In Walt Whitman's Songs Of Myself

Ralph Waldo Emerson is a transcendentalist in my eyes because of his consistent promotion of free thought, personal insight, and individuality. Transcendentalism is the combination of the beliefs of nonconformity, self-reliance, free thought, confidence, and importance of nature. When I looked further into its meaning I came to realize it encompasses the growth and renewal of the individual, revolt against conformity, and basically promotes all sorts of reformation. Transcendentalism is really just a collection of eclectic ideas about literature, philosophy, religion, social reform, and the generalizations on culture. It is the kind of concept that exists on a sliding scale because it has different meanings for each person who interprets it. I feel like Emerson really advocates many of these ideas and thoughts throughout all of his works, he speaks about individuality, promoting intuition as a sign of higher thinking. Emerson constantly reinforced that free thought was an advantage that not everyone was able to use for themselves, for example he says "A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think." (1862). This is his way of expressing that there is power and privilege in those that can and will think for themselves, that they have the upper hand in comparison to those who just fall in line with what society wants. Overall he seems to be a transcendentalist author considering how the many elements of the concept are constantly reiterated throughout every

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the pioneer of the transcendentalism movement and Edgar Allan Poe, the pioneer of the American gothic movement, had ideas that sought to explain the state of mankind; ideas which were considered revolutionary for their time. It can be argued that both authors speak about something the soul longs for. Emerson encourages individuals to be self-reliant, which is to be true to oneself. On the other hand, Poe writes much darker works that deal with the human psyche and directly confront the problem of evil. Poe’s The Imp of the Perverse can be read as a criticism and refutation of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” by analyzing why the narrator committed murder and exposed himself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “The Poet” in order to explore the role of a poet in modern day society. Educated at Harvard University, Emerson was a transcendentalist, meaning that he believed a higher truth beyond the physical reality experienced in everyday life. This carries on in his writing, as he frequently speaks of the connecting physical and metaphysical world. He describes the modern poet as a voice box for the people, who connect the physical and metaphysical aspects of life into prose for the common man. The modern poet is providing a service to the layman by translating symbols and spreading the transcendentalism movement. These actions in many ways mirror the role of the media currently, as they seek the truth for the people. The media today is a collective means of informing citizens of the state of the world in real time. This service has become especially vital as the general public have gotten more involved in politics and social issues with the spread of technology. The media is the last line of defense for holding public figures accountable and has recently become far more effective due to the ease of distribution of news with technology. The media now has the power to swing an election or turn an entire country against one person. In doing this, they overlay their bias on any information passed on, much the same as Emerson does throughout this essay. In Emerson’s essay “The Poet”, he describes the role of a poet in society as someone who can explain nature

The habit of going against the grain and rejecting long established ideas is often associated with America, this includes American literature as well. The Romantic Movement that took over both England and America during the early 19th century, resulted in response to Classicism, focusing more on emotion and valuing the individual and nature over society as a whole and the industrial cities. Transcendentalism, the movement that both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman belong to, while similar to Romanticism, promoted the idea that all humans were connected not only to each other, but also to nature and God. This movement gave artistic significance to everything. In his essay “The Poet”, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poetry hydrates minds. The Transcendental time period was from the 1820 and 1830s. In this time, multiple poets shared their writing with the world while advocating for individualism.

tells a tale of a student that grows uninterested in what is being taught to him/her. Thus, the student decides to leave and self-educate him/herself. Whitman writes this poem to demonstrate how experiences and learning within one’s mind can help an individual flock intellectually rather than being taught by someone based on their thoughts. Obviously, Whitman took part in the transcendentalism movement; which members believed that one must learn through instinct and through their own ideas. The student in the poem leaves the astronomer in hopes of finding answers for themselves through their own interpretation of whatever they are interested in. This is evident when the student observes the stars for him/herself. The student no longer limit

Walt Whitman loved to experiment with form when it came to poetry. He used his verses to show his complete adoration of all things wild, and our role as beings in this infinitely complex and thought-provoking universe in which we exist. To say he had a bit of a “nature crush” would be an understatement – Whitman goes in to great detail of his love for the wildness and often describes his emotions in a viscerally sexual manner, using poetic devices to underline his immense feelings for environment and hammer in the imagery to readers of how majestic the world appears to him. “Romantic” poets loved the outdoors – if it wasn’t contained in four walls and a roof, they were all about it. They loved to praise the innate details that made our planet so incredible,

Consequently, in Songs of Myself, section 1, Whitman opens u the poem with “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (Kaplan). Immediately, the reader is aware of the distinctive difference between the two poet’s rhetoric. In spite of their differences, there are some similarities that are

This excerpt shows the darkness of nature that Whitman believes possesses the human soul. It also shows the dark and sinister thoughts that he experienced as a romantic writer.1 According to the romanticist characteristic of the “Awe of nature”, “Romantics stressed the awe of nature in art and language and the experience of sublimity through a connection with nature. ”3 Through Whitman’s experience with nature, he is able to connect the bleakness of the human soul to the most dreary forms of nature. Walt Whitman’s Song of the Open Road offers a contrasting attitude to the latter poem.

Nature has an undefinable meaning as the theme is utilised in literature, and it has been a topic of reflection within the Romanticists since the beginning of the era. Romanticism and nature and inextricably linked ideas. Poets; Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman wrote during the romantic era, and both drew heavily from aspects of nature in their work. Nature can be paralleled against several things, including humanity and the idea of life and death. The contrast between the natural world and the artificial world, and what this means for society, is also strongly eluded to in Dickinson and Whitman’s poems. Each poet uses nature as the backbone to their poetry in several instances. Dickinson’s, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”, (Dickinson, 19) and “My Life Has Stood A Loaded Gun”, (Dickinson, 69) are strong examples of this. Whitman’s, “Song of Myself”, (Whitman, 29) and, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, (Whitman, 255) are also poems that show the connection between nature and romanticism. Poets, Dickinson and Whitman engage with romanticism in a creative and constructive manner through the utilisation of the natural world.

Transcendentalism is a common characteristic found in numerous pieces of timeless classic literature. It has become an interesting yet strange ideal that still boggles the mind for many, but has become accepted in many modern minds. Various writers and poets demonstrate and practice in their writing such as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘’Nature’’, where he tries to explain getting back in touch with the natural world. He speaks of the seas,trees and even of the sky. It talks about connecting with nature being away from society and all the hustle and bustle. He also demonstrates transcendentalism in a similar work titled ‘’self-reliance’’. Where he shows us images of people who all ‘’transcended’’ the common way of thinking, famous people who contributed

We can also say that because of this, his poems have affected and elevated human values in time. One of the most present themes in Whitman’s poems is nature, which reflects his transcendentalist belief. This idea if exemplified in one of the stanzas in “I Celebrate Myself and Sing Myself”: I loaf and invite my soul, I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. This shows the author’s connection to nature with just a single spear of grass, the author invited us to share this connection with nature which we seem to have lost in our busy lives.

In 1819, Walt Whitman was born in a two-story, cedar-shingled house that his father had built about thirty miles east of New York City. Whitman was raised by radical democrats; his father was born on the same day of the Storming of the Bastille in France. His mother was of Dutch ancestry and he claimed that her free spirited perspective of life influenced his personal creative impulses (Lewis). Her belief of combining the “practical and the materialistic” with the “transcendental and cloudy” was likely the source of Whitman’s contradictory instincts (Lewis).

From the mid-1830s until the late 1860s an influential religious, literary, and philosophical movement developed called Transcendentalism. The term “transcendentalism” was coined by the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, because he wrote about how one must transcend reason alone for a true understanding of reality. The central beliefs of transcendentalism were in unity between nature and God, the presence of God in each individual, and the potential perfectibility of humans. Those who referred to themselves as transcendentalists, represented by writers such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickenson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others, devised a theory and practice of living that sought to bring individuals and society back to the most simple, natural,

I believe Walt Whitman has done an amazing job influencing Transcendentalist ideas and changing them in a new light. Whitman does this by loving the individual, at the same time loving groups of people and lastly by loving everything about each and every person. Walt Whitman has continually shown us in his writings of his Transcendentalist ideas and, how he twists them into something even better. In this essay, I will explain why and how he does this.