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Transcendentalism In Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

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Walt Whitman similar to Henry David Thoreau and other transcendentalism writes based off nature. This nature could relate to either nature outside or even nature with someone. In Walt Whitman’s Song Of myself, Section 51, Whitman basically tells every reader to be grateful for every moment in their life because each moment leads up to the future and to do what they need to do before it is too late. In the beginning, Whitman says “The past and present wilt[..]”. Whitman expresses the past and present in a way as flowers and that each time something occurs, the moment in the present or past that had made it led to the that moment wilts. Then the new moment in life allows a new flower to bloom until the process occurs again. He mentions again …show more content…

In many of his poems, he gives off a purpose for his writings which is to inform and inspire future readers. He wants to create a sort of relationship with these future readers. One can tell when Whitman wrote in the poem “what have you to confide in me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of a evening”. He tries to make a relationship and agreement with future readers saying that without them, it would just be ink and paper. It’s an agreement on both sides saying that without Whitman there would be no poem and without the reader the words on the paper would be meaningless. “Talk honestly, [...] and I stay only a minute longer.” He is also telling the reader to understand profoundly the meaning of the words for that is the purpose he wrote it, so that they could gain a new meaning for their personal lives.
In the third stanza, Whitman expresses “Do I contradict myself?”. He’s asking the reader, if they truly understand the meaning. When Whitman expresses that everyone should be grateful for every moment in life, he wants them to understand this concept. Contradicting himself in usually not considered something positive in writings that express philosophical ideas but because he labels himself as “large” he rebels against this idea and accepts contradiction in his

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Walt Whitman was an American poet and journalist born on May 31, 1819. Whitman was influenced by transcendentalism, which was an idea emphasizing that to understand nature, one must analyze the reasoning or process behind it. Whitman had done many writings throughout his life that had been inspirations for other poets. For example, in the spring of 1855, Whitman published “Leaves of Grass”, which was a collection of twelve unnamed poems. This writing was enticed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who thought that the collection of poems were “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom.”

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He establishes this through metaphor in the first line when he says, “varied carols” which represents the different voices of people singing in America. When Whitman writes about the carpenter singing “as he measures his plank or beam or the mason, boatman, the shoe maker, the wood cutter, the mother are all singing as they work throughout the day. By writing this he illustrates that each singing worked is different; no two people are doing the same thing. This suggest that the people are not singing the same song, but they do all share one thing- a dream of a better future. Whitman also use repetition by beginning every line with the working class folks “singing” in his or her unique way and repeats the structure to suggest the feeling of harmony.

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On a bright Sunday morning, accompanied by her mother and grandmother, a young girl lounges in the pew of a church when a missal catches her eye, and she begins to flip through the pages revealing the compilation of the religious texts. As this young girl grows older and presumably pursues a higher education, she will begin studying texts of the same complexity of those contained in the missal, which will challenge traditional beliefs and contrast religious literature with literature that happens to contain religious themes. When analyzing these pieces of work, the girl will propose many questions that readers prior may have considered at an earlier time. In American literature, specifically through the examples of "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman and Lorraine Hansberry 's A Raisin the Sun, religion, once thought of as a unification of all people, paradoxically acts as a source of the development of an identity, rebellion from a community, and a factor of discrimination.

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We are able to see this when Whitman says “The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands”(Whitman, 5-7). That quote shows how the people like doing there job. But in the poem “I, Too” it talks about racism and how he is going to overcome it, we can see this when Hughes states “Besides, They’ll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed(15-17)” this shows that he doesn 't care about what they think about him because he know that he is beautiful. This shows how the two poems are different by how they both have different stories and meanings behind the writing. They are different stories because the two talk about two different things like in “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman talks about how everyone loves what they do and want to sing because of it while in the poem “I, Too,” Hughes writes about racism and how he can overcome it, which shows how different the two poems

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By doing this Whitman introduces himself and at the same time identifies with the reader. He also states that he should be celebrated not only by himself, but also by the reader because they are the same. He also gives off a feeling that his writing is true and good, we get the feeling he is one of us and at the same time a poet. This leads to comparing Whitman with a preacher or public speaker of some sort, he wishes to be

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He says that “The spirit of God is the brother of my own,” meaning that God, the divine creator, the person who stresses, ‘Love thy neighbor,” is his brother, and all people’s brother which indirectly suggests that everyone love each other and take care of each other because we are family. Whitman then goes on, saying that while America is great, life is not perfect, as everyone face challenges and tough times in our lives, “It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall/ The dark threw its patches down upon me also,” (Whitman 12). He discusses the fact that while America is an ideal society where people love each other, life is not so perfect, as the hardships we face are difficult to overcome.

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Throughout his poem, he constantly talks about the importance of coming together and merging. Whitman says, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” (Whitman 1). On the surface, this quote may appear to illustrate that Whitman thinks highly of himself, but it is more than this. The last part of this quote emphasizes that we are all connected and even though we are all individuals, we should not forget that we are connected to one another. Whitman also says, “Urge and urge and urge, Always the procreant urge of the world.

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It is common for a person to admire the stars in the sky. Their brightness and arrangement is a fascinating sight, of course. On the other hand, people tend to forget or plainly ignore what is right under their feet. In “Song of Myself,” Walt Whitman focused on what he thought was truly important, details of the green grass. Whitman wrote, “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars” (663).

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