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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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