|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
Walt Whitman: His Love for America
The literary works of Walt Whitman have the distinct characteristics of his love for America, democracy, and Abraham Lincoln, all of which are shown in the 1845 work Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman was thought of as America’s first poet. During his time, America didn’t have many poets or writers that were truly American. ... Whitman represented the common man, which was what made America great. ... Whitman’ s book is America’s linguistic melting pot. ... The poet’s love of America grew from his faith that Americans might reach new worldly and spiritual heights. Whitman wrote, “… the chief reason for the being of the United States of America is to bring about the common good will of all mankind, the solidarity of the world. ... Whitman had only one lasting love affair, and that was with America –the America of his dream: it was the affair that bestowed upon him that ecstasy of his vision (Miller, 22). ... ”
In Maurice Bucke’s 1883 biography of Walt Whitman he says, “Whitman was not really a poet at all but a man of the people with his eyes open and his senses hungry for experience. ... It is said that these people, even the worst of them, while entire strangers to Walt Whitman, quite favorably received him without discourtesy and treated him well. ...
Patriotism came easy to Whitman because of his love for America. ... This technique appears in “I Hear America Singing,” which essentially lists the varied carols of carpenter, boatman, shoemaker, wood-cutter, mother and so on, all “singing what belongs to him or her and none else” as they play their trades (Magill, 3065). ... In “Song of Myself” Whitman described himself as:
Walt Whitman an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos
Disorderly fleshly and sensual, eating drinking and breeding
No sentimentalist…no slander above men
And women apart from them…no more modest than immodest. ...
To read “Song of Myself” is to be filled with curiosity about the young, ramshackle, brutal, and half-innocent America of Whitman’s time. ... No one knew this better than Walt Whitman. The poet’s celebration of America, however, is to be simply another form of the celebration of self: (Miller, 3)
“It is not the earth, it is not America who is so great,
It is I who am great or to be great, it is you up there, or anyone” ( Whitman 249)
For America is no more than the people themselves:
“O I see flashing that this America is only you and me” ( Whitman 250)
The poet thus symbolically becomes the nation and magnifies himself to embrace it all:
“Copious as you are I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself” (Whitman 251) (Miller 106).
Approximate Word count = 2217
Approximate Pages = 8.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|