Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

Forged in the fire of revolution and defined by manifest destiny, America has always been the land of the individual. Although the American dream has not always been consistent, (married with 2.5 kids, 2 cars, a dog and a satisfying job), the spirit of innovation, individuality and progress remains unchanged. The father of free verse, and perhaps the American perspective of poetry, Walt Whitman embodies these values in his life and work. First published in 1855 in Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself" is a vision of a symbolic "I" enraptured by the senses, vicariously embracing all people and places from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Sections 1 and 2, like the entirety of the piece, seek to reconcile the individual and the natural world in
He returned to Long Island in 1835 and taught in country schools. In 1838 and 1839 Whitman edited a newspaper, the Long-Islander, in Huntington. When he became bored with the job, he went back to New York City to work as a printer and journalist. There he enjoyed the theater, the opera, and the libraries. Whitman wrote poems and stories for popular magazines and made political speeches, for which Tammany Hall Democrats rewarded him with the editorship of various short-lived newspapers. For two years Whitman edited the influential Brooklyn Eagle, but he lost his position for supporting the Free-Soil party. After a brief sojourn in New Orleans, Louisiana, he returned to Brooklyn, where he tried to start a Free-Soil newspaper (Academy of American Poets). During the Civil War Whitman served as a nurse and his contact with the atrocities of battle later proved to be a driving force in his desire to bring people together in harmony (Ott 1774). After the war, he held various jobs, including government clerk and homebuilder. But it was the decade before the war in which Whitman made the switch between rhymed verse and the radically new, free verse he has so greatly
(Mulcaire 473)
<br>
<br>The intended result is that the person that Whitman, in this "commodification," becomes inextricably melded to the persona of the subject Whitman in the poetry. As Mulcaire goes on to argue:
<br>
<br> (T)his book is not just the product of my body, he insists to us; this book is my body. The corollary of this radical intimacy is a radical alienation. Leaves of Grass can embody Walt Whitman to his public, it seems, only insofar as his body has undergone a process of alienation so thorough as to be fatal to any form of bodily existence independent of the commodified form of his book. (474)
<br>
<br>In essence Whitman's goal is to erase, or ignore, all boundaries, geographic, spiritual and temporal, in an effort to bring forth the true spirit of humanity (Egan 81). This search for, and communication of, the natural, caring and intimate human being guides the poetry of Walt Whitman.
<br>
<br>In converse the poetry reflects the pursuit of the human