INTRODUCTION:
Walt Whitman (1819-92) is one of the best known American poets. His poems espouse the cause of freedom and democracy while simultaneously praising the dignity of the individual. His poems are usually about himself, yet in himself he sees the entire humanity and successfully communicates this to his reader, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Walt Whitman was a part of the Transcendental movement of Poets in America , which also included Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. These poets were interested in the connection between spirituality and nature and Whitman’s poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is an example that demonstrates the growth of spirituality in the poet through the cycle of life and is expressed through the elements of nature.
ANALYSIS: Specific examples may be cited from Whitman’s poems to demonstrate how Whitman sees himself as every man and every woman. “Song of Myself”: In this poem, Whitman begins by with the following words: I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
These lines clearly illustrate Whitman’s assumption of the universal nature of mankind.
(b) In the poem “A Woman waits for Me”, Whitman writes:
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself, In you I wrap a thousand onward years, On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and America , These lines clearly reveal how Whitman perceives himself draining his essence into this woman and foreseeing this essence joining with all that is best in America - seeping down a over a thousand year period to branch out to produce an entire generation of humanity that will proceed forth – all from the original source – himself, in union with this woman. This is further corroborated later in the poem, as follows: I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now, I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death, immortality, I plant so lovingly now. These lines also demonstrate the transcendental nature of Whitman’s poetry.
© In the poem “I Sing the Body Electric”: Whitman writes:
I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, Later, in the poem, Whitman states: The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or cow-yard,……… Such-like I love--I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's breast with the little child, Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count…” Whitman sees himself in the child at the mother’s breast, in the firemen, in everyone he loves.
(d) In the poem: “ A child said, What is the grass?,” Whitman’s words are as follows:
Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation……….Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them; It may be you are from old people and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps, …………… O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues! And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. The above examples all serve to demonstrate clearly that Whitman saw himself as a part of entire humanity. |