Song Of Myself: Individuality And Free Verse
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 ...
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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, ...
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of literature, Terry Mulcaire theorizes that Whitman saw the mass distribution of his poetry as a means of universalizing an intimacy with his world:
(W)e are now part of a living crowd who see the same "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," the same poem, the same book, the same product of an industrial culture that generations of readers have experienced. (Mulcaire 473)
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:
(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 ...
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"Song Of Myself: Individuality And Free Verse." Essayworld.com. June 3, 2006. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Song-Of-Myself-Individuality-Free-Verse/46959.
"Song Of Myself: Individuality And Free Verse." Essayworld.com. June 3, 2006. Accessed April 25, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Song-Of-Myself-Individuality-Free-Verse/46959.
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