Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

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A transcendentalist, Whitman abandoned the conventional themes of vehement appraisal of nations and warfare popular in the mid-19th century and instead envelopes his fervent adoration of the United States with naturalism doctrines. "Leaves of Grass" is an amalgamation of the poet's thirst for unrestricted discourse and his admiration of "beauty for beauty's sake"--- a praise for the bucolic! 

"No myth, no legend, or romance, nor euphemism, nor rhyme" is the reflexive statement delivered by the ex-editor on his poetry. A literary reactionary like Whitman is averse to stock ornamentation--- the truest countercurrent innovator in the publishing world. 

As I traversed through the Great Plains and seen the quotidian, billowing smoke of New England cottages, I am etching out a sketch of the great American landscape. This isn't to say that he doesn't talk about the dissolution and gestation of states at all, it is simply that in the larger Whitman macrocosm politics and worldly affairs render secondary to the cosmic vastness:


"As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future

A vast similitude interlocks all, 

All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, 

All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages...

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd 

And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them."  

- On the Beach at Night Alone 


Whitman loves the word, ennui--- a prodigious listlessness, weariness, and dissatisfaction arising from lack of occupation. He uses this word prodigally to show how out of touch the majority of the population is. Flaneur, too, was used frequently. However, he argues that manhood, womanhood, and livelihood demands celebration. Individuality and the triumphant mortal will echoed in "Self-Reliance" should be worthy to be universally cherished: 


"O the joy of a manly self-hood! 

To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown, 

To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, 

To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, 

To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, 

To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth." 


How are you not prone to outsiders' influence, and to remain steadfast in your course? 

How will you remain emblematic in this world? 


My favorite lines out of the collections is not "O Captain my Captain", but this gallant sentence: "An effusion of strength and will overwhelm law and mocks all authority and all argument against it". 

Overtly sensual, many of Whitman's collections could be censured. Whitman may be discordant, but that is the very nature of a transcendentalist--- his name may be perforated, but never his personage. There is an undeniable tug of the following weighty words, castigated by deceased critics or not: "and might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and days!"

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