Religion in Walt Whitman's Literature
"Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious?……I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones." (pg 40)Nature and all of her wondrous facets, especially the human body, was Whitman's religion. Walt Whitman was indeed an intensely spiritual man in his own unconventional way. His epic classic "Song of Myself" demonstrates these attitudes of his, and in his view how the proverbial "poet" of his America should believe. Humanity yearns for spiritual fulfillment and Whitman believed that everything around us and even ourselves were walking testaments to what true ethereal life is.
One of the reasons that Walt Whitman was so popular, was his lax treatment of such taboo subjects as abolition and sexuality. This was especially true considering the prudish eyes of the Victorian society he was living in. Some of Whitman's verses are just oozing with sexually explicit pulp and innuendoes. How better can you venerate life like he calls the "poet" to do then by celebrating what we really are and where we come from. "I am the poet of the Body and I am poet of the soul" (pg. 41). Whitman expresses this beauty of the being graphically, but honestly to not disgrace it. The Victorian society in which he lived is not much unlike ours today where still some natural events are shunned as though they don't exist. Whitman hid some of these very vivid descriptions in the innuendoes of
other things that he was describing. Such as when he is talking about nature he implies, " My lovers suffocate me, Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin, coming naked to me at night." (pg. 67)
The body was not Whitman's only focus of honor in nature. He felt that everything in na...
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...or the poet Whitman, includes his own opinions and feelings that should be shared for the most part in his mind is a true American poet. Among the myriad feelings expressed by Whitman in his poem his passion for nature, all parts of nature, is the most focused upon. When Emily Dickinson writes of tasting "a liquor never brewed", and being " inebriate of air" (pg. 152) in poem 214 of hers, we truly understand this faith that Whitman preaches about in his epic. A religion is something that you have all of your heart's true love in, for it gave you
life and nourishes you. This religion celebrates both the beauty and the beasts of life and accepts all of the little foibles along with the majestic parts of our existence. Walt Whitman paints a beautiful portrait in his poetry of how religion accomplishes these goals to become his faith, and the faith of the "poet".
In his poem he is trying to tell the audience how instead of the free spirited America Whitman lived in, his America cared more about rules and standards over opportunity and free will. He explains America’s lack of open minds for the people who wanted to be free to be themselves when he states, “ .. and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head.. And blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love..”(2545). As a matter of fact, this influenced him to want to write on splitting away from that American culture and express himself with nothing but
The Heath Anthology of American Literature repeatedly refers to Walt Whitman and his poetry in terms of being American, yet as I read Song of Myself, my thoughts are continually drawn to the philosophies and religions of the Far East. Like the Tao Te Ching ideas are expressed in enigmatic verse and each stanza is a Zen koan waiting to be meditated on and puzzled out. Even Emerson called Whitman's poetry "a remarkable mixture of the Bhagvat Gita and the New York Herald" ("The Whitman Project"). Song of Myself contains multitudes of passages that express Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist thought.
Walt Whitman’s hard childhood influenced his work greatly, he was an uneducated man but he managed to become one of the most known poets. Whitman changed poetry through his work and is now often called the father of free verse. Especially through Leaves of Grass he expressed his feelings and sexuality to world and was proud of it. He had a different view at life, his hard childhood, and his sexuality that almost no one understood made him introduce a new universal theme to the world. Almost all critics agree that Walt Whitman was one of the most influential and innovative poet. Karl Shapiro says it best, “The movement of his verses is the sweeping movement of great currents of living people with general government and state”.
One poem that Whitman penned without being concerned with offending people is "Children of Adam." "Children of Adam" is a languid, sensual poem that is overtly sexual. As Whitman says in his poem, he is "singing the phallus,/singing the song of procreation.
“I Sing the Body Electric” is one of twelve poems that comprised the 1855 first edition of Walt Whitman’s self-published masterpiece, Leaves of Grass. Like other poems, especially “Song of Myself,” it is a celebration of life. It is hard to believe this classic was written during the Civil War era. A time historically riddled with slavery and injustice, of mass death and discord, as well as the expansion of industrialization, the movement out west and population growth. This 19th century classic defines an age-old problem. In brief, the human body is too often disrespected, abused, underappreciated, or taken for granted. According to Whitman, "If anything is sacred the human body is sacred," (Routledge, section 8), and “if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?” (Routledge, section 1). An analysis of “I Sing the Body Electric” assists us in recognizing our eternal state of existence and well-being; a state only conceived through a unified consciousness of the human body and soul. In it Whitman poetically expresses his appreciation and respect for the intricate, spiritual unification between the human body and the soul.
The homosexual themes displayed in Walt Whitman’s works, especially in his most famous collection of poems Leaves of Grass, raise the question of his own sexuality. Many of his poems depicted affection and sexuality in a simple, personal manner, causing nineteenth century Americans to view them as pornographic and obscene. Based on this poetry, Whitman is usually assumed to be homosexual, or at least bisexual. However, this assumption does not account for major influences of his writing such as the shift from transcendentalism to realism and the American Civil War. After considering these factors, it can be concluded that Whitman’s poems were not intended to set apart a few homosexual men, but to bring all men and women together. Walt Whitman’s poems of spiritual love and physical togetherness of both genders emphasized exalted friendships and are indicative of his omnisexuality, or lack of a complete sexual preference, rather than his alleged homosexuality.
(A critique of Walt Whitman’s themes and ideas in Song of Myself 6, 46, 47)
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. "An Important American Critic Views Whitman." Critical Essays on Walt Whitman. Ed. James Woodress. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1983. 116-127.
Explication Through a multitude of literary devices and techniques, Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself," is one of his most famous contributions to American literature. He uses simile and metaphor, paradox, rhythm, and free verse style, to convey his struggle between the relation of the body and soul, the physical and the spiritual being. He continues to disobey all social restrictions of the romantic time period. From the beginning, Whitman begins by stating, "What I shall assume, you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you," proposing that the reader listen to him, for he possesses all of the answers to life. The setting is somewhat naturalistic, and offers an image of the speaker, relaxing, possibly sprawled out across a blanket, philosophizing about life, while in the middle of a peaceful meadow. As the poem later shifts in tone, and setting, Whitman starts to think about the answers to life he has come up with, based upon the past, and decides that the reader should hear him out, one final time, as his ideas have changed. This brings us to #44 of "Song of Myself." In section #44 of, "Song of Myself," Whitman's first stanza begins: "It's time to explain myself…let us stand up. What is known I strip away…I launch all men and women forward with me into the unknown. The clock indicates the moment…but what does eternity indicate? Eternity lies in bottomless reservoirs…its buckets are rising forever and ever, they pour and they pour and they exhale away." Whitman is simply stating that he wants to tell the purpose of his madness. The madness that Whitman expresses is that of power and self-confidence. Whitman has written this based upon his experiences in life. Through these experiences, he has grown to know certain things about life and tries to pass them down to the reader. Throughout the beginning of the poem, Whitman takes the reader by the hand and demands that he follows Whitman and his ideas, because based on his own life Whitman holds the answers to the reader's questions. But now, he asks the reader to erase everything that he has previously said - forget the past. Why don't we try something new? We have to focus on the present, not on the past, but also to focus on what we are going to experience in the future, what can we expect?
...ince God created nature sex is a natural part of life. Whitman is again making a connection between society's values and nature. What is accepted and what is not. Whitman broke through society's inhibitions of candidly talking about sex by writing about it in his poetry. Because Whitman had a prominent voice in the Nineteenth century, he was able to express his views on such controversial issues.
"look in vain for the poet whom I describe. We do not, with sufficient plainness, or sufficient profoundness, address ourselves to life, nor dare we chaunt our own times and social circumstances. If we filled the day with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it. Time and nature yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the reconciler, whom all things await" (Emerson 1653). Emerson is stating how everything can be a poem and a poet can reflect on valuable resources like nature to draw on and write. Whitman clearly uses this guide in order to write his poetry. He agrees that nature is a valuable tool.
Whitman’s works take on the idea of the human body and sexuality which may scare off some readers. He brings in the idea of worshipping both Men and Women bodies, so with in comparison to Dickinson, Whitman work differs in style due to him not make his stories go dark like Dickinson traditionally does with her works. So what it really comes down to is that Whitman and Dickinson both have their distinct topics but they both are trying to convey their idea about either God, self, or death and Human Body, and sexuality they are trying to enlighten ones knowledge of topics and steer ones mind to truth and what they truly believe is right and what is wrong.
Although Whitman uses a great deal of structural ways to stress his ideas, he also uses many other ways of delivering his ideas. First of all, Whitman portrays himself as a public spokesman of the masses. The tone of the poem is a very loud, informative tone that grabs ones attention. The emphasis placed on the word “all” adds to the characterization of Whitman as a powerful speaker. Furthermore, Whitman takes part in his own poem. Participating in his own poem, Whitman moreover illustrates the connection between everything in life. Lastly, Whitman, most of all, celebrates universal brotherhood and democracy.
The poem has set a certain theme and tone but no definite rhyme. In this poem, the poet explores into a thought of the self, the all-encompassing "I," sexuality, democracy, the human body, and what it means to live in the modern world. He addresses that the human body is sacred and every individual human is divine. Hence, Whitman was known for writing poems about individualism, democracy, nature, and war.
Walt Whitman used free verse in “Song of Myself” in order to connect with the common man and his American readers. In this first person narrative, Whitman deconstructs the “self” into many different sections that all are a part of the celebration of the individual. Some of the topics he breaks the “self” into are self- identity, and human exploration (including the human body and sexuality). In the poem, Whitman uses a speaker to exclaim that for individuals to grow they must discover themselves spiritually, physically, and mentally. The speaker in the poem