The Good in Life

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Whitman lived his life as a blank page in a journal, and he feared not what others said about living a very liberal life. Being that he was homosexual, people looked at him as a joke when in reality he saw things on a new level ; he was strong minded like a man and rather intense yet sensitive like a woman. According to W.D. Snodgrass, "Whitman was more [of a] man than you'll ever be...and a bitch, too." (572). Walt Whitman was said to be "omnisexual" because he acted as both man and woman, a superior being within his own mind. He didn't see situations as a male or female but as an outside source as both genders. In "Song of Myself #7" his writing is self evident that he reflects his "omnisexual" views of life. The purpose of this poem is to celebrate the everyday gifts of life given to us by God. He incorporates the use of literary techniques into free verse structure which paints a vivid picture of his ideas and beliefs as a poet.

Walt Whitman has a very profound writing style and needs very little structure or solid form so his literary devices are limited. The only technique used in "Song for myself #7" is his use of repetition. In the first stanza death is spoken of in three different ways, to die, death and dying; he covers all tenses of the passing of life to get his point across letting the reader know how serious dying is. Yet in the same stanza mentions life, born and birth, but only twice as to say that death is closer than birth. The next stanza mentions "good" several times, all relating to nature and God's marvelous creations. Whitman is using repetition to express his feelings of the good in an ordinary day. In the last two stanzas he repeats the phrase "For me" to show that every phenomenon created in life effects every other human or creature. Whitman uses very few literary devices to stress the words in his poem but allows the words to express themselves.

Through "Song of Myself" there is not a set structure, but Whitman uses the technique of free verse. Snodgrass claims, "Whitman... constructs his text through expansion and inclusion" (577). He takes a simple idea, like goodness, from being just an abstract idea but to allow it to relate to the world through nature.

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