Comparing The Narrator In Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

Improved Essays
Nathalie Vieux-Gresham
10/31/15
ROUGH DRAFT
1.9.16
Whitman: Whitman vs Narrator Whitman’s “Song of Myself”

Walt Whitman was a prolific author who has written many works. One of his works, Song of Myself, describes the experience of a narrator whose life is very relaxed. This narrator is a young thirty-seven-year-old, who is constantly loafing. On the other hand, the author of his story, Walt Whitman, is completely different. He was a prolific writer of a large collection, and an abolitionist. The speaker of this poem has a calm and relaxed personality. He spends time as he “leans and loafe at [his] ease, observing a spear of summer grass,” Therefore he loves just being idle and taking it easy. (5) The speaker wants to live his life to the fullest, and appears to enjoy the good things in life, such as nature. The speaker notes that he would want to
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Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” is like a poem that describes a world where everything Whitman wanted to say or do is accomplished here. Every dream and thought Whitman came up with is made a reality in this poem. Whitman has made the personification of The Universe. Whitman believes within this poem the self is universal yet individual. Therefore, man has his own universal mind set within his own individual persona. The speaker, by being self-reliant, retains his identity as an individual, and he wants to connect it with his spirit, or his universal entity, his soul. The narrator, with his new “religion” has accepted the existence of God, the Self. God is the one absolute individual who has created the universe based on his own universal entity. Therefore, it is surmised that the universal individual that Whitman has created is an individual that is above every other individual in the world, yet living in life itself. Whitman has created a living embodiment or manifestation of what is known as The

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