WHALT WHITMAN

Literature anf the values of democracy

19th century (first half) = ROMANTICISM (1800-1860) - > TRANSCENDENTALISM

(1840-1860)

The transcendentalist movement was a reaction against the 18th century

RATIONALISM. It was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the WORLD and
GOD. It was influenced by English Romanticism and German and eastern philosophies. The
transcendentalism exalted FEELING and INTUITION over reason.

Walt Whitman did not begin as a transcendentalist, or with the spirited free verse with
which he is always associated with. His style developed along with his political sense and as
the country became more and more divided with the approaching Civil War (1861-1865).
Walt used his poetry to extol democracy and American populism. His writing (poetry) was
a sort of gesture of HEALING and TOGETHERNESS to a nation he felt was on the verge
of collapse. His brilliant, innovative work expressed the country’s democratic spirit. A
visionary collection of poems celebrating all creation, LEAVES OF GRASS (1855) was
inspired largely by Emerson’s writings. His poetry is innovative, and it has no rhyme and a
free-verse form. His VIBRANT DEMOCRATIC SENSIBILITY and the extreme
Romantic assertion that the poet’s self was one with the poem, the universe and the reader
permanently altered the course of American poetry. “Leaves of grass” is a vast, energetic and
natural as the AMERICAN CONTINENT. More than any other writer, Whitman invented
the MYTH OF DEMOCRATIC AMERICA: “The Americans of all natures at any time
upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States is essentially the
greatest poem”. When he wrote this, he daringly turned upside down the general opinion that
America was too brush and new to be poetic. He invented a timeless America of the free
imagination, peopled with pioneering spirits of all nations. For him, poetry was a passionate
gesture of identification with his native land. Poetry, the American nation, life itself were
all a matter process, energized by a RHYTHM and CHANGE. And “Leaves of grass”
became a process to, says Richard Gray, responsive to the continuing story of personal and
national identity, the poet and his democratic community.