Whitmans Song of Myself and The Nature of Life Essay -- Song of Mysel

Whitman's Song of Myself and The Nature of Life Recognizing the puzzle of presence, Whitman states Melody of Myself, segment six to scrutinize the idea of the life of man. He insinuates and defies past responses to this question by using as his focal picture the leaves of grass. In the Christian convention, the Bible uses this picture of grass to portray the lives of men. Isaiah, a prophet of God shouts out, All men resemble grass . . . and all their brilliance resembles the blossoms of the field. The grass wilts and the blossoms fall, . . . however, the expression of the Lord stands perpetually (Isaiah 40:6-8). The scriptural picture of men as grass, the cloth of the Lord, places man according to God and builds up the transient, limited nature of man. Whitman reacts all through this sonnet to the Biblical response to the topic of life. Stressing the repeating procedure of nature, Whitman develops his sonnet to demand that the life of man, as in nature, moves not with straight movement, yet rather in a recurrent progression. Birth and passing, Whitman declares, serve not as bookends to a compact life expectancy, but instead as associations in a bigger continuum of presence. Whitman uses an imagist method relating a progression of related pictures through a focal association. Whitman first presents the peruser with the picture of a little kid presenting grass with the inquiry, What is the grass. considering the scriptural association Whitman gives, this question What is the grass from the lips of a youngster presents the bigger inquiry of what is man. Whitman decides not to respond to this inquiry straightforwardly, but instead to introduce potential outcomes and proffer the inquiry back to the peruser, expressing How might I answer the chil... ...ot stopped to exist yet rather now proceed with their reality fit as a fiddle in the uncertain some place. Whitman won't acknowledge the Biblical comprehension of death as a section to either paradise or damnation. He asserts rather that to bite the dust is unique in relation to what any one assumed, and more fortunate. This chance demise he would apply to each man, not holding demolition for any man. Passing, in the event that it really exists, for Whitman, leads just forward to life, and doesn't hold up toward the conclusion to capture it. Stating All goes ahead and outward . . furthermore, nothing breakdown, Whitman insists the perspective on man's natural life as a progression as opposed to a movement and cases for man a section in a bigger repetitive continuum of presence. Works Cited: Whitman, Walt. Melody of Myself. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. third ed. Ed, Paul Lauter. Boston,NewYork: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.