Question

In at least 100 words, describe how Whitman’s "Song of Myself" embodies Transcendental ideals.

Answer 1

In Whitman’s "Song of Myself" He doesn't stress himself and believe others opinions and criticisms unless it comes from himself and only himself. His passage is mostly about individuality and identifying yourself.He was explaining that being independent is better than being dependent because that mean your depending on someone to feed you their opinion which is their opinion not yours so it may not be healthy for you. he stresses the importance of engraving in your own mind independence and being bold and walking solo if it mean its healthier for you. He doesn't fill his head with worries because of the different ways other people look at things. Everyone has a different point of view and that is why a is independent and stresses it so much because not everyone is going to look t something the same way.

Answer 2

Starting with its very title, "Song of Myself" is indeed a poetic embodiment of the transcendentalist philosophy. Whitman (or the speaker who calls himself Whitman) doesn't sing and praise some outside ideals or occurrences, but himself. This is the transcendentalist ideal of self-reliance, explained in Emerson's eponymous essay. It says that the greatest strength of every individual is his/her own self, independent, free from authority and restraints, liberated and self-sufficient. Both Emerson and Whitman, each in his own right, have written a giant ode to individualism.

Another transcendentalist ideal embodied in Whitman's famous poem is relationship with nature. In his view, nature is the source of genuine beauty and wisdom, uncorrupted by the touch of social and political institutions. Whitman says "I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked", which means that nature is the only realm of sincerity, and people can only be true to themselves if they are independent of humanity but close to nature.

Just like Transcendentalism has been a unique, authentic American take on Romanticism, Whitman has been the pillar of American national and cultural identity in poetry. He has taken the very American notion of individualism (defined and praised by transcendentalists) and put it in his poetry, most notably in "Song of Myself" as the most self-obsessed, yet not egotistical account of modern American poetry.