Transcendentalism in the Poems of Whitman Essay -- Biography Biographi

Transcendentalism in the Poems of Whitman From looking at the titles of Walt Whitmans vast collection of poetry in Leaves of gauge one would be able to surmise that the great American poet wrote about many subjects -- expressing his ideas and thoughts about everything from religion to Abraham Lincoln. Quite the opposite is true, Walt Whitman wrote only about a single subject which was so powerful in the mind of the poet that it consumed him to the point that whatever he wrote echoed of that subject. The legal opinions and tenets of transcendentalism were the subjects that caused Whitman to write and carried through not only in the wording and imagery of his poems, but also in the revolutionary way that he chose to write his poetry. The basic assumptions and premises of transcendentalism can be seen in all of Whitmans poems, and are evident in two short poetic masterpieces A Noiseless Patient Spider and When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer. In the belief of transcendentalism, the reliance on intuition, instead of rationalization, became the means for a union between an individuals soul and the soul of the world or the cosmos. Called the Oversoul by Emerson, this collective soul self-collected the soul of a person upon a persons death. To understand the Oversoul, one had to first understand oneself and then look toward nature as expressions and instructions for the living of ones biography (Boller 1-3). Through all of Whitmans collections of poetry, essays, and letters, he quested to find the meaning of life and to understand the Oversoul, which the great poet referred to as the float. In A Noiseless Patient, Whitman presents a simple affinity that compares a lone spider searching for a hold to his soul as... ...au, Roger. The Transcendentalist Constant in American Literature. refreshed York New York UP, 1980. Boller, Paul. American Transcendentalism, 1830-1860 An Intellectual Inquiry. New York Putnam, 1974. Eckley, Wilton. Whitmans A Noiseless Patient Spider. The Explicator 22 (1963) 20. Emmanuel, Lenny. Whitmans Fusion of Science and Poetry. Walt Whitman Review 17 (1971) 73-81. Lindfors, Berndt. Whitmans When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer. Walt Whitman Review 10 (1964) 19-21. Stedman, Edmund Clarence. An Important American Critic Views Whitman. detailed Essays on Walt Whitman. Ed. James Woodress. Boston G.K. Hall, 1983. 116-127. Whitman, Walt. The Noiseless Patient Spider. Leaves of Grass. New York Penguin, 1980. 347-348. Whitman, Walt. When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer. Leaves of Grass. New York Penguin, 1980. 226-227.