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

Whitman's Song of Myself and The Nature of Life Distinguishing the puzzle of presence, Whitman expresses Melody of Myself, segment six to scrutinize the idea of the life of man. He implies and stands up to past responses to this inquiry by using as his focal picture the leaves of grass. In the Christian custom, 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 wonder resembles the blossoms of the field. The grass shrivels and the blossoms fall, . . . be that as it may, the expression of the Lord stands everlastingly (Isaiah 40:6-8). The scriptural picture of men as grass, the hanky of the Lord, places man comparable to God and builds up the transient, limited nature of man. Whitman reacts all through this sonnet to the Biblical response to the subject of life. Stressing the patterned procedure of nature, Whitman builds his sonnet to demand that the life of man, as in nature, moves not with direct movement, yet rather in a repetitive pro gression. Birth and demise, Whitman states, serve not as bookends to a brief life expectancy, but instead as associations in a bigger continuum of presence. Whitman uses an imagist strategy relating a progression of related pictures through a focal association. Whitman first presents the peruser with the picture of a little youngster 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 kid presents the bigger inquiry of what is man. Whitman decides not to respond to this inquiry legitimately, yet rather 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 equivocal some place. Whitman won't acknowledge the Biblical comprehension of death as an entry to either paradise or damnation. He asserts rather that to bite the dust is not the same as what any one assumed, and more fortunate. This accidental passing he would apply to each man, not holding pulverization for any man. Demise, 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 asserts the perspective on man's natural life as a progression as opposed to a movement and cases for man a section in a bigger repeating 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.