Leaves of Grass Summary

Leaves Of Grass by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass is a collection of poetry in which the author expresses his thoughts on the themes about life. 

The Self talks about the man physically and spiritually. His individuality, quality and being. The Body And The Soul is about these two elements in man. The author says that the body is as sacred as the soul. Nature is about the love that the author feels for everything that inhabits the nature such as the flora, the fauna, the moon, the stars, the sea, and the other elements of nature. In Time, the poet realizes that the past, the present and the future are not disjoined, but joined. They are flowing stages and cannot be separate or distinct. Cosmic Conciousness tells that the universe has awareness. The cosmos is God and God is the cosmos. Mysticism is about the unity of God and man, man and nature. In Death, Whitman deals with it as fact of life. Trascendentalism implies that the true reality is the spirit and that it lies beyond the reach or realm of the senses. Personalism indicates the fusion of the individual with the community in an ideal harmony and democracy. In Democracy, Whitman emphazises the individual virtue, which he believed would give rise to civic virtue.

Walt Whitman

 

Poet and journalist Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in West Hills, New York. Considered one of America's most influential poets, Whitman aimed to transcend traditional epics and eschew normal aesthetic form to mirror the potential freedoms to be found in America. In 1855 he self-published the collection Leaves of Grass; the book is now a landmark in American literature, though at the time of its publication it was considered highly controversial. Whitman later worked as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, writing the collection Drum Taps (1865) in connection to the experiences of war-torn soldiers. Having continued to produce new editions of Leaves of Grass along with original works, Whitman died on March 26, 1892 in Camden, New Jersey.