In class, we discussed the ethics behind Walt Whitman’s use of nature and whether or not it was productive (if it was used for his writing or rather as an authentic source of being). Many of Whitman’s works actually follow suit as he argues how all humans are one in the same as Gilbert describes here: “the usually magisterial Whitman ‘becomes’ an erotic woman” (130) from “The Sleepers” lines “I am she who adorn’d herself and folded her hair expectantly, / My truant lover has come, and it is dark” (Gilbert 130).

Lines (all from Song of Myself in our “Walt Whitman: Complete Poetry and Collected Prose”) of similar concept of the united “self” include:

  • “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person” (225)
  • “I am the poet of the woman the same as the man” (207)
  • “…I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from” (211)
  • “I am the hounded slave” (225)

Do you think it is appropriate for someone such as Walt Whitman to make such claims about people’s experiences? Additionally, is Whitman actually empathizing here or is he trying to use people’s struggles as a tool to make one seem more divine? Is Whitman generalizing these experiences and struggles into a single stereotype by writing this way?

Laura Roman’s CS for April 20th

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