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Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe explains the main characters in Walt Whitman's poetry collection Leaves of Grass.
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Fixated on nature as most Romantics were, Whitman connects the human experience to the material world. The poet's egalitarian philosophies of the mind and of society are unified and enhanced by lush imagery and piquant detail.
Considered vulgar by some at the time, the poems in the volume are frank. There are uncensored text depictions of the human body and of emotional experience. Such poems as "Song of Myself," a paean to individuality, and "I Sing the Body Electric," an homage to the human form, remain milestones in the development of American verse.
Leaves of Grass can be interpreted as a catalog of the 19th-century American experience as chronicled by its most revolutionary, democratic poet. Walt Whitman is at times intimate and confessional, at times sprawling and rambling.
Leaves of Grass went through nine editions over Whitman's lifetime, beginning with 12 untitled anonymous free-verse poems in 1855 and ending with a behemoth "death-bed" edition of hundreds of titled poems in 1892.
With the publication of Leaves of Grass, Whitman was hailed as the first truly American poet, breaking with established norms. He spoke for all of America's people, lending voices to the marginalized and promoting egalitarianism and democratic ideals.
The poems in Leaves of Grass contain many powerful themes. They proclaim the power of nature as a unifying force in humanity. They explore the dichotomy of unity vs. individualism, emphasizing the importance of self-expression in a democratic society. Key figures include "I," as Whitman plays the omniscient everyman narrator; "You", as the poet breaks the third wall and speaks directly to his audience; and Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman reverently eulogizes.
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