In “Song of Myself,” Whitman uses the figure of the self (or “I”) to speak not just for himself, but for many, in an attempt to explore the unique combination of American experience in all its conflicting dimensions. A poet equally of the body and of the soul.

A poetic photographer of busy urban scenes. In his “ Preface to Leaves of Grass,” Whitman declared, “The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.” America was “a teeming nation of nations,” comprised of many different kinds of persons, where to be a poet is to be “commensurate with a people.” This quotation informs all of his poetry, especially his central work, the long poem “ Song of Myself”: “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” He was a poet of commonalities, truths, contradictions, and the immediate present. Whitman’s poetic style was highly original, and his scope was expansive and inclusive. to Barack Obama have used anaphora in some of the most impassioned political speeches of the 20th century.

Whitman’s use of anaphora to suggest commonalities between disparate sources presaged the technique’s power, not only in poetry but in politics: American leaders from Dr. One technique he would adopt and put to wide use was anaphora, the repetition of an introductory phrase, which provides a sense of unity while expanding on a list of ideas or things. His work was starkly different from that of the American mainstream poets of his time, represented by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and other Fireside poets. He eschewed rhyme and made significant changes to common types of poetic meter, and he developed new rhythms and styles based on his readings of certain books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Whitman sought to include more types of ordinary experience and vernacular expression than was typical in his time. poetry for his groundbreaking innovations in poetic language, form, and subject matter. Though not a major name in his time, he has come to be regarded as one of the forerunners of modern U.S. It’s difficult to overstate the impact that Walt Whitman has had on American poetry.

A song of myself