Whitman最终版.docx

1、Whitman最终版Whitmans Life Spirit in “Song of Myself”Poet, essayist, journalist and humanist, Walt Whitman (1819-1892) lived in a period of transition between transcendentalism and realism, which resulted in his incorporation of both views in his work. With all his efforts in his life, he created the c

2、ollection of Leaves of Grass, which was the full display of the spirit in the times of American Romanticism as it moves towards realism. There are many individual masterpieces with Leaves of Grass, one of which was the “Song of Myself”, which fully displayed the deep thought of the poet both in reli

3、gion and philosophy on the subjects of life and universe. The poem is filled with life spirit and passion. This essay is going to analyze the life spirit in Whitmans poems through interpreting the religious mysticism of “myself”, the reevaluation of the body, and the poets attitude towards modern in

4、dustrial civilization. The Religious Mysticism of “Myself”Like the Romantics and the Transcendentalists in New England, Whitman was greatly influenced by the mysticism of the East, especially Hinduism. The Hinduism insists that all the things are created by some kind of mystery. So Whitmans God was

5、closely connected with mystery. Though also indebted to Ralph Waldo Emersons “transcendental soul”, Whitmans God was not only limited to a pure and omnipresent spiritual existence. In his opinion, God was the total of the universe, the holy “every thing”: I see something of God each hour of the twen

6、ty-four and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is signd by Gods name (102) So we can say that everything in the universe, no matter how tiny or minute it is, is all the presentation of

7、 God, all shows the spirit of God and all possess the divinity of God. “I hear and behold God in every object,” the poet claims (102). Existing both in the spiritual and the physical, Whitmans God appears to integrate the material and the immaterial. The American critic Diane Kepner observes that “t

8、he immaterial and impalpable are as important to Whitman as the material and palpable” (181). Similarly, Edwin Haviland Miller praises Whitmans efforts and interests in integrating the opposites, and states that Whitman reconciles “opposites usually considered irreconcilable,” enfolding the vanquish

9、ed and the victor, others and the self, man and woman, science and spirit, and animal and man (16). In depicting God this way, J.W. Walkington claims that Whitman “uphold any part of the world usually considered the lesser half of a hierarchical dichotomy” (Walkington 129).Whats more, inspired by ma

10、terialism, Whitman maintains that every object in the universe is made up of some basic substance, that is, the atom.【你在下文提出前面没有出现过atom,这里不是有吗？】 Each atom, according to Kepner, is urged to “merge with other atoms, to create the particular seen formations that fill the universe at any instant in time

11、, and in combination with each atomic formation accounts for the characteristic properties of that formation” (191). It is because of this shared essence and energy that Walt Whitman believes that God could be considered as the endless expansion of what he termed as the soul of “myself.” For Whitman

12、, the perfect “myself” should be above all the perfect unification of body and soul. Since “myself” share the same componentpart of Godwith all the other objects in the universe, it can be merged with the cosmos. “Myself” is thus able to attain permanence and transcendence through its spiritual exte

13、nsion. In this way, the permanent God and “Myself” are closely related to each other: Whitmans God could be considered as the endless expansion of what he called soul of “myself”. The poet thought that the perfect “myself”, should be firstly the perfect unification of body and soul, which can be mer

14、ged together with the cosmos, together with permanence and universal soul, thus making the soul of “myself” endless and transcendental. Thus the permanent God and “Myself” are closely related to each other: I swear, I see everything has got a permanent soul. I have said that the soul is not more tha

15、n the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than ones self is. (102) Besides atom, Whitman finds another connection between the universe and the self. Under the influence of Hegels concept of “the sense of universe,” Whitman thought th

16、e universe is formed not only by lifeless materials; it is also full of life or spirit( ). Atom makes up the shape and appearance of an object, but it is energy or spirit that makes the object move:I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,They seize every object and lead it harml

17、essly through me.I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,To touch my person to some one elses is about as much as I can stand. (635)Words like “conductors,” “seize,” “touch” all suggest that the energy drives atoms together. Indeed, energy is the force that attracts different atoms

18、to gather and form an object. Therefore, to Walt Whitman, the essence of God and the universe was life. Life, in the form of energy, cultivates all of the things in the universe, thus connecting all the things together; life also brings the development of the universe forward as well. Kepner also ob

19、serves that “the energy within each atom makes that atom act purposely, not chaotically” (190). The purpose is to gather and form, and together, all the objects come to shape the universe.In a word, Walt Whitmans God is the sum of all the objects in the universe. Everything, including “myself,” embo

20、dies part of God. “Myself” relates to God by its atomic components in terms of the physical/material, and by its souls expansion and fusion with the cosmos in terms of the spiritual/immaterial. In “Song of Myself”, it is not hard to observe “myself” is omnipresent, it is actually the universe itself

21、. Under the influence of Hegels concept of “the sense of universe,” Walt Whitman thought the universe is formed not only by lifeless materials; it is also full of life. In Whitmana poem “Life”, he said: Ever the grappled mystery of all earths ages old or new; Ever the eager eyes, hurrahs, the welcom

22、e-clapping hands, the loud applause; Ever the soul dissatisfied, curious, unconvinced at last; Struggling to-day the samebattling the same. (607) So to Walt Whitman, the essence of God and the universe was “battling the same”- life, it cultivates all of the things in the universe, thus connecting al

23、l the things together; life brings the development of the universe forward as well. In a word, Walt Whitmans God first is omnipresent, is the divinity of all; God and myself are closely related to each other, the essence of God is life, the life of individual will merge into the everlasting universe

24、.The Reevaluation of BodyBased on his unique image of God, Walt Whitman started a new path in the explanation of mysterious experience of the self to further explore the life spirit. Almost all the religions, including Christianity, in the world uphold that only by discarding the body can the soul t

25、ranscends into the eternity of the spiritual world. Consequently, they always despise the body while extolling the soul. On the contrary, due to his unique explanation of God, Whitman bravely extolled the electricity of flesh body, sang for his own body, and felt proud of his own: “I, thirty-seven y

26、ears old, was healthy from the very beginning, and hope to be healthy forever (64).” The body was an extremely vital component of Walt Whitmans poems. Walt Whitman became a missioner just because he sang for the body. According to Ezra Greenspan, because of such factors as air, sun, earth, blood and

27、 flesh, Whitman “created the best poem the world has ever known (36).” said “air, sun, earth, blood and flesh-just because of the above mentioned factors, Walt Whitman created the best poem the world has ever known (36).” Whitman, however, favors the importance of the body as well as sexual love to

28、the extent that he considered the body as the starting point of his philosophical thoughts. In The Evolution of Walt Whitman,【跟第一个参考文献同样的问题，你确定出处是这本书的话就没问题】 Roger Asselineau commented on Whitmans emphasis of the body that “unlike the British romanticists and the American transcendentalists, Walt Whi

29、tman went into the spiritual kingdom instantly; he never forgets that the body is the stage and starting point of his mysterious experience (96). ” In “Song of Myself”, Whitman bravely announced to the whole world, “I, the poet of flesh body (527). ” “I am the poet of the Soul/ The pleasures of heav

30、en are with me and the pains of hell are with me, /The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue (593). ” Whitman raised the flesh body up to the height of spirit and soul, which differs greatly from the traditional conception of the body, but accords completely

31、with his comprehension of God. To those who believe in mysticism, mysticism means to forget and transcend the body, and enter into a state of eternal spirit. Whitman believed that God consists of both the material and the immaterial, and similar to God, the self, as the integration of the body and t

32、he soul, cannot exist without either aspect. The body functions as the carrier and expression of life spirit, and in this sense, it can be considered as the starting point of the universe. The keen senses of the flesh body also enables the poet to realize the liveliness of blood circulation. At the very beginning of the poem, Whitman avoided the disturbance and noise of the world, Whitman immerses himself in the pleasure of the organs, his “breath, blood, air in. lung. ”(104) Ultimately, according to Whitman, the same senses of life elevate the self to a transcendental state. It