What Is Transcendentalism

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Emerson wanted America to have a poet it deserved, one that would delve deeply into the true nature of things around him and communicate his interpretation back to the people. In his essay “The Poet” Emerson calls for a poet that fits these standards. A writer who can feel, understand, and explore nature and in turn expose its hidden secrets to his readers. Many suggest that this poet Emerson was looking for was found in Walt Whitman, including Whitman himself. Although his poetry has many characteristics of transcendental thought and practice, being the bold new poetic American voice that the transcendentalists had hoped for, his most “transcendental” poems are probably “Song of Myself” because of its vision of the self and its relationship to the universe, “Out of the Cradle Endlessly …show more content…
Whitman does this in his poem, “Song of Myself” by trying to portray the story of any and everyone possible, which is partly the reason for its length. Whitman’s poetry clearly has an architecture all its own. It has no rhyme scheme; and it has no syllable stress theme. The only real form it seems to have is the natural rhythm of the lings. Whitman is easily defined as a democratic poet based on his style. The poetic structures he employs are unconventional but reflect his democratic ideals. Lists are a way for him to bring together a wide variety of items without imposing hierarchy on them. Perception, rather than analysis, is the basis for the kind of poetry, which uses few metaphors or other kinds of symbolic language. Whitman’s style is unlike any other poet. He was the first to use free verse in American poetry, and had an epic tendency in which he tries to encompass almost every possible subject matter. He really put an emphasis on the real details of the everyday world but also on the transcendent, spiritual themes, just like what Emerson wanted from the “Man of
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