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Example research essay topic: Soul And Body Small Things - 1,261 words

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Forged in the fire of revolution and defined by manifest destiny, America has always been the land of the individual. Although the American dream has not always been coherent, (married with 2. 5 kids, 2 cars, a dog and a satisfying job), the spirit of innovation, individuality and progress remains unchanged. The father of free verse, and perhaps the American perspective of poetry, Walt Whitman embodies these values in his life and work. First published in 1855 in Leaves of Grass, "Song of Myself" is a vision of a symbolic "I" enraptured by the senses, indirectly embracing all people and places from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

The entirety of the piece seeks to merge the individual and the natural world in an attempt to uncover the individual's humanity. Song of Myself is divided into numerous sections. Each segment exemplifies Whitman's literary genius. In order to fully understand the meaning of this piece, seven sections have been chosen to highlight the main themes.

Whitman is the subject of the poem and throughout he assumes three identities: myself, my soul, and the real me. When he refers to myself that is the persona others see, a peripheral viewpoint of himself. My soul symbolizes his inner character while the real me remains a mystery to himself as well as the reader. In section five he regards himself as the other. Myself and the other can be used interchangeably.

In this section Whitman is making love to his soul. He also makes clear his relationship with God. He believes that the divine and the soul are fused as one. He is convinced that he is God. In section ten, Whitman sees himself as a hunter in the wild mountainous environment, a sailor, and a clam digger.

By the mention of the clam digger, one can assume that his imagination has brought him to New England. His mind runs rampant and he expresses his thoughts on paper; he observed a marriage between the trapper and a red girl. He also pictured himself taking care of a runaway slave. He is in opposition to bigotry, by his welcoming temperament. Often in Whitman's writing he uses lists to add weight to the central focus of his piece. He employs this technique in section sixteen to catalog his many occupations such as: A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker, Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.

He imagines himself in all parts of America: New York, Texas, California, Vermont, Canada, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Through the use of lists one comes away with the impression that Whitman is a well-rounded character. To further accentuate his point he occasionally makes use of opposites. By using lists and opposites he shows his need to be all-inclusive.

He refuses to be classified, because he is everything. Small things are seen to be as important as large ones in section thirty-one. He praises many unimportant things like: a leaf of grass, a pismire, a grain of sand, a mouse, a tree-toad, a cow, and a blackberry. In order to stress the importance of these small things, they are contrasted to things of recognized complexity and value, like machinery. By listing these things he hopes to show the reader, that he not only shares nature with humans but with everything. In his eyes, no one is special.

No one is alike. Everyone is of the same nature. Section thirty-nine, encompasses the reverence of the savage and the uncivilized. He admires the lawless behavior, the plainness of the language, and the naivety.

The savage has not a care in the world, is in every sense the savage unique, and in more ways than one exemplifies the essence of self-reliance. The savage has no yearning for the comforts of civilization, very much like the Native American Indian. Seven sections later he took on the role of a scout or a trailblazer. Whitman is there to inspire others to follow their own path (instincts), and in turn find their calling in life.

When he answers, No, he shows his disagreement with the suggestion that once all knowledge is attained than one can be satisfied. From his point of view there is never a point when one has experienced everything, there is enough knowledge to feed one for eternity. According to section forty-eight, elements of God are present in all objects and everything is beautiful. This notion is rooted in the belief that everyone and everything plays the role of the divine. This is reinforced when he says, whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral This means people must recognize their nature in others because without doing so, they live a life of self-delusion. Through his poetry, Whitman's "Song of Myself" makes the soul sensual and makes divine the flesh.

In Whitman's time, the dichotomy between the soul and the body had been clearly defined by centuries of Western philosophy and theology. Today, the righteousness of the soul and the evilness of the flesh still remain a significant notion in contemporary thought. Even Whitman's literary predecessor, Emerson, chose to distinctly differentiate the soul from all nature. Whitman, however, chooses to reevaluate that relationship. His exploration of human sensuality, particularly human sexuality, is the tool with which he integrates the spirit with the flesh. Key to this integration is Whitman's notion of the ability of the sexual self to define itself.

This self-definition is derived from the strongly independent self-rule with which his sexuality speaks in the poem. Much of the "Song of Myself" consists of a cacophony of Whitman's different selves vying for attention. Whitman's sexual self struggles to find itself a voice. A number of passages strongly resonate with Whitman's sexuality in their strongly pleasurable sexualities. The thoroughly intimate encounter with another individual in section five particularly expresses Whitman as a being of desire and libido.

Whitman begins his synthesis of the soul and body through sexuality by establishing a relative equality between the two. He pronounces in previous stanzas, "You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself, " and, "Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest. " Here, he lays foundation for the basic social equality with which he treats all aspects of his being for the rest of the poem. This equality includes not only his sexuality, but in broader terms, his soul and body. In the opening to section five, Whitman explicitly articulates that equality in the context of the body and soul: "I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other. " He refutes the moral superiority of the soul over the flesh. With that level groundwork established, he is free to pursue the relationship between the soul and the body on equal footing. The mechanism of this integration may be one of a number of possibilities included in Whitman's work.

Whitman's notion that "All truths wait in all things" very broadly defines the scope of his desire to distill truth from his surroundings. He indicates that .".. all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, " suggesting that perhaps sensual understanding of the interconnectedness of man bridges the spiritual to the corporal. His declaration that "I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles" reinforces the concept that truth is directly discerned through the union of the spirit and the senses. Hum...


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Research essay sample on Soul And Body Small Things

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