Whitman and his American literary brethren arose in response to the hidebound, constrictive, and myopic culture of the Old World. The oppressive weight of the trappings of European culture and its attendant baggage could not stand.
This explains these references to human individuality, yet interdependency, and our collective place within a benign creation. We, and all the contextual fabric of our cosmos, as opposed to Whitman’s micro-level of sensual detail, are completely at one with nature, as well as with the...
(The entire section contains 249 words.)
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