When people say Whitman has no style, they are making a statement about his adherence to conventional standards of poetic form. Style, though, is something completely personal, not conventional. Whitman dared to go outside the conventional boundaries of poetic expression because he seldom followed the standards in rhyme, meter, and stanza form. However, hasnâ

he reason why he took the Civil War extremely hard and personal.

The first few lines of Whitman’s Song of Myself define the true essence of his style; simple and personal. He leases part of himself in his work as shown in lines 1-4 of Song of Myself:

And what I assume you shall assume,

These lines provide evidence to support the claim that Whitman is trying to make a very personal connection with his readers to allow the work to not only be a representation of himself but a representation of everyone and everything. Line 3 sums up his attitude towards the work as he simply stated what’s mine is yours. This idea of simple and personal can be further enforced by the way Whitman chose to uniquely sign his book. Rather then signing his name he would display a photograph of himself in a short sleeve shirt and a very nonchalant pose. The idea that Whitman would not solely sign his own name to the book shows how he wanted it to be truly universal.

€™t every great poet changed the rules governing the creation of great art in some way or another? Without a doubt they have, that defines them as great poets and gives them style. Whitman’s greatness lies in his divergence from the norm, his individuality, not his strict adherence to the arbitrary rules of his predecessors.

Some topics in this essay:
Whitman’s Song, Longfellow Whittier, Leaves Grass, Civil War, Song Whitman, America Whitman’s, Walt Whitman, Whitman Emerson, Emerson Whitman’s, Grass Song, whitman’s writing, leaves grass, whitman’s style, run-on sentences, line 3, style statement, whitman style, whitman emerson, paths leading, atom belonging,