Walt Whitman was a follower of the two Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. He believed in Emerson and Thoreau's Transcendentalist beliefs. Whitman believed that individualism stems from listening to one's inner voice and that one's life is guided by one's intuition. ... the intellect, by telling us what is best for us, what we ought to do and avoid doing, but by acting directly on the moral nature itself, and elevating and purifying that. This also shows how he really believed in Transcendentalism, which stated strong intense individualism and self-reliance. He used...

• Word Count: 617
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... throughout this work. It is obvious that Whitman is a romantic writer. He begins many lines of his poem with I, and he uses references to nature to symbolize his thoughts. Today, Whitman is known as the Great American I, because of his individualistic approach to poetry, as seen in "Song of ... When "Leaves of Grass," was first published, it was a commercial failure, but literary critics could not discount Whitman's bold approach to writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson, another American icon, said of Whitman's poetry, "I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of the "leaves of Grass." I ...

• Word Count: 1108
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School