The Universal Poet: Walt Whitman���s Response to the Emerson Ideal

RM The Writer:

Great Article Harley …

Originally posted on Harley J. Campbell:

In his 1844 essay entitled ���The Poet,��� Ralph Waldo Emerson describes all the qualities he believes to be essential to a true poet. Emerson argues for a poet who can simultaneously capture the reality of life and transcend above it to provide a voice more powerful than that of ordinary men. The essay, which laments the lack of such a poet within Emerson���s time, acts as a call to bring forth the next great bard, and, within the following decade, Walt Whitman answers this charge. Throughout his poetry, Whitman embraces all the elements of life, both beautiful and obscene; he fulfills Emerson���s claim that ���the world is���from the beginning beautiful��� (Emerson). Yet in doing so, Whitman also goes beyond the vision of Emerson by celebrating the creations of man and treating them as equal in splendor to the natural world. By combining Emerson���s theories with new and sometimes contradictory ideas���

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