Unique among the American verse of his time, “Song of Myself”—as well as the rest of his poetry—reflected an intense individualism coupled with a mystical celebration of America and the common man. Concluding his 1855 prose preface to Leaves of Grass, Whitman forecasted his prominence in American literature: “The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” Although Whitman was first recognized as an important literary figure in England and France, by the 20th century, he had surely achieved that self-professed goal. Whitman’s use of unconventional
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