![]() ![]() His idea of social and political democracy is that all men are equal before the law and have equal rights. Improving individual virtue is the way of becoming a true spiritual democrat. Whitman emphasized individual virtue, which he believed would rise the universal virtue. Here, the simple spear of grass becomes the symbol of democracy. The Kinship between all creations is evinced in section 6 of the poem “Song of Myself”. Whitman’s sense of “oneness of all” makes his democracy universal. Whitman has a sense of identity not only with a man but with all leaving creatures. ![]() In singing himself, he is also singing for others. In “Song of Myself” Whitman constructs a democratic “I,” a voice that stands not only for himself but also for all average men. Though he often says “I celebrate myself”, the self-celebration throughout is a celebration of himself as a man and an American. Whitman celebrates no individual person, nor does he celebrate himself. In it, Whitman becomes his own person, the whole world, the whole universe, and the whole eternity of time. So “Song of Myself’ is not just a celebration of the poet himself as a man and an American it is what he possesses in common with all others that he feels to be glorious and worthy of a song. ![]() Whitman talks of the individual self but that individual stands for a group of persons, the Americans. “Song of Myself’ may be regarded as a drama of self, a person, a human being, put freely, fully, and truly on record, and an American with strong democratic impulses, mystical tendencies, and equalitarian feelings. ![]()
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