Walt Whitmans Relation to the Romantic Period Essay -- Romanticism an

The time of Romanticism brought upon many trends extending from the idea of individualism as a rebellious separation from the classics, an idealistic outlook and finally to a strong religious base. Most of the writers of the Romantic period followed Pantheism "God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (Owen 1971: 74). The idea of Pantheism was that everything in the world worked in unity. In some of the works of the Romantic period the expression of nature and humans are not separate entities, but one in the same. Even though in reality it did not work this way Pantheism was the ideal of most these writers and idealism in itself was yet another trend in the Romantic period. Another trend in the Romantic period was religion and the idea of sprits. Many writers of the Romantic Period such as Rousseau, Montaigne and Walt Whitman all shared this idea of being individualistic and in most their works it came out as an ego of self expression. Being an individual at the time was a popular thought of people living in the 19th century; thus, the start of the Civil War after most of poetry from this period was published. During the 19th century Walt Whitman was known as an unconventional writer. His work was rebellious and did not stick to any trends of poetry before his time. However, in this technique or lack of technique Whitman marked a new trend of free-verse. Whitman's anthology Leaves of Grass caused a conservational uproar which was no surprise due to his repetitive use of slang, angry diction and an all around "savage" style, (Matthiessen, 181). This now is too lamentable a face for a man; Some abject louse, asking leave to be-cr... ...rns of the poetry before him. For Whitman he felt he did not need to stick to a pattern, likewise he wanted his poetry to come to him randomly, "like music." For Whitman expression was the only purpose to his poetry and everything else was not important, (Allen, 212). Works Cited Allen, Gay Wilson. The New Walt Whitman Handbook. New York: New York University Press, 1975. Greenspan, Ezra, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman (Cambridge UP, 1995), Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. London, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1941. Owen, H. P. Concepts of Deity. London: Macmillan, 1971. Saintsbury, George. Review of Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. Academy 10 (1874) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism/