Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Essay -- Walt Whitman on Democracy

Walt Whitman is possibly one of the best examples of an creative person who drew no distinctions between art and culture. To Whitman art is culture, and culture is history. His role as an artist must then be intrinsically manifesting himself as a substitute of the America masses, or express himself as America personified. He proverb democracy as an inseparable attribute of Americaness. However, the America he lived in was desperately fractured amongst differing factions with different opinions on the definition of democracy. Regardless, Whitman did not line up the problems of his twenty-four hour period as a top versus bottom, bottom versus top free (no entendre intended). But, rather, an issue that exploded out of every orifice of American life.Ernesto Guevara rundle of love and conflictLet me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true subversive is guided by strong feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an authentic new without this qualityOur vangua rd revolutionaries must idealize their love for the people, for the most sanctified causes, and make it one and indivisibleThey must struggle every day so that their love of living humanity is transformed into concrete deeds, into acts that testament serve as an example as a mobilizing factor. (Minogue, 33).Ezra Greenspan explains that most contemporaneous criticism falls into one of two camps that are separated by two major historical events. He explains that there is a common cold War generation who tended to focus on what they perceived to be the delirious freedom of the self (143) and that there is the post-Vietnam War generation who argue that Whitmans attempts to celebrate modern freedom are compromised and complicated by the preoccupation of author, subject and t... ... on the battlefield, however, they return to the eternal mother in which they again convene and become an even more physical manifestation of a collective as they combine into the geography of America in spiritual world essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence (396).Works CitedGreenspan, Ezra, and Walt Whitman. Walt Whitmans margin call of Myself A Sourcebook and Critical Edition. New York u.a. Routledge, 2005. PrintMinogue, Kenneth. Che Guevara. The New Left. New York Library, 1971. 17-48. Print.Pascal, Richard. Walt Whitman and tree-shaped Guthrie American Prophet-Singers and their People. journal of American Studies 24.1 (1990) 41-59. Web. Apr. 2012.Press, H. The Existential Basis of Marxism. Philosophy and Phenomenological query 37.3 (1977) 331-344. Web. Apr. 2012.Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. New York Bantam, 1983. Print.