jan 25

I think Whitman has the same idea with Thoreau and Emerson which is transcendentalism. In these pages, he tries to remind us to look through things with our “own eyes”. We can understand it better through the idea transcendentalism. Bother him and Thoreau went to live near the wood and tried to find the true meaning of life. They suggest that we should live for ourselves which means we can have our own perspectives toward the world. Moreover, Whitman is more active about that. He even advocates us to be naked approaching the nature to find ourselves. Obviously, I think it doesn’t work nowadays. Because of too many restrictions, more importantly, we will get discriminated by others in the society. At present, less and less people will comprehend what Whitman says; even they understand it, they wouldn’t do it either. So I guess when Whitman lived in this time, he would pay much attention to the utilitarianism in the society. People pay too much attention to their benefit so that they miss a lot even their morality.