jan 30

What do you think was Whitman's motivation for writing "Leaves of Grass"?
Is his lifestyle threatening to our cultural order?
What does this have to do with the essential questions of our class?

In my opinion, these questions are related. What Whitman wants to do decides what his lifestyle is in the society. If we find out what his motivation is, we can understand what this has to do with the essential questions of our class.

From what he writes, there is a natural feeling in it which is wild and strange. He describes a lot about the nature around us. He describes the sun setting, the weather, the grass on the ground. Beside this, he talks about his life and hope with his people in that kind of nature, which he enjoys. So I think his motivation for writing it is to recall us to find the relationship between human beings and nature. In that period, maybe there were a lot of obstacles for Whitman to enjoy his own life: he must work to go on living; he didn’t have much time spent with people he enjoys being with; he even didn’t have much time spend on the nature. So to enjoy his life, he tries to get out of the cave that the stop him from having a happy life. What is more, he mentions about sex, being naked and live for us; this must be threatening our society because it is out of order. In an extent, I even call him anarchist because his ideas base on human nature but not concern about the other result of it to other people. Everything he describes and advocates seems free and happy, but, people are always concern about themselves. Try to imagine, if everyone does what he says, everyone can have sex anytime anywhere to anyone without thinking about any consequences; Does it sound crazy? So, in conclusion, his motivation has a conflict with our responsibilities to the society. Although his ideas has some good aspects to do with the society now such as being more free from the restriction and approaching the nature, we still worry about other consequences it might happen.