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In discussion on Thursday, we discussed how Whitman was very closely related to the transcendentalist movements of his time. Emerson, Thoreau, and others all held opinions that intuition, not intellectualism, held all the answers.

Emerson wrote in The American Scholar, "So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. ... Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions."

I find the ideals and practices of transcendentalists to be very intriguing. I worked as a tour guide at Orchard House in Concord, MA (home of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women) one summer at Bronson Alcott's School of Philosophy. While there, I learned all about his role in the transcendentalist movement, his Utopian Communities, school reforms, etc. I also spent a lot of that summer reading Walden at Walden Pond. 

That summer completely changed my outlook on the world from skeptical and overly cynical, to a much more positive, self-celebratory one that helped me see the good in the world and people. 

I can see how this ideology greatly appealed to Whitman and others and influenced their works. I think that my experience with the Concord Transcendentalists prepared me for Whitman's ideas, but not his approach. Emerson and Thoreau used more conventional writing styles to convey their ideas, but Whitman's style adds new depth that I find very interesting.

As Professor Dalke said, it does make me want to quit school and go back to reading on the shores of Walden Pond...

A great book on the Concord authors of the time: American Bloomsbury --

http://www.amazon.com/American-Bloomsbury-Nathaniel-Hawthorne-ebook/dp/B000N2HBKC/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238348198&sr=8-16